Back in the UK now. I’ve been on holiday for a week, which is a rare event (ask my partner… ) and sod’s law determined that an even rarer event would coincide with that – the perfect conditions for a land speed record attempt.

My disappointment at not being there though was marginal compared to the huge excitement of the result – the smashing of the record.

All the credit for this goes to Richard Jenkins of course (with just a little to the gods of wind… ).

Richard’s the guy who’s been pursuing this dream for a decade. To say he’s dogged would be an enormous understatement.

I’m really chuffed for him, it’s just fabulous that he’s got there, and by some big margin. He might get to get his life back now… )

After the ice challenge of course, which should reconvene this winter.

Actually given the speed of the land version and the relatively low ice record of just 80 mph or so – I reckon it’s a dead cert he’ll smash the ice record, put your money down if you can get odds.

We’re hoping to bring the Greenbird back to England to put on display somewhere, maybe at our Ecotech centre in Swaffham. More on that later.

On a personal note, it’s been a great pleasure to be a part of this. And to see a purely wind powered craft running at such an incredible speed (and four times the actual speed of the wind) is a huge thing. Greenbird has grabbed headlines all over the world and in the process it’s made an awful lot of people think again about wind power, it must have. For me that was the reason to be involved, Greenbird makes a statement and actually breaks down the door for what’s coming next – the second generation wind powered car, the one you could drive down the shops.

I’m chuffed for all these reasons.

Cheers.

^{Video production: Tim Walter Associates Limited}

The first thing I should say here is that this isn’t the last episode of our little video series – it can’t be – we just haven’t finished yet. So expect Episodes 7 and probably 8 of 6 before long…

Second thing to say is I’ve got a new idea for a name. I’m quite taken with it.

The Mojo.

Keen to hear views and feelings on that. I like Zero, but as many people here have pointed out, it’s appearing on cars all over the place, in one form or another.

And Mojo (to me) is less technical, less hard maybe (less macho Damon?… ) and more fun.

So the Ecotricity Mojo – tell me what you all think.

Third thing to say is I went to Norfolk the other week to see the car and although the drives train bits weren’t installed as hoped, it was an exciting visit. It seems that the motors arrived quite a bit bigger than the manufacturers spec and we’re having to adjust the transmission to fit them in (that’s a euphemism BTW… ). That’s been the main hold up anyhow.

Still we’re making good progress, nailing a bunch of issues and having fun in the process.

What more could you ask for.

That’s it. Cheers.

^{Video production: Tim Walter Associates Limited}

Thanks to everybody for that massive response to the last video posting on the wind car. And some more great names rolling in. I’m going to reply globally here if that’s OK.

Couple of people raised valid issues/questions – why aren’t we making a family car for example, or transforming a Prius (nice idea) – and haven’t Tesla already proven the EV sportscar thing?

The answer to all these lies in two parts, timing and my nature.

With regards timing, when this project was first conceived I’d never heard of Tesla and couldn’t find an electric sportscar anywhere, other than concepts (and I did look). To get one I was going to have to build one. Things moved on from there.

As for my nature, I like sportscars – they’re fun. It seemed like the ideal place to start, especially because I think it’s important that being green shouldn’t all be about sacrifice – to engage a bigger audience we need to show that cutting carbon and living more sustainably can be done and can still be a lot of fun. Sportscars turn heads and grab media attention – so I chose that route.

I don’t think Tesla have really proven this concept yet BTW, Top Gear may have been harsh, even manipulative with the imagery, but the serious flaws were real. And of course Tesla are not the only people pursuing this dream right now anyhow. The Lightning looks really good.

The more the merrier I say. We can’t be sure of the success or survival of any car company in these times – especially those trying to bring EV’s to market.

I accept that a family car would have more practical value, I’m not sure if it would have more impact though and that’s what we’re trying to achieve first and foremost. Plus we know this car will cost a lot and high cost is easier to justify if you have a more exotic car – think Lamborghini for example.

And maybe this will be the car that changes hearts and minds at Top Gear. That’s a prize in itself. Love them or loathe them (or just be amused by them), these guys are opinion formers.

On the naming front I’m grateful for all the new names and for the pointers to other cars called Zero. The Italian one looks quite cool, thanks Greenmotor.

I’m still torn.

Anyway, hope you enjoy episode 5 of our video series, things are moving a pace now.

