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Conservation of energy still applies. The energy to put the car in motion comes from the battery (and gravity if going downhill). Any energy used for charging such as you describe necessarily comes from energy used to put the car in motion. That energy comes from the conversion of chemical energy in the battery to kinetic energy at the wheels and the conversion isn't 100% efficient due to losses via friction and heat. At highway speeds, wind resistance of the car body and rolling resistance of the tires become significant sources of energy loss as well.

Which means on a flat road any energy recovered in the manner you describe must necessarily either reduce the speed of the motor or increase the energy consumption from the battery. In other words, there's no point because you cannot be more efficient when converting that energy three times (battery > wheel > battery > wheel) than you can when just converting it once (battery > wheel).

On a downhill road, you can recover some energy, assuming you don't want to travel as fast as gravity would have you travel. But that energy recovery is handled through the regenerative braking system.

To put it in terms of a gasoline car, even if you could somehow perfectly convert the heat energy from braking to gasoline, that still wouldn't justify applying the brakes all the time because that would just make the engine work harder, consuming the equivalent amount of fuel being converted from braking, just to maintain the same speed.

I understood the configuration you're proposing. The answer to why it won't work is still the law of conversation of energy.

Think about it this way:

The immediate energy source for your generators is the forward motion of the car. But that forward motion isn't free energy. It is the result of energy expenditure from the batteries. Which means any power generation from your system will consume energy in one of two ways:

• The vehicle uses additional energy to maintain the same speed
• The vehicle slows down

Those are the only two possibilities.

The additional energy used to maintain speed will always be greater than any energy recovered through your power generation system, due to conversion loses. Even if this was a perfect system with no conversion loses, your system would only be able to regenerate the amount of excess energy it used in the first place. It's impossible for it to add energy to the system (with the exception of a downhill road that I mentioned, but that's already addressed by regenerative brakes).

Yes, I am saying that, insofar as the system is generating electricity from that forward motion. That's an example of the law of conservation of energy.

I think the confusion comes from the conflation of two concepts: drag and friction. The "drag" is the work required to generate electricity. The "friction" is a mechanical component that can affect the efficiency of electricity generation.

Hopefully this makes it easier to understand the difference:

A bicycle wheel can have low friction or high friction wheel bearings. The amount of pedaling needed to move the bicycle will increase with higher friction wheel bearings. But even a bicycle on a flat surface with zero-friction wheel bearings will require pedaling effort to move the bicycle.

If you ever get a chance to play with a hand crank generator the concept will become very clear. Under no load, it spins quite easily. But add a load, such as a light bulb, and the effort required to spin it increases. Increase the load (i.e. 5 W bulb vs 10 W bulb) and the effort increases along with it.

If you're interested in learning more about the topic through some very approachable videos, I can recommend Crash Course Physics.

No judgement here. Just trying to provide good information. 6th grade science, even today, wouldn't necessarily cover such topics in detail. If you have even a passing interest in learning more about physics, definitely check out those crash course videos I linked to.

As far as science changing, that's true in the general sense and it's by design, which is why the scientific method is the best way we have to discover the truth of the natural world.

When reliable and repeatable evidence is available through observation or experimentation, that evidence is tested. If it can be used to make repeated successful predictions, the laws and theories of science are updated to account for the evidence. The alternative is to reject that evidence and that's a much worse outcome because it would mean scientists are purposely preferring a less correct understanding of the natural world.

There are some scientific laws that have been so thoroughly tested and repeatedly proved to represent the observable universe to such a degree that they are considered immutable. These fundamental laws include the conservation of energy that we have been discussing.

As a general principle, it's important to remember that scientists are not always right. But when there is widespread agreement among scientists in the field of their expertise, any non-expert that disagrees with that consensus is definitionally wrong due to their lack of expertise.

Off Topic Posts Have Been Deleted.
Carry On About High Gas Prices.

JD,,,why did you delete all my questions/posts about electric cars and the braking system, but you left all the responses by GentlemanBronco? Those were legitimate questions about how things worked, and are most definitely related to the topic in question (gas prices). Kinda confused here buddy.

EV discussion is now in the lounge

Some good news on gas prices, nation wide the price of a gallon of gas has dropped 50 cents. The QT seems to be working and inflation is coming more under control, let's hope the FED stays the course and continues to raise interest rates another .75 bases points. Sooner or later we are going to have to have a correction aka recession, it is just a question if it is a hard or soft landing?

Amused am I by your ignorance.
I teach EV in college, and perhaps I actually do know about them.
You however are still clueless.

Trolling again Bob?
Careful.

@Phill will be checking in later today.

Can you say "Ban Hammer"?

"Later today" has come and gone and I'm still here. What? You're no longer on Phil's good side? Maybe next time you're servicing him, try swallowing

In the meantime, school yourself in EVs and stop pretending you know things you don't. It's getting old. The way you operate is getting old. If Phil has any sense of dignity, he'll fire your sorry a$$ and bring this board back to some sense of integrity.

You were warned. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
(Phill will return from vacation early August)

Perhaps he will un-ban you.

This thread serves no useful purpose any longer.