A wind-powered car that covered 5,000 km in barely $16
By IANSMonday, February 14, 2011
SYDNEY - It’s a car that travelled a distance of 5,000 km in Australia at a cost of just $16. Wondering how? Well, it was powered by the wind.
The Wind Explorer, touted as the world’s first car that runs on wind-generated energy, arrived here Monday after travelling from Perth via Adelaide and Melbourne. It covered 5,000 km over a three-week period at a cost of barely 16 Australian dollars ($16), a media report said.
The vehicle is a prototype built by Dirk Gion and Stefan Simmerer who worked on it for about six months in Germany. It is powered by lithium-ion batteries that are charged overnight through a mobile wind turbine.
“We wanted to prove how good the technology is,” Gion told Australian news agency AAP.
“There are a lot of sceptical people and we wanted to show them how efficient you can make it.”
Free of carbon emissions, it is a very compact, low to the ground pod-shaped car.
The car weighs about 200 kg while the average car weighs about a tonne.
The vehicle attracted curious onlookers during its journey across Australia.
Gion said: “Once we explained the technology behind the car and people had a look inside for themselves, everybody liked the idea.”
“People are ready for this technology. They want to have it and use it.”
The prototype has been seriously tested only in Australia so far.
Gion, however, is confident that a “wind powered” car will one day be in common use.
“I think in 20 years down the road, it will be completely different.
“There will be so many electric cars in the cities that we will walk through the cities with no noise and no pollution and I think that is good,” Gion was quoted as saying.
