A Multitudinous Hybrid Vehicle
A recent search turned up 2,137 US patents with the words “hybrid vehicle” in the title or abstract; these span the years from 1971-2012. At least one of these inventions is a multi-mode, multi-power source vehicle.
Patent Number 7,398,841, “Vehicle power assist by brake, shock, solar, and wind energy recovery,” was issued to Jay Stephen Kaufman of Kingston, NH on July 15, 2008. The patent is classified as 180/2.2, placing it in a class for motor vehicles, and with inventions whose motor is supplied with power from an external source, with that source comprising or including energy derived from a force of nature (e.g., sun, wind). 143 other inventions share this classification; the earliest (209,862) was issued in November 1878 to John Cook (Kirkwood, IL) for “Improvement in Wind-Engines”, his invention consisting of “construction and arrangement of a wind-power for stationary or moving machinery or other purposes . . .” This was basically a windmill on a moving vehicle.
Returning to the ‘841 patent, claim 1 states:
“A method for recovering, storing and transferring energy dissipated by a vehicle, comprising the steps of:
driving a wind energy recovery means by differential pressure between air impacting said vehicle and air in selected wake regions of said vehicle, and by air flow through said recovery means due to said differential pressure, transferring liquefied air from a source external to said vehicle to a liquefied air storage means connected to said vehicle, producing additional liquefied air by a liquefier means driven by said wind energy recovery means, cooling atmospheric air drawn from around said vehicle with said liquefied air and said additional liquefied air in a heat exchange means connected to said vehicle, while producing vaporized liquefied air and cooled atmospheric air, pressurizing said cooled atmospheric air by a cryogenic compression means driven by said wind energy recovery means to produce compressed atmospheric air, and transferring any excess liquefied air from said vehicle.”
Inventor Kaufman wants to provide:
- Systems for recovering energy dissipated by a motor vehicle, as well as solar radiation.
- Systems for storage, transfer, and efficient consumption of recovered energy.
- A prime mover capable of burning renewable fuel with improved emissions.
The features that provide these systems include:
- An energy recovery transmission for recovery of vehicle deceleration energy by compression of atmospheric air.
- Energy recovery shock absorbers with cryogenic cooling for efficient compression of atmospheric air.
- An energy recovery turbine to drive an atmospheric air compressor.
- An energy recovery solar-electric panel to drive an atmospheric air compressor. Energy is recovered during parking, stopping and driving of a vehicle.
- Providing air compression and liquefied air storage of recovered energy, plus capability to transfer liquefied air between vehicles or between vehicles and stationary sites. In addition, air compression provides vehicle braking assist.
- On-board vehicle air liquefier to liquefy suitably pure atmospheric air.
- A compact and efficient gas turbine prime mover.
- A quasi-isothermal liquefied air expander for urban driving.
- Providing a gas turbine/air expander with virtual compression to power a hybrid vehicle.
This means we have a compressed air energy storage, regenerative braking and transmission deceleration and shock absorbing, solar-electric, gas turbine, methanol fueled hybrid vehicle.
I shudder to think about the repair bills.
