Dean Patterson, a visiting professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, isn’t waiting for the OEMs to make him a plug-in hybrid. Patterson and his team of researchers are building a range-extended electric car in the school lab. Patterson, who expects all cars made in 10 years to have electric drive, told a local TV news team from KETV that the goal is to give the car a 50 mph top speed and an EV-only range of 20 miles. Sure, those aren’t Volt-like numbers, but there would be a lot of takers for a car like that. So far, Patterson’s experiments are running in a bicycle with a motor/generator and what he likes about the range-extender set-up is that it’s the most efficient way to get energy from the gasoline in the tank to the wheels. Driving demos are expected next year.
[Source: KETV via EV World]
University of Nebraska prof building his own range-extended EV
Dean Patterson, a visiting professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, isn’t waiting for the OEMs to make him a plug-in hybrid. Patterson and his team of researchers are building a range-extended electric car in the school lab. Patterson, who expects all cars made in 10 years to have electric drive, told a local TV news team from KETV that the goal is to give the car a 50 mph top speed and an EV-only range of 20 miles. Sure, those aren’t Volt-like numbers, but there would be a lot of takers for a car like that. So far, Patterson’s experiments are running in a bicycle with a motor/generator and what he likes about the range-extender set-up is that it’s the most efficient way to get energy from the gasoline in the tank to the wheels. Driving demos are expected next year.
