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This Is the Gyro-Stabilized, Two-Wheeled Future of Transportation

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Re: This Is the Gyro-Stabilized, Two-Wheeled Future of Transportation

#111

Post by excuse-me »

jules wrote: post #107
excuse-me wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a gyro-wheel not a gyro-sensor. The angular momentum of the wheels is what keeps it upright (laterally). This is different to the Segway which used the motors to control the forward-backward tilt with position input from a gyro (actually an accelerometer)

That can't be the (only) reason bikes stay upright. The gyroscopic effect is way too weak to keep it upright. Here is an article explaining why bikes do stay upright: http://ruina.tam.cornell.edu/research/topics/bicycle_mechani...

This isn't an ordinary cycle - it has a pair of reaction wheels running at some fantastic number of RPM below the seat.

"In final production form, the combined force of the pair of gyros will max out at around 1,300 pound-feet, enough to keep the C1 vertical while stopped"

Re: This Is the Gyro-Stabilized, Two-Wheeled Future of Transportation

#112

Post by excuse-me »

WiseWeasel wrote: post #66
morsch wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you're still paying for fuel/energy unless you recharge at work. ;) Of course it's a much more efficient vehicle than a car, due to it's weight, the higher efficiency of electrical motors[1] and regenerative braking. One figure in the article is 220 miles on an 8kWh battery. I think I pay something like €0.25 per kWh, most of you probably spend less. So about 100 miles/€, and about €2 to recharge the whole batt…

Power plants operate at a much higher efficiency than internal combustion engines, on cheaper and more diversified fuel sources, including renewable. [Electric motors and batteries also have relatively little energy waste, making the system as a whole more efficient to operate, especially when you consider being able to leverage the superior distribution infrastructure of the electric grid versus the relatively spars…

Not quite so clear cut for a small car.

A small common rail diesel engine in a car gets close to 40%, a coal power plant runs at about 45%. Add in transmission losses and charging/battery/electric motor and the diesel g CO2/km is probably better.

Re: This Is the Gyro-Stabilized, Two-Wheeled Future of Transportation

#113

Post by jack-r-abbit »

lloeki wrote: post #59
ChuckMcM wrote: post #55

This is a cool concept, although I doubt it will be ready by 2014 at their current rate. My reasoning on that is that you have to have a complete pre-production vehicle before you can even start safety testing. But that isn't a knock, I like optimism as much as the next person. The horizontal flywheel concept is quite cool, and I'm glad they avoided the problem of earlier attempts which just had one (cars that did th…

Amusingly the problems you mention are inherent to a two-wheeler, and given the necessary dimensions of the egg-shaped outside you might as well add some more wheels at the corners to solve the stability problem. Then you end up with something like Renault Twizy [0] (look at the top view on page 2 to get an idea of its dimensions), currently sold today starting at 7000€, plus 50€/month of battery rent. I would not ha…

I always wonder how things with no doors do when it rains. It seems if I commuted in that thing and it rained, I'd show to work soaked.

Re: This Is the Gyro-Stabilized, Two-Wheeled Future of Transportation

#114

Post by jack-r-abbit »

cjensen wrote: post #94
InclinedPlane wrote: post #83

This is a non-starter. This fills the same niche as an electric moped at 6% or less of the cost. And people can drive electric mopeds on city streets legally today . For less than half the price someone could buy a used, low-mileage sedan (such as a Civic, Corolla, or Accent), with a trunk, seating for 5, seatbelts and airbags. And then use the other $8k to pay for gas at $5 a gallon for the next 48,000 miles. Or, th…

I'm just as skeptical as you, but... Electric mopeds cannot go on freeways. An electric motorcycle is better for nontrivial distances. On the other hand, an electric moped which cannot travel faster than 20mph also has an advantage: in California it is treated as a bicycle and can travel on bike paths on major bridges. My main complaint: if neither electric motorcycles nor self-balancing motorcycles are currently pop…

I would imagine we don't have self-balancing motorcycles because we don't need them to self-balance. You can just put your foot down when you stop. But this isn't a normal motorcycle. The enclosure makes it necessary to do something else. Self-balance is what they decided to try. Another option could have been some speed triggered training wheels that popped out but that wouldn't be quite as cool looking.

Re: This Is the Gyro-Stabilized, Two-Wheeled Future of Transportation

#115

Post by jules »

excuse-me wrote: post #111
jules wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That can't be the (only) reason bikes stay upright. The gyroscopic effect is way too weak to keep it upright. Here is an article explaining why bikes do stay upright: http://ruina.tam.cornell.edu/research/topics/bicycle_mechani...

This isn't an ordinary cycle - it has a pair of reaction wheels running at some fantastic number of RPM below the seat. "In final production form, the combined force of the pair of gyros will max out at around 1,300 pound-feet, enough to keep the C1 vertical while stopped"

I see, because of reading the above thread about normal bikes I thought I was still in that subthread and I thought you were talking about the ordinary wheels at ordinary wheel speeds. My bad.

