Thanks to a Danish Engineer, you can turn pretty much any car into a hybrid. The addition is made in the form of a bolt on motor. As you can see in the picture, there is a motor that attaches to the rear wheels adding an additional 7 Hp. The batteries are stored in the trunk. Kits start at $3,500 and go up to $4,500 depending on battery selection. At least, that’s what they will be when they finally go on sale.

[via Boing Boing Gadgets]

[Dean Kamen]’s company, the people behind the Segway, have created a hybrid car that uses a Stirling engine instead of a standard internal combustion engine. Stirling engines are closed cycle, meaning heat is applied to the outside of the cylinder walls. They are generally more efficient than standard car engines, but haven’t been used much outside of industrial applications. We suspect that the drivetrain arrangement is similar to the Chevy Volt where the engine is used to charge batteries which are in turn driving an electric motor. This is different from modern hybrids that can have either electric motor or gas engine driving the wheels. The article is unfortunately full of classic [Kamen] hyperbole and minimal detail. He calls the Stirling engine “an insurance policy” for the electric car since it can recharge the battery. That’s right, folks. If you run out of juice, you can put gas in the car. I doubt many Prius owners will fall out of their chair over that. Being a Stirling engine, we’d be more impressed if you could charge the thing by rubbing warm toast on it.

[via Make]

[Coley] sent in this port of jetpack for the propeller uc, but when I started poking around I discovered this sweet hybrid robot platform. A four stroke Robin/Subaru 35cc motor drives a car alternator, providing virtually unlimited (in the robot world) power on demand. Hit the video after the break for a quick R/C demo and an idea of how loud the engine is. Offhand, I recognize the lovejoy coupler that was used to connect the engine to the alternator.

By the way, this bot is featured in the latest Robot magazine, so you can get details there if you hate reading forums.

Read the rest of this entry »