Solution to High Gas Prices

Tools

By Emily West

Story Published: Jun 2, 2009 at 10:34 AM CDT

Story Updated: Jun 18, 2009 at 1:01 PM CDT

The Bradley students designed a light weight urban vehicle as part of the mechanical engineering senior design project.

It is run off of lithium ion batteries... which take five hours to fully charge on a regular wall socket.

Ryan Franey is part of the senior design project.

He says "This will be a future solution to high gas prices. With our vehicle it costs 45 cents to charge it and less than one cent a mile to drive it."

Another member of the team, Justin Coyle says, "It accelerates just fine if you were to drive it on the road. It would keep up with traffic no problem. It gets up hills just fine. It performs fine but it's no sports car."

The vehicle is designed to hold one driver and passenger... and has space for about 50 pounds of cargo.

The project was funded by a private investor and the B-U seniors hope that soon they will see their vehicle traveling around town.

Wednesday, Nov 25 at 3:05 AM pat wrote ...

nice job.. very interesting auto and its auto parts.. when will be going to try this type of vehicle?

Friday, Jun 5 at 12:02 PM Lindsay wrote ...

Interesting design! The exact same type of car was completed last year by Bradley Engineering students as their senior project. Maybe this will be an ongoing imitative for future students.

Friday, Jun 5 at 12:49 AM Justin wrote ...

To answer Susan's question, it goes 50 miles on a charge and can get up to 45 mph.

Wednesday, Jun 3 at 2:32 PM Bob wrote ...

The only problem with this is that you can only get in an accident once.

Wednesday, Jun 3 at 10:52 AM Bob wrote ...

About time!!! But good work, especially if we can start buying and using them soon. It's better than many things that are supposed to 'help' with ridiculous gas prices.

Wednesday, Jun 3 at 6:12 AM Bob wrote ...

Great job on this project. But they said on the news they were going to try and get it registered as a motorcycle. Good luck doing that the government will find so many things that DON'T complie to there laws for safety seat belts,lights ETC. And what about the people that drive large pickup trucks for business. I have seen nothing being done for these types of vehicles. I hate to be a stick in the mud but the goverenment is out there watching.

Tuesday, Jun 2 at 9:42 PM Susan wrote ...

How fast does it go; and how many miles will it go; on a full charge?

Tuesday, Jun 2 at 2:50 PM CA wrote ...

GREAT job! When can I get one of these???

Tuesday, Jun 2 at 12:15 PM has wrote ...

The majority of the population with "real jobs" live within 20 miles of their work. It's projects like this that lead the way to future innovation.

Tuesday, Jun 2 at 11:53 AM anonymous wrote ...

I commute over 50 miles one way to work, this seems like a silly solution to short distance driving commutes in small towns, but it wont help the majority of the population with real jobs

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