German adventurers and inventors Dirk Gion and Stefan Simmerer have just completed a wondrous three week journey from Perth to Sydney in their sprightly, pod shaped car, and quite remarkably they made this ‘voyage’ in just under $16. The car named as the Wind Explorer, is touted as the world’s first self-sufficient wind-powered vehicle, and is powered by lithium-ion batteries that can be charged overnight by a mobile wind turbine.
The car can cover a range of 100 km expending half the electricity required for running a washing machine. The specifications of this peppy vehicle are ‘breezy’ as well. The whole car just weighs about 200 kg (440 pounds), and can achieve a top speed of 88.5 kph. The battery pack itself just weighs 80 kg. And talk about innovation - this supple framed car can use kites to harness the extra wind energy!
The two men have also created a world record of sorts, when the Wind Explorer became the first wind-powered vehicle to be driven across a continent. As Dirk Gion put it:
We wanted to prove how good the technology is. There are a lot of skeptical people and we wanted to show them how efficient you can make it. People are ready for this technology. They want to have it and use it.
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