I’m off to Norfolk this week to hook up with the team and shoot the next episode.

Expecting to see the batteries, motors and transmission all installed, have to say I’m more than a little excited by that.

Cheers.

^{Video production: Tim Walter Associates Limited}

Good vid this one, all looks very industrial over there in Norfolk – and stuff is starting to come together.

I’m thinking it’s about time to come up with a name, and I’ve come up with a short list.

First thanks to everybody that sent suggestions, I enjoyed and appreciated them all, very much.

The short list I’ve come up with, and the reasons for each, are as follows:

Zero – Short version of the Zero C suggestion, has a certain neatness about it and many interpretations.  WW2 Japanese fighter of course.  Also a typical car has a badge announcing it’s cubic capacity, valve and/or turbo numbers  – Zero all of this in our case.  And Zero combustion/carbon.  And it has a nice ring to it.  The Zero.

Nemesis – Darker altogether and spawned from my traveller days when 2000 AD (the comic) was a cult read – anyone familiar with that will know the nemesis character.  Pretty awesome.  And Nemesis to the ICE car industry is exactly what EVs and WEVs are going to be, IMO.  Like this one for the dark side.  The Nemesis.

Storm – Weather inspired (not X men… ), toyed with Tornado and Hurricane, both of which I like, but feel that Storm is more understated but still evocative.  This is after all a weather driven car.  The Storm.

I’d love to hear what you all think.  Time to name the Wind Powered Car.

Cheers.

^{Video production: Tim Walter Associates Limited}

You can see the body really starting to take shape here, and hear Peter talk about ‘toughening up’ of the look, from his original.

We’ve ‘placed’ all the parts within the car now and began machining/producing some of the bigger components, like the transmission.

And the batteries have arrived. Crazy thing about that was, to travel by ship they needed to be in their own 40 foot container, for safety reasons – but it was OK to stick them in the hold of a Jumbo jet, as they are… Not sure how that works!

Hope you enjoy the vid.

Cheers.

But it occurred to me – there’s an assumption frequently made that riding a bike is for free.  And it’s not.  You have to power the bike, it’s human power but that’s not free – we need food to do work.

The rates at which we burn calories and therefore food are pretty well established for various activities – resting, walking, running for example – as are the carbon impacts of food and therefore of the calories we use.

Typical daily calorie requirements are also well established.   And if you up your activity level you up your need to eat – it’s that simple.

Easy enough then to take a closer look at just how many more calories it takes to ride a bike, and what additional carbon impact comes from that – compared to the calorie intake required to drive a wind powered car instead.

It might not be surprising to find that driving a wind powered car is actually better in terms of CO₂ impact than riding a bike – after all wind power is zero carbon (the embedded energy in a windmill is repaid in about six months of operation – after that it’s all carbon free) – the assumption though has been that biking is zero carbon too, but it ain’t.

Biking requires 40 additional calories per mile – or 400 additional calories for a ten mile trip.

Using some typical food carbon footprints and assuming ten miles a day for a year you get a total annual impact of 333kg CO₂ – from riding the bike.

This is over and above the normal food impact – which, based on a mixed diet of 2,400 calories a day (for example) would be responsible for 2 tonnes of CO₂ a year – veggies and vegans will do better than that of course.

Driving a wind powered car on the other hand requires 100 calories an hour (to power the driver), which is roughly 4 calories per mile (assuming average 30 mph) this produces 76g of CO₂ for a ten mile stint and a total of 28kg of CO₂ for that 10 miles a day for a year.

The difference is 0.3 tonnes CO₂ per year.  The wind car is one third of a tonne of CO₂ better than the bike…!

Like I say not surprising that wind cars win if you accept that wind power is zero carbon and biking requires more food than not biking.

But the big surprise in all of this, and perhaps the bit that makes it worth sharing – is that an electric car powered by the grid as it is, actually emits only ever so slightly more carbon a year than biking the equivalent distance.

A grid powered electric car travelling 5000 miles per MWh of electricity will produce 94g CO₂ per mile (including the drivers contribution), that’s 342kg per year of CO₂ for the 10 mile a day trip.   Only 9kg of CO₂ per year more than cycling.  And what’s 9kg out of one third of a tonne?

This is counter intuitive I think.

