If you're ever in York in the UK, there's a cool model of Brennan's Gyrostatic monorail car in the National Railway Museum. I had no idea about gyrocars before that and was blown away by the technical prowess of the design from the early 1900s. His wasn't an automobile as such, but rather a rail vehicle that operated on a single rail, just like a monorail.<p>His actually pre-dates this, with him patenting the design in 1903, developing a working model in 'about 1907' (according to my photos of the display) and a full-sized one in 1909. That suggests, assuming the parent wiki is correct, that the idea of a gyro automobile was described in fantasy <i>after</i> a gyro rail vehicle was fully developed. I find it quite interesting that it took that long for the idea to leap from one mode of transport to the other, and it probably speaks to how unfamiliar the automobile was as a concept even in the first decade of the 1900s.<p>His wiki [1] provides a bit more info, and links to the article on the gyro monorail car [2] with a wealth of detailed information about the design (much of which maps to the gyrocar).<p>Fascinating design.<p>[1]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Brennan" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Brennan</a>
[2]: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyro_monorail" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyro_monorail</a>
It's a fascinating design, but "Why?" is the question that leaps to mind. Once you get above a certain mass it just seems really beneficial to have a design that is stable at rest. (I'm speaking as someone who has had to pick up heavy motorcycles which have fallen or been knocked over a few times)<p>So what's the benefit of a Gyrocar to compensate for that? A motorbike has the benefit of really dynamic performance coming from the ability to lean in to corners etc, but it seems to me that this thing would work more like a tricycle (ie no countersteer or lean) because the gyroscopes would keep the body of the car level.
The wikipedia article is a bit short on pictures, so here are more of this very interesting design:
<a href="https://www.lanemotormuseum.org/collection/cars/item/gyro-x-1967" rel="nofollow">https://www.lanemotormuseum.org/collection/cars/item/gyro-x-...</a>
> Steering a motorcycle is done by precessing the front wheel.<p>I've encountered this claim so many times over the years. The precession force I've observed when riding motorcycles, by moving the bars after the front wheel leaves the ground, is simply not that great. It's obviously not the primary force steering a motorcycle.<p>With the front tire in contact with the road, motorcycles can <i>appear</i> to steer from precession because they initiate turns unintuitively via inverted counter-steering. What's really happening is when you initiate a turn, the point at the road:tire interface immediately veers in the direction you pointed because of the tire's grip with the road. But since this point is well below the center of gravity of the motorcycle, instead of steering the entire bike in that direction, the bike falls down and leans in the opposite direction. Thanks to the angle of the fork there's a complementary geometric relationship between the bike's lean angle and the front wheel's steering angle in the direction of the lean. These are the primary mechanisms steering a motorcycle.<p>The same mechanism is present in automobiles, which also have a significant distance separating the road:tire interface from the center of gravity. But in those vehicles it's exhibited as body roll, which is then necessarily resisted by the suspension components like springs and anti-sway bars. Nobody claims precession causes automobile body roll, because it's more obvious what's going on there - and the driver doesn't steer backwards briefly at the start of every turn.<p>Precession is a fun demonstration in science class, and does enable a motorcycle rider to exert <i>some</i> control when on one wheel. But it simply isn't the primary mechanism steering a motorcycle.
These are pretty cool. Lit Motors in the Bay Area has a modern take on the same idea: <a href="https://youtu.be/JMYdUwUVE6w" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/JMYdUwUVE6w</a>
Do the wheels really add gyroscopic effects? Some years ago the revelation that gyroscopic effects weren't what keep a bicycle up rocked the world, then everyone seemed to forget about that and talks about gyroscopic effects again. Is that the case here?
How can Wikipedia have a gyrocar article and not mention the Gyro-X?? <a href="https://www.lanemotormuseum.org/collection/cars/item/gyro-x-1967" rel="nofollow">https://www.lanemotormuseum.org/collection/cars/item/gyro-x-...</a><p><a href="https://www.wired.com/story/gyro-x-lane-motor-museum/" rel="nofollow">https://www.wired.com/story/gyro-x-lane-motor-museum/</a>
There was a Chinese knockoff of Lit Motors.
Been following <a href="https://thrustcycle.com/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://thrustcycle.com/index.html</a>
An Indian startup <a href="http://www.ligermobility.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.ligermobility.com/</a> is also developing self balancing EV for crowded Indian cities.
Recently there was a project on Hackaday where someone created an R/C gyrocar: <a href="https://hackaday.com/2019/09/06/who-needs-four-wheels-when-youve-got-a-gyro/" rel="nofollow">https://hackaday.com/2019/09/06/who-needs-four-wheels-when-y...</a><p>The project is quite neat!
Related from 2016: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10852421" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10852421</a><p>2015: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10611187" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10611187</a>
Not to be confused with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrobus" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrobus</a>
why not use the mass of the battery as the gyro's flywheel (s)? You could also store energy (accelerate this mass on breaking) for even better regen (I presume recharge breaking is less efficient than the 95 efficiency of current traction motors).<p>Another plus is easier ajustable ground clearance since there's only 2 points of contact; for an off-road-able vehicle that's a big plus; while at highway speeds you want a low center of gravity and less drag.<p>Will we see a 2 wheeled pickup truck reveal tomorrow? A BUV? (Battery Ultimate Vehicle) That would be "cyber from the future" alright. Dreaming out loud, but a ppl carrier (8-10 seater based on this would be totally out of this world)