Quote Originally Posted by Mr. P View Post
I keep going over this with diagrams on paper...I just don't see why it wouldn't work.

Battery starts motor, motor turns generator, generator supplies volts to motor...It's a loop...NO?
Yes it is a loop. That’s what a “perpetual motion machine” is.

Forget about what powers the vehicle for a moment and just look at the vehicle itself, rolling along at a constant speed on a flat smooth road. You have the external forces of air and rolling resistance that want to slow it down, and those have to be overcome by some external energy source to keep the vehicle moving. That’s a simple law of physics that cannot be broken.

In a standard vehicle that external energy is gas or diesel, temporarily stored on board. That chemical energy is converted to mechanical energy in a process that is at most 35% efficient. The remaining 65% is lost through heat.

In your concept vehicle, you start out with some “external” energy stored in the battery as chemical energy. That chemical energy is then converted to electrical energy in a process that may be about 90% efficient. The remaining 10% is lost through heat (the battery will heat up a bit). That electrical energy is then converted to mechanical energy by an electric motor, which might be 90% efficient, since some of the energy heats up the windings and bearings in the motor. Next that mechanical energy is converted to electrical through generator, which might be 90% efficient, since the generator windings and bearings heat up. Next that electrical energy is supposed to be converted to mechanical energy and chemical energy (to move the vehicle and charge the battery), both processes that create heat, and thus are less than 100% efficient. Except for your initial batter charge, no where is there any energy available to overcome the inescapable inefficiencies of converting energy forms, never mind overcoming the external forces trying to slow the vehicle down.