Back to results
US 2005/0029031 A1Published application
Vehicle
OwnerRalph Thomasinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A vehicle having multiple-wheel drive, wherein power is supplied by compact, lightweight hub motors located in each wheel hub, and wherein the hub motors are selectively controlled by a single throttle, and wherein the vehicle can operate between motorized, manually pedal-driven, and motor-assisted propulsion; and further has a multitude of operational modes such as hill-climbing, fuel efficient, and stealth modes.
Claims16
A multiple-wheel drive vehicle, comprising:
- at least one front-wheel assembly;
- at least one rear-wheel assembly;
- first means for driving said at least one front-wheel assembly, said first drive means carried by said at least one front-wheel assembly;
- second means for driving said at least one rear-wheel assembly, said second drive means carried by said at least one rear-wheel assembly;
- and
- means for controlling said first drive means and said second drive means.
3 more elements
A multiple-wheel drive vehicle, comprising:
- at least one front-wheel assembly;
- at least one rear-wheel assembly;
- first means for driving said at least one front-wheel assembly, said first drive means carried by said at least one front-wheel assembly;
- second means for driving said at least one rear-wheel assembly, said second drive means carried by said at least one rear-wheel assembly;
- means for controlling said first drive means and said second drive means;
- and
- means for selecting between at least two modes of operation, wherein said at least two modes of operation is selected from the group consisting of an all-wheel mode, a single-wheel assembly mode, a normal mode, a hill-climbing mode, a stealth mode, an enhanced-speed mode, an idle mode, a hill-descending mode, a front-wheel drive mode and a rear-wheel drive mode.
4 more elements
A method for propelling a two-wheeled vehicle, comprising the steps of:
- a. adapting a first hub motor to a first front wheel;
- b. adapting a second hub motor to a second rear wheel;
- and
- c. controlling the power or speed of each of said first and second hub motors via a single user interface input.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.