[BTW, the article I linked to mentions that the gyroscopic effect is not solely responsible for stability in ordinary bicycles. There is a site of a guy easily riding a bicycle with an opposite turning plate next to the front wheel to cancel out the gyroscopic effect demonstrating this, although I can't find it.

Edit. Here: http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~hemh/gyrobike.htm ]

Re: This Is the Gyro-Stabilized, Two-Wheeled Future of Transportation

#116

Post by arethuza »

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #113
lloeki wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amusingly the problems you mention are inherent to a two-wheeler, and given the necessary dimensions of the egg-shaped outside you might as well add some more wheels at the corners to solve the stability problem. Then you end up with something like Renault Twizy [0] (look at the top view on page 2 to get an idea of its dimensions), currently sold today starting at 7000€, plus 50€/month of battery rent. I would not ha…

I always wonder how things with no doors do when it rains. It seems if I commuted in that thing and it rained, I'd show to work soaked.

There are models with no doors or half doors - apparently some legislation somewhere would require a heated front screen if it had full doors:

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/car-tech/1284439/renault-twiz...

Re: This Is the Gyro-Stabilized, Two-Wheeled Future of Transportation

#117

Post by WiseWeasel »

excuse-me wrote: post #112
WiseWeasel wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power plants operate at a much higher efficiency than internal combustion engines, on cheaper and more diversified fuel sources, including renewable. [Electric motors and batteries also have relatively little energy waste, making the system as a whole more efficient to operate, especially when you consider being able to leverage the superior distribution infrastructure of the electric grid versus the relatively spars…

Not quite so clear cut for a small car. A small common rail diesel engine in a car gets close to 40%, a coal power plant runs at about 45%. Add in transmission losses and charging/battery/electric motor and the diesel g CO2/km is probably better.

Coal is significantly cheaper than diesel, and coal power plants have filtration systems to reduce their emissions; diesel engines not so much.

Re: This Is the Gyro-Stabilized, Two-Wheeled Future of Transportation

#118

Post by UnFleshedOne »

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #109
jff wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good motorcyclist would not allow you to pull up along side them in their lane. When riding normally, we take up an entire lane by riding in the middle, to prevent people from thinking "Oh, that motorcyclist is at the edge of the lane, that means I can try and use the rest of the lane to pass". Lane splitting is an exception, and a pretty hair-raising one at times because people are constantly jockeying to get into…

So I guess we can agree that lane splitting is a double standard where the motorcycles get favor. Besides the air-cooled aspect (which may or may not be as relevant today), what are some other reasons why motorcycles should be allowed to pass in such a way that cars are not? Maybe around the SF Bay Area we are the exception to the lane splitting exception because I see countless motorcycles lane split at all speeds o…

Aside from safety reasons (on which I can't comment) there is no reason not to let bikes go faster in between the lines -- car drivers aren't losing anything. Maybe there are some hurt feelings because it feels unfair and perception that they should stand in line like everybody else, but that is unjustified as they don't slow down your kind of traffic (well, maybe marginally). So double standard here is perfectly justified.

(disclaimer: I don't drive bikes and we don't have too many of them on the roads most of the year)

Re: This Is the Gyro-Stabilized, Two-Wheeled Future of Transportation

#119

Post by ricardobeat »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #83

This is a non-starter. This fills the same niche as an electric moped at 6% or less of the cost. And people can drive electric mopeds on city streets legally today . For less than half the price someone could buy a used, low-mileage sedan (such as a Civic, Corolla, or Accent), with a trunk, seating for 5, seatbelts and airbags. And then use the other $8k to pay for gas at $5 a gallon for the next 48,000 miles. Or, th…

There are a few things going for it:

    - handling is supposed to be better than anything
    - performance of a bike + safety of a car
    - higher mileage than electric cars + faster charge
You are comparing the launch price of a completely new vehicle to market prices of commodity ones. This could be cheaper than a car in the future, and maybe even safer since it won't roll/tip as easily in an accident.

Re: This Is the Gyro-Stabilized, Two-Wheeled Future of Transportation

#120

Post by jack-r-abbit »

arethuza wrote: post #116
jack-r-abbit wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wonder how things with no doors do when it rains. It seems if I commuted in that thing and it rained, I'd show to work soaked.

There are models with no doors or half doors - apparently some legislation somewhere would require a heated front screen if it had full doors: http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/car-tech/1284439/renault-twiz...

ah... I thought the "half door" was that bar across the opening. It seems that is a third model which would still get me wet. It seem the half door is the lower half (of course.. it wouldn't make sense to be the top half). SO driving that would be like driving with the windows down the whole time. It still makes we wonder how people make use of these when it rains. Maybe the shape of things deflects the water out enough to miss the passengers. Maybe I'm just too spoiled with my fully enclosed vehicle... I'd rather stay dry. :) Interesting bit about the heated windshield (assuming that is what "front screen" means).
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