Interesting Talk -- Amory Lovens

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Date: 28 Oct 93 01:39:50 EDT
From: Paul Baran <73507.2223 () compuserve com>


I went to hear a talk last night at Stanford -- Amory Lovens talked about his
concept of an ultralight automobile. A packed house in the Kresge Auditorium.
Lots of good questions by technical guys that understand the issues.


Lovens is a leading spokesman for energy savings designs, with lots of book and
awards to his name.  Unlike most people in that crowd, he is solid as a rock
and is a top rate physicist and engineer. He has been a key player in the
electric industry reducing its fuel demands.


Amory Lovens is the guy that predicted that oil use for electric energy would
go down not up unlike every other forecaster predicted during the oil shortage
in the 70's.  Sure enough he was right and everyone else was wrong.


He gave the most impressive talks that I have heard for many years. He detailed
out his plan with gobs and gobs of design data.  His car is made of fiber based
plastic, uses a small engine running at full efficiency and all the peak loads
are handled by a small battery.  The braking energy goes back into the battery
as the motors become generators. Each wheel has a variable reluctance motor and
driven by variable frequency ac.  You steer by slightly changing the speed of
one wheel relative to the other.  Thus, even the wheels are aerodynamically
convered.  He uses heat reflecting glass to cut the air conditioning load, etc.
The car designs look good.  He went into all the questions in detail including
safety.  He convinced me that the car would do far better in a crash with a
tractor trailer than an all-steel automobile.


His car design is capable of very fast acceleration, and fuel efficiency in the
over 100 mile range, and about double that when the technology is fully
exploited.


The talk was sponsored by the Petroleum Engineering Department at Stanford.  He
described the ultralight car as a new oil field under Detroit larger than Saudi
Arabia with oil in the $3 per barrel range.


He suggested that the petroleum engineering students may want to think of a
career change.


You would have enjoyed the talk. I sure did.