There are many technical solutions to convert the vibrations of the moving car into electric energy, which issued patents (US 20120303193, US 8874291 B2, …). See also http://www.cheshire-innovation.com/energy_saving_car_suspension.htm

Basically, you are asking for a perpetual motion machine, so no it is not possible. Themodynamics forbid such a machine.

You have to bear in mind that ALL energy convertion equipments have effeciencies lower than 100% so they use some energy  in converting the energy from one form to another (e.g.wind kinetic energy to electricity, or chemical energy to thermal energy for gasoline).  For example, a horizontal axis wind turbine has a theoretical efficiency limit (Betz limit) of just under 60%. A high fraction of wind loading on a turbine just generates thrust, which would actually add to the vehicle energy consumption, even more so considering the internal combustion engine low efficiency in the first place.

A wind powered car is possible at low speeds, but the aerodynamic drag soon becomes quite high (see racing aerolus for more on that http://www.windenergyevents.com/).

Otherwise, kinetic energy recuperation on braking is one possible way to reduce fuel consumption, as is thermal and kinetic energy recuperation from exhaust gases (as used in recent F1 cars).

The only external energy source I could see right now would be solar.

Best regards,

Laurent

a small toy car, powering it with the Moisture Mill and were successful in getting the car to roll on its own, powered only by evaporation. 

t may be possible to design engines that use the mechanical energy stored in spores to propel a full-sized vehicle. Such an engine, if achieved, would require neither fuel to burn nor an electrical battery.

Dear Arba,

Regarding your question, I am attaching one of our paper illustrating electricity generation from human motion. Do not hesitate to contact me if you need additional material regarding this issue.

Regards,

Mohamed

Dear researchers, I really appreciate your valuable contribution to my question. I am still looking forward to other different opinions of course.

Dear Mohamed, thanks for the material you have sent me and I will contact you if I need additional material.

Dear Samuel,

Any load that is added to a moving vehicle draws power from the engine itself. For example, you turn the head lamp. It is supplied from the battery. The battery discharges. The battery is charged again from the dynamo. Dynamo derives its power from the engine which in turn consumes fuel.

Now think of a situation in which the headlamp is directly connected to the dynamo, instead of battery. Now if you turn on headlamp, it derives the power from the dynamo which in turn derives power from the engine.

Same is the case, when you try to generate energy/power from a moving automobile. Whatever the energy/power you try to generate from the moving machine, that energy is met from the engine only. The KE that you are talking about is produced by the engine only. If you mount a wind turbine on the vehicle, it converts the KE of the wind into electricity. Remember the KE of the automoblle is due to its speed, which in turn is supplied by the engine. I mean you are adding an additional load in the form of a wind turbine and its output power on the engine only.

But yes there is one chance. Supposing the vehicle is speeding down a gradient, you need not supply energy to it from the engine. In addition, the vehicle will have its own KE which you can use and convert to any form you want.

Yet another chance, whenever you are applying brakes, you are dissipating the KE of the vehicle in its brake drum. This energy, instead of being wasted as heat in the brake drum, can be converted into any other useful form. This method is called regenerative-braking and it is used by many traction systems having tracks with lots of gradients.  

There is lot of research going on in this area. Definitely we can propel automobiles which work as electric vehicle with wind energy propulsion system as one of the power source for charging batteries. Please also see

http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/running-a-car-on-wind-energy/

it is possible, but the amount of energy generated will be as an extra drag force facing the moving part. The extra drag force is greater than the generated energy. So the final gain will be minus. However, they are using the braking force to generate energy for restating the vehicle again...

you might also watch the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC0pHkstuF8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC0pHkstuF8

For generating energy, one always require an energy source. 

Most cars today use fossil fuel for that purpose.

Battery cars can recover part of the braking effort, but that is always less than what you've put in, the latter supplied the utility (electrical charging stations).

If, you are asking whether you can generate power from the motion of the car - yes, but you are going to produce less than what is put in. Firstly, you have to produce enough traction to overcome frictional losses and secondly, you are going to lose some efficiency in the generation process. Any proposal suggesting otherwise (that it can be self perpetuating) is called perpetual motion and not possible,

Laurent Cormier has fairly replied your question.  I just add a few words concerning the energy balance (to which a special attention would have to be more systematically paid !). When adding any new equipment to your moving car/object ("vehicle") you increase the weight of the whole system then inducing hereby an extra energy consumption. Not ignoring that you also have to take into account the energy consummed during the manufacturing steps (from the factory-door to the "vehicle-door"s). 

Hi Samuel.

Obviously, it is not possible to self propel the car, since it violates the second law of thermodynamics.

But you can estimate the impact of a small Renewable Energy Source (in example a PV panel) to help charging the car battery.

Please check at pag. 56 (section 9.2.1) of this very interesting work

http://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/vehicles/cars/docs/guidelines_en.pdf

The positive impact of the PV is low and reduced by the negative impact of its weight. The benefit is in the order of a few grams of CO2/km saved.

Have a nice day!

Alberto

Laurent Cormier has fairly replied your question. I am to add only that whenever we will add some turbine or device to the running car or vehicle, it will oppose the motion and convert that energy. Accordingly, the vehicle will consume more fuel. However, an arrangement can be suggested which can generate little bit energy during braking (regenerative braking process)  Otherwise during running if we make any arrangement that will consume extra fuel. We know the basics of sciences i.e. energy can never be generated nor destroyed.

Whatever amount of energy you generate will have to come from fuel. That is the 1st law of thِermodynamics.

There are many technical solutions to convert the vibrations of the moving car into electric energy, which issued patents (US 20120303193, US 8874291 B2, …). See also http://www.cheshire-innovation.com/energy_saving_car_suspension.htm

Dear Vladimir, thank you for your contribution, it is really helpful and important concerning in increasing efficiency in EV and HEV technology.

Dear Samuel,

The concept is that the energy is converted from a form to the other and this conversion occurs with an efficiency less than. The cars are thermodynamic engines that are well studied. Yes some of the lost energy is due to the friction between air mass and the car. The air here is a resistive force for the car motion. It is so that the designers spent lot of efforts to decrease this frictional force. If you put any type of propellers on the car the air resistance will increase and so at the end effect the motion of the propellers will be drawn from the engine.

Concerning secondary energy harvesting from the car during its engine operation there are some methods:

One can make full use of the waste thermal energy in the hot outlet gas. 

-It can be converted directly to electricity by thermoelectric effect.

- The pressure on the body of the car can be used to generate electricity by piezo electric effect.

How far this is feasible and economic is a question of investigations

wish you success.

The electricity generation potential being certainly high, we have however to question the final resulting energy balance  when the large amount of energy embedded in such technologies is  taken into account. I am afraid this is part of a dream, something like any perpetual motion machine.