Courtesy Purdue University
A Purdue University bookman patent a solar - powered bike , and then started a club to work with other students on creating other electric vehicles .
Physics major Tony Danger Coiro , a Jr from South Bend , Ind. , have a provisional patent for his motorcycle that apply solar energy to cut his transportation price down to well less than a penny per mile . The lead acid electric battery also can charge from plug - in AC current .
After purchase a 1978 Suzuki for $ 50 , Coiro spent $ 2,500 redesign and retrofit the motorcycle , which gift him a range of up to 24 mile per charge and a top upper of 45 mile per minute .
“ The equitation experience is surreal , ” Coiro says . “ I get instantaneous , mum , constant acceleration that outpaces urban dealings . It ’s like rag a magic carpet . ”
Coiro co - launched the Purdue Electric Vehicles Club with Jim Danielson and Sean Kleinschmidt , both sophomores from suburban Chicago . Danielson and Kleinschmidt spent their summer after high school change a 1987 Porsche 924S to galvanising power .
Kleinschmidt , a mechanical engineering major , translated that achiever into a summer internship at Tesla , where he help develop batteries for the makers of the cosmos - class , all - electric sports car . Danielson , who is majoring in electric and computer engineering science , spent his summertime developing motor control electronics for Electro Motive Diesel , which designs and cook up diesel - electrical engine .
“ Purdue Electric Vehicles will further exuberance for , and cognition and development of , electric vehicle by students and the community of interests , ” Coiro says .
Coiro say the Purdue Electric Vehicle Club will patent and market its discovery technologies and provender proceeds back into enquiry and development of new paradigm . Coiro is already design a 100 - horsepower bike that will travel up to 100 miles per flush , top 100 miles per hour and draw even more of its get-up-and-go from the sun . The all - wheel - drive bike will let in motor in each hub and no parkway trains .
“ I ’ve learned a circle establish this first motorcycle , and now I ’m ready to make a game - changer , ” he tell .
Coiro , Danielson and Kleinschmidt oversaw construction of the 17 electric race karts that students built for the first - ever electric fomite tremendous prix , held at Purdue in natural spring 2010 .
In 2011 , that race is have a bun in the oven to draw student teams from throughout the Midwest . The race was created by Purdue ’s Indiana Advanced Electric Vehicle Training and Education Consortium to demonstrate the possibilities of electric vehicles and discipline a new strain of young engine driver to improve them and reshape the auto industry in Indiana and beyond .
“ electrical vehicle are four to five metre more efficient than intimate combustion engine — that ’s a big remainder , ” Coiro says . “ They ’re not the result to our zip problems , but they will be an progressively vainglorious piece of the mystifier . ”
When he graduates , Coiro contrive to plunge a company that develops electric vehicles . Eventually , he foresees set in motion a nonprofit get-up-and-go fellowship .
“ flatulence is not in infinite provision , so we need to go to another energy source in the futurity , be it nuclear optical fusion or fission , solar , or wind , ” he says . “ It ’s move to be a lot loose to charge an electrical vehicle off of the power system . ”
