Power Package: Mansfield company pursues patents for a new transportation power source

In a metal-sided garage along Interstate 44 east of Springfield sits a modified minivan that mechanical whiz Daren Luedtke says will revolutionize modern transportation.

Luedtke, