Casey Emilius, ECS’s Meetings Coordinator, spotted an article in Inhabitat on an amazing feat in student ingenuity out of Nigeria.
College student Segun Oyeyiola has transformed a Volkswagen Beetle into a wind- and solar- powered car with just $6,000. By using mostly scrap parts donated by friends and family, Oyeyiola was able to keep costs down and skyrocket the renewable efficiency of the car.
The car is fortified by a strong suspension system to hold the weight of the solar panel on the roof and the wind turbine under the hood – which takes advantage of the airflow produced by the car while it’s in motion.
“I wanted to reduce carbon dioxide emission[s] going to our atmosphere that lead to climate change or global warming which has become a new reality, with deleterious effect: seasonal cycles are disrupted, as are ecosystems; and agriculture, water needs and supply, and food production are all adversely affected,” Oyeyiola said in an email to Fast Company.
This from Inhabitat:
Currently, the battery takes four to five hours to charge, which makes it less than ideal, but the car is still in the early stages of design. As you can imagine, sourcing the materials needed isn’t easy in Nigeria, plus Oyeyiola had to face the criticism of other people who thought it was a waste of time. Now that he’s got a working prototype, the plan is to take his finals and then get straight back to work trying to improve the design until it becomes “Nigeria’s future car.”
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