Wind Powered Vehicle Will Attempt To Smash World Record
The “Greenbird” as it has been dubbed, is a wind powered vehicle combining the best of Formula One Racing and aircraft body construction technology. Businessman and ecopreneur Dale Vince of Ecotricity and his friend and engineer Richard Jenkins, both from Great Britain, joined forces to finance and design this bird with the view to breaking the current land speed world record. Ten years in the making, the technology used for this wind powered vehicle will be used to design less exotic vehicles for domestic use in the future. The current world record is 116.7 miles per hour set ten years ago. The record attempt will take place on the salt flats at Lake LeFroy in Western Australia. So far the weather has not been cooperating but as soon as it does the race to break the record will begin.
The Greenbird uses a hard sail which better utlizes the thrust created by the wind, enabling the craft to travel 4 to 6 times the speed of the wind. The horizontal wing adds stability while the body is constructed of a very light carbon composite.
Let’s wish these guys luck and hope to see this emergent technology in our own vehicles some day.
August 27th, 2008 at 7:31 am
That thing looks excellent! And you guys are so lucky to be living in australia, i have always wanted to visit, it is such a beautiful place. People say its like a sunny version of England, but i believe theres much more great things about Australia. Quite frankly i am fed up of England. Purely because of the weather. I have had to resort to buying an automatic garage door to keep me dry from moving from my house to my car! Unbeleivable. I wish you every sucess in your super invention, and it would be good to incorporate into all vehicles one day
August 28th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
wow, thats one ugly looking machine, will be interesting to see how it performs though
August 31st, 2008 at 4:17 am
hmm.. this is one step towards green world?? I like this concept though. Imaginations of a wind powered machine is great and good to see it’s real!
Thanks for sharing this.
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September 2nd, 2008 at 2:53 pm
I surly would love love to sail this beauty into the sunset…
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:07 am
I have to disagree, I think it looks pretty neat. It’s exciting that they are going to be using the same technology they built the car upon in our future cars.
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September 4th, 2008 at 11:38 am
I must say, as someone that loves wind and any kind of sport to do with it. This is awesome!
September 5th, 2008 at 12:22 am
Is this a remake of waterworld?
September 6th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Awesome, thanks for posting! I think the design looks pretty sharp actually.
September 17th, 2008 at 1:47 am
Well records are meant to be broken and I think this one record that is broken for it will open new possibilities for wind powered vehicles.
And the vehicle looks sexy!
September 18th, 2008 at 2:10 am
It is interesting to see what people do to break new records. I could imagine those vehicles are quite dangerous to balance without toppling over.
I’m all for eco-power, so good on this person for trying.
September 18th, 2008 at 2:15 am
Cool photo of a remarkable vehicle. Is the vehicle actually on the salt lake? Seems strange that there is water in the foreground.
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September 18th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Erm, not to be a downer, but the land speed world record is *considerably* higher than 116.7 mph. I think currently its at least 760 mph.
September 18th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
With wind power? I think not. Perhaps with a motor of some kind.
September 22nd, 2008 at 12:55 am
Wind power, that is a whole new perspective when it comes to land racing. Lets see how fast this baby can go.
The vehicle looks like a hybrid between a pod racer and a sail boat.
November 20th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Seems very interesting. I don’t know how eager I would be to be going onto windsailing vessel over land doing in excess of 100 MPH. Especially in this. Very interesting concept, though.
December 6th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
That is pretty cool. Reminds me a little of a similar-looking Mercedes concept racer I saw on the net recently…
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