Nikola Wav - The First Electric Wetbike

It would seem the time is here. It was inevitable that someone would try to design, produce, and sell an all electric wet-bike and the electric vehicle company Nikola has done it. At lest to the point where you can get on a waiting list (for free no less!)

Nikola (as in Nikola Tesla, but not as in Tesla vehicles) has been making ATV style electric vehicles for some time with promise that a water sport vehicle was coming. Well, it's here. There are a lot of questions I have as an armchair boat designer and engineer, not the least of which is how do make an all electric power plant safe in the water, but for now, let's see what Nikola is saying about their new toy.

Not much. But on my concerns about safety, Nikola seems to be touting the IP68 standard of waterproofing. This waterproofing standard is not really made for things like wetbikes, but more for small devices like mobile phones and requires a device be able to handle being fully immersed in up to 1.5m (a smidgen under 5 feet) of water. So the Wav is rated about the same as your Galaxy S10 for operation under water. Of course, that's just fine for the occasional roll-over and usage and I'm guessing that Nikola is banking on their design never sinking below the waterline.

Another point feature is "Instant Torque". That's an interesting angle. Instant torque is a feature of all electric motors. In actuality all electric motors exhibit maximum torque at zero velocity (which is why train locomotives tend to use electric motors powered by generators driven by diesel engines). So I suppose it's reasonable to equate that to "instant". But what does that mean for the performance of the wetbike? Answer: That depends. There's nothing inherently performance enhancing about having maximum available torque at the prop (or impeller in this case). It's can be an advantage, but many other factors would need to be examined in the design of the propulsion to determine any specific performance boost. But that's a completely different discussion.

The Wav apparently goes full digital for display with a twelve inch 4K dashboard but from the image below it looks like you could watch a movie or something.

And then there's my favorite, the front LED headlamp (not a bad idea), and the rear taillights. Taillights? Do they work like brake lights or somethings?

There are no other details regarding performance, run time, charge time or pricing at this time.

But you say hey! Why so snarky? I mean these guys are doing it aren't they? Sure, but I think you're going to have to bring a lot more to the table then just an electric power plant, better storage and a curious hull, to get people to buy these things. Take a lesson from Tesla, Nikola. Early adopters want a compelling reason to go electric. Elon Musk gave them super-cruise and auto-pilot with brain melting performance. What does the Wav provide but novelty and dubious performance enhancements? I wish them luck though, I really do, but the consumer is king on this battlefield.

www.nikolamotor.com/wav

How Much Electricity Can Bagnell Dam Produce?

This is a detailed analysis of the power generating capabilities of Bagnell Dam given known operational parameters.  What I've done is to analyze the performance of the dam, based on licensed flow rates, energy sales, efficiency analysis and the geometry of the dam itself.

The analysis avoids anything above high school algebra so it shouldn't be too hard to follow, but it is rather detailed.  In the end, we discover that the dam design matches well to flow rates for the Osage river basin but within licensed flow rates is still in fact capable of producing over 10% more energy than it currently does.

On a personal note, this took me far longer to do than I thought it would.  I wish I had paid more attention in my civil engineering class.

How Much Electricity Can Bagnell Dam Produce?

How much does Bagnell Dam weigh?

Bagnell Dam is what is known as a gravity type dam, meaning it is designed to impound water by shear size and weight.  Others, such as the Hoover dam, utilize load bearing shapes, typically curved, to reduce overall mass.

Bagnell Dam was built using 553,000 cubic yards of concrete, and although there is no fixed number for converting concrete volume into mass (due to the different types of concrete) a rough rule of thumb is 1cu.yd concrete = 2 tons of weight.

Therefore, 553,000cu.yds=1,106,000tons

As officially stated, we also have totals for the remaining structure:

Reinforcing steel (rebar) at 2,000 tons
Structural steel at 1,500 tons
Gates, trash racks and guides at 2,100 tons
Machinery for hydroelectric operations at 1,500 tons

For a grand total of 1,113,100 tons, or about 2.23 billion pounds!  Now that is a chunk of concrete. By comparison though, Hoover Dam weighs 6.6 million tons, or about 13.2 billion pounds, despite its mass reducing curved design which distributes the majority of the lateral load to the canyon walls.

Update: April 2017 - Work should begin soon on additional post tension anchors and 66 million pounds (about 33,000 cubic yards) of concrete.  That's a lot of concrete by any measure but only represents about 3% of the current weight.  It's hard to imagine that relatively small additional weight would make a significant difference.  The addition of 68 post tension anchors would seem to provide a greater impact insuring the dam never moves.

Marine Technologies - Phantom Details

One of my favorite boats over the years. This thing is just beautiful. The "Phantom" was built out by Marine Technologies in Wentzville Missouri. More details available in this PDF.  Marine Technologies - Phantom Details