Biking isn’t so obviously squeaky green as it’s assumed to be – it has a carbon footprint virtually equal to grid powered electric cars – that’s a shock to me.  The reason for that is probably that the human body is not the most efficient user of fuel, whereas electric motors hit the high 90 percents.  And even the grid manages around 50% fuel efficiency.

No embedded carbon in the car or bike (or food chain) has been taken into account here of course – just straight use of each.

It might be interesting to look at embedded levels of CO₂ in cars and bikes and calculate how many years it would take for a wind powered car to……

Any volunteers?

Cheers.

PS – A petrol car doing the same 10 miles a day would emit over 1.2Tonnes of CO₂ in a year – about four times that of the grid EV or Bike – and 45 times that of the Wind EV.

^{Video production: Tim Walter Associates Limited}

I’m off to Norfolk next week to take a look at the proposed body modifications and generally have a catch up with the team. I’m looking fwd to it.

Chassis has been lengthened, battery housing and transmission are now designed and under construction and we’re very slightly behind the estimated timeline, but still heading for Dec on the road.

Meanwhile out in the world, where so much is changing lately – I hear Tesla are laying off staff and suffering some kind of financial difficulty raising doubts about their future.

Regular readers might remember that a guy from Tesla posted on this site. I’d questioned their performance figures and he basically said it works and I should buy a Tesla and not bother building a car of my own. He turned out to be vice president of sales or something, but I could see some sense in not reinventing the wheel and all that. So I said I would buy a Tesla – if he let me drive one first to prove the performance claims. A fair offer I thought, but never heard back from him.

Sat here today, with doubts circulating over their future, only 27 cars on the road after all these years and hundreds of millions of dollars spent, I’m glad I’m not sat in a queue for a left hand drive Tesla, that might or might not one day arrive. It makes sense to have been pursuing a different path.

That said, I hope the dot com guys have the pockets to pull Tesla through, the world is a better place with them in it for sure.

Here’s a short video showing our progress so far:

^{Video production: Tim Walter Associates Limited}

Should be posting one of these a month now as we count down to the day we get this ‘wind powered car’ on the road.

Our first focus was the batteries – where to put them to keep the weight in the car in the right place in terms of centre of gravity and front/rear weight distribution. And how to house them so that we can keep them physically restrained but control their temperature during charging and discharging and protect them from the elements.

We’ve also been working on a ‘transmission box’ to sit at the rear of the car between the wheels. It’s not a gearbox as such just something to slow down the rotational speeds of the motors a bit, to make them more suitable for driving car wheels, and handle reverse as well, a useful consideration….

And we’ve got a transparent rear boot planned so we can show off all this techno stuff, Ferrari style. That could look pretty cool.

We need a name though (‘a hook’ as they say in those Orange cinema ads, which I love).

Best we’ve come up with yet really is the E type or the Zero.

Suggestions welcome.

Cheers.

I’m off to Oz in a few days to join the Greenbird team and attempt to take the world land speed record – powered only by the wind.

Greenbird,  the awesome looking craft in the picture above, we named as a nod to Donald Campbell and his historic Bluebird.  We reckon the world is at a watershed, the age of fossil fuels is passing and we’re moving (back) to the age of renewable energy  – Greenbird  symbolises this perhaps better then anything else.

Donald broke his records in the golden age of fossil fuels, the age of big engines and abundant, energy dense fuels.  We’re going to break ours with no engine, no fuel and no pollution – using just the wind.

We’re trying to raise a serious question too.  How are we all going to be getting around in a world without oil?

I reckon it’ll be with wind powered cars.  Check out this illustration sent to us by Dave Mills, I think it’s really cool.  Not exactly what we have in mind but really cool.

Greenbird is our F1 car,  a highly technical, pretty impractical,  single purpose thoroughbred machine, we know you couldn’t go to the shops in.  But we have a second generation wind car on the way – that you could use day to day.  More on that later.

We need to do about 120 mph to scoop the record, and if the wind blows we’re very confident we’ll get there.

Right now the Salt lake we’re using for the attempt is flooded, and there’s no wind – both unusual this time of year.  So it’s all against us.

But we have another 10 days of weather window and have our fingers crossed.

You can find out more, and follow our progress at greenbird.co.uk, we’ll keep the zerocarbonista site updated too.

Finally, thanks massively to Fred Chambers for sending us the image below, of a land yacht from 100 years ago, on the same lake we’re using.  I think it’s just awesome.

Wind power is so ‘back to the future’.