Thursday, March 06, 2014

Charging a Plug In Hybrid with Bicycle Power Generator

I was crunching numbers and trying to figure out how much distance you would get from 20 minutes of cycling charging a Prius if a Prius was to run on battery power alone.  From a fit person, they would generate approximately 275 watts of power if a stationary bike was connected to a generator charging up a battery for 20 minutes.  That translates to 0.09075 kWh.   A Prius requires 5kWH to go 30 miles which translates to 166.7 watt hour per mile.  A person would have to pedal 121 minutes to go one mile.  5,280 feet in a mile, so every minute of pedaling can take you 43 feet.  So 20 minutes of pedaling will get you 860 feet in a Prius.  Or in terms of mileage, 0.16 miles.  Cool huh?  If my math is wrong, let me know.

 

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