Human-Powered Car Produces Zero Emissions

A radical new car design has been unveiled that runs on human power and could be available to buy in 2011.

Conceived by US engineer Charles Samuel Greenwood, the HumanCar Imagine PS (Power Station) accommodates four passengers and works on the principle of hand-cranked power to push it along. It also incorporates electric plug-in technologies that can be used in the absence of a full passenger complement to do all the work.

Rekindling memories of The Flintstones – the US prehistoric cartoon series where all the cars ran on foot power – the Imagine PS might raise a smile, but it’s a serious proposition. To produce energy and create power, passengers pump a bar in a forward/backward motion: similar to the motion used to operate a rowing machine.

Zero Emission Car

The HumanCar Imagine PS can hit a top speed of over 60 miles per hour on level ground (or 30mph uphill) and it’s now set to go into production as a zero emission human/electric hybrid vehicle. The chassis design is modular, meaning a range of electric batteries can be installed without the need to reconfigure the car.

Greenwood’s involvement in human/electric car technologies dates back some years and, on the HumanCar website, he provides some insight into how the idea first originated.

“It was 1968. Traffic was at a complete standstill, again, on a busy boulevard in what is now known as the Silicon Valley”, he states. “Sitting within their cars were many commuters who were overweight and out of shape, breathing unhealthy exhaust fumes. As a young engineer working at my first job at a research and development laboratory for a major corporation, it seemed intuitively that there must be a better way to move people around than this.”

Human Car Power

HumanCar the firm acknowledges the physicality involved in human car power, but stresses that elderly members of society will be able to use it, while future options exist to produce modified cars that disabled people can use, too.

To date, around 100 customers have pre-ordered the Imagine PS a cost of $15,500 each: production is set to get underway once pre-order levels hit the 800 mark.

The Imagine PS has multiple benefits: the substitution of human engine power for a traditional engine means no CO2 emissions are created whatsoever, while passengers get a good physical workout at the same time.

Enviro News will provide further coverage of this human/electric hybrid motor in future News Items.

Imagine PS Image Copyright of HumanCar and used with grateful thanks