Electrical Engineers, I need your opinions.

[SSSnail]

Guys, I'm not arguing to be right, I'm just trying to get educated about the subject matter. I do know that there are no free energy, and appreciate everyone's inputs. Perhaps I'm trying to understand this better, and trying to get an answer of why (or how) the energy produced is moot. As I've stated in the beginning, I literally don't know anything about this subject.

I was just thinking that there has to be more wasted energy when a car is moving forward than just when it's braking. Now we all agree when a car is moving, it is a ball of energy. The only time it consumes energy is when your foot is on the gas pedal, we're strictly speaking of pure electric vehicles so we can take out the idling aspect of a gas engine. Suppose when your foot is off the gas pedal and the car is coasting, the inertia of a few thousand pounds moving forward is wasted energy, which can be transformed into usable energy. At which point would the car's forward motion (or its energy) cancel out the resistance of the induction mechanism? Now, let's say the resistance added is counter productive, would it be possible to design it so it would only engage when the foot is off the gas pedal? How much energy could that gain? In trying to formulate this equation, here's what I suggest:

E1 = Energy robbed by added resistance of mechanism (you can have two values of E1, one is constant; one is only when the foot is off the gas pedal)
E2 = Energy gained by mechanism

So if E2 - E1 > 0, then will work. You guys are the ones that can work out the numbers because I don't even know where to begin.

Once again, please understand that I'm not arguing against you guys, or the fundamental of physics. Just merely trying to understand this a bit better, and potentially could get a bit more energy out of wasted motion.

 

[dighn]

Originally posted by: SSSnail
Suppose when your foot is off the gas pedal and the car is coasting, the inertia of a few thousand pounds moving forward is wasted energy, which can be transformed into usable energy. At which point would the car's forward motion (or its energy) cancel out the resistance of the induction mechanism? Now, let's say the resistance added is counter productive, would it be possible to design it so it would only engage when the foot is off the gas pedal? How much energy could that gain? In trying to formulate this equation, here's what I suggest:

there is no "wasted" energy when the car is moving. the movement itself is the energy (kinetic energy). if you try to convert that energy (you can), you would only succeed in converting the speed into something else, which is counter-productive because you want the car to be moving.

E1 = Energy robbed by added resistance of mechanism (you can have two values of E1, one is constant; one is only when the foot is off the gas pedal)
E2 = Energy gained by mechanism

E2 > E1 violates the law of conservation of energy which remains unbroken in our science to this day

however though using generators for braking can be used to recover a portion of the kinetic energy which should improve mileage

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: SSSnail
Once again, please understand that I'm not arguing against you guys, or the fundamental of physics. Just merely trying to understand this a bit better, and potentially could get a bit more energy out of wasted motion.

The problem that you fail to see is that those generators will slow the vehicle down. It will slow it down because the generators will act like magnetic breaks on the vehicle. Plus, it'll waste energy due to the added weight, but lets not get into that.

Try this analogy:
1) You have a car.
2) You want to store it's kinetic energy.
3) You decide to attach a giant spring on the car and attach the other end of the spring on an immovable barrier behind the car.
4) As you drive the car forward, you turn this kinetic energy of the car into potential energy stored in the spring.
5) This spring energy can be used to propel the car.
6) The problem? Well that giant spring slows down the car and the car's engine has to work harder to pull the spring.

Same exact thing with your example. There is NO difference at all. You are missing #6. You are missing the fact that the generators will act as breaks on the wheels. They will act as breaks even if they don't touch the wheels at all.