[Velomobile] Intellectual Property

[JOHN TETZ]

David Eggleston 

Thank you for giving your experienced and wide ranging overview on various VM issues. Very valuable information. 
I agree we have a lot yet to learn but we have accomplished a lot in these last 10 years of VM development. 

>An all-around velo has a better chance of commercial success than one that is only good for a few things.
......Too much of a range is asking a lot of a design, given the power source is so weak. Seems to me that honing a design for a specific area of need is more apt to be accomplished. Cars range from small to large with few to many features to accomplish various needs. 

 What I have set my sights on is a practical suburban human powered alternate transportation vehicle to be  used by average folks to do their shopping and running errands in the 2 to 5 mile radius. Average speed 14 mph. These design limits give the opportunity to come up with a viable vehicle. 

> You can fairly easily put an aero body on an existing unsuspended trike, but you are likely to end up with many difficulties, including body attachments to the trike, noise of thin shells vibrating, and many others. 
........How true this is. But I look at the fact that the bare trike business is booming. Although adding a shell of some kind may not be ideal it does change a trike into a vehicle, a vehicle that is first of all not seasonably limited, has weather protection, some crash protection, more visible to cars  etc. This will change the consciousness of the trike rider into using the vehicle more as local alternate transportation rather than just recreation. 

Second, by being seen by the public these vehicles will affect their awareness. I see and hear a change in the publics response to my VM over a 7 year period. They more often comment now - it doesn't use gas, its good for the environment, and its good for the health of the rider, etc.   
 I am hearing more and more happy - I like what you are doing horn honks  -  from drivers. 
The publics environmental awareness is changing. We need a viable practical vehicle. 
It doesn't need all the wish list of advanced features. 

I designed my present VM 8 years ago coming from a long background with streamliners and the thrill of speed.
What's important to me now is weather protection (head in), light weight, quiet, ease of access to decent cargo space, some amount of suspension, small physical size for parking reasons. Aerodynamics is there but further down the list. 
 This is accomplishable given what we know.  
In another 10 years more viable vehicles will be developed.  

>  I guess we will have to rely on our own ideas and resources for low-budget design and development paths. 
.....Yes, but some method of sharing ideas is very important. Look at the advancements made after the birth of the IHPVA in 1975   - which eventually lead to present day Velomobiles. 

In some ways its less a technology issue than a change in consciousness as to why and how we use these vehicles. Requiring the wish list of advanced features hints of 19th and 20th century thinking where the Earths energy and resources were thought to be limitless. Efficiency - doing more with less - is the 21st century password. HPVs are up with the efficiency of railroad trains and super tankers.  

Notice for one how I have skirted the issue of funding. 

John Tetz