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A Prius rollercoaster?

A Prius rollercoaster?

CheeJun

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Yes. A bunch of boffins got together at Toyota and said, "we really need a rollercoaster that's slow and doesn't even carry anyone on it!" What they did is attempt to show how the kinetic energy from braking could be stored as electricity and used for something else in say, an amusement park? In this case, they used the energy stored to power all the lights seen in the video.

 

It looks kind of pointless and it is considering how much effort was taken to rip the Prius apart and rebuild it as a 'rollercoaster' which does 15mph which isnt really 'rollercoaster speeds'. Then again, the idea behind it all is noble; to use the otherwise wasted heat and kinetic energy to power something useful like lights for instance. The idea behind it is great but the final result, not so. I just don't see this happening anywhere else. It will be too expensive and ironically, I feel that the Prius is still more environmentally unfriendly in the long run (as with Rigval's article a few months ago) than say a diesel powered car. All I can say is, nice lights!




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