11 January

Living things don’t generally use engines. They don’t build a structure, then look for something to move that structure along. They turn the structure itself into the engine, transforming forces like gravity into movement. That’s what our muscles do, they absorbe gravity elastically, then release that elastic energy into movement. It’s superb engineering. This idea could be applied to vehicles too. Vehicles are very heavy, they have loads of potential energy through gravity. We use almost none of it to move them, instead we haul that mass around with engines. Regenerative braking in EVs is one of the few vehicle examples of using the forces on a structure to help power the structure. Huge amounts of potential energy are being wasted.