a power-assisted rickshaw bike should be the future city car - a cry for help!

[inglese66]

I know nothing about physics or mechanical engineering or pendulums or bedini coils or v-gate magnet motors or flywheels or alternating current.
So why am I here? Because I want to understand. For every contributor to overunity or peswiki or other “free energy” websites there are hundreds of people like me who really hope one of you guys or gals comes up with something mind-blowing. Most of us wander across these forums, read a couple of topics, watch a couple of vids, not understand anything and move on our merry way. Well, not me, not anymore.
In the meantime I have watched hundreds and hundreds of videos, read all the blogs and forums I can find, trawled through patents and sent emails to anyone who seems to be building something that might help me in my quest to build a power-assisted rickshaw bike.
I have posted an open source page on PESWIKI
http://www.peswiki.com/index.php/OS:Angus_Kirk_Rickshaw_Bike_Project
and I have made a video appeal for help.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ViuNY5SWac&feature=player_embedded
I love cycling. But a bike is not so family-friendly. A rickshaw could be, however. Just look at the number of pedicabs in our major cities, transporting a large number of people, and very often arriving at their destination before taxis and buses. It should be the future for those who want family transportation and stay in shape.
Lots and lots of people have made nice little working models of various magnet motors, gravity pendulums, flywheels, solar, all generally under the title of “free energy”.
Hey, guess what? I am not looking for free energy.
I want to pedal, it’s just that I’m no Lance Armstrong. My home town Agropoli is hilly in parts and I’m not getting any younger. Italian law allows me to use a 250 watt electric motor but what can that do on a rickshaw with 60 Kg of kids and 10 Kg of schoolbags plus the weight of the bike?
So, is there someone out there who can help me? Has anyone built such a vehicle? I have received lots of tips on where to buy electric bikes, scooters, rickshaws but they would all be considered illegal on Italian roads. For the Italian law, when you stop pedalling the motor must stop. You can’t just press a switch and surge forward.

I thank you, and my kids will thank you (once I’ve convinced them that it is cool to go to school on a vehicle that doesn’t pollute!)

[happyfunball]

I think you should understand that none of the free or quasi-free energy devices on Peswiki have ever been shown to work. As for battery efficiencies, Bedini makes claims but, as always, they're just that. Offhand I'd say your best bet would involve active input from driver and passengers via pedal powered generator, etc. No free lunch.

[inglese66]

Look forward to someone suggesting how a pedal powered generator could be implimented!

Thanks!

[elecscooter]

Scooters have become the predominant form of transportation in many places. Taiwan, with a population of 23 million has 11 million registered motorscooters  almost one for every two citizens.

[allcanadian]

@Inglese66
I will have to give this some consideration, I have been working on some very neat advanced hybrid drives which may work very well in this type of setup. One issue is that many people have a great deal of knowledge but knowledge does not solve problems understanding and creativity do.
Concerning the 250w rule that is easy to circumvent, you see they may state the motor must be no larger than 250w but this make no reference to how much work the motor performs and they are not the same thing. For instance I can run the 250w motor for 4 minutes prior to a hill, store this energy and produce 1000w mechanical power for 1 minute to climb the hill. As well we can mix the power we generate through our pedals, let's say 250w input through the pedals plus the 1000w input for 1 minute plus the power the 250w motor produces, you see this 1500w total output is still within the 250w electric motor rule.
There is also the issue of efficiency, a vehicle load can be seen as an average load, that is going up a hill requires an extra input of X energy as a motor function which is offset by an output of X energy as a generator function going down the hill thus the hill does not exist in term of energy only efficiency in storage and conversion. This is what I refer to as a hybrid solution which can have many applications however my designs are efficient in that they generate very little excess heat which is the greatest system loss. In this type of application this system might add almost 20-30lb's to the vehicle weight so I am slowly working on the process of integration to reduce this weight. This is not a difficult problem however producing a cost effective and efficient solution requires time and most important understanding of what the actual problem is so it can be addressed.
Regards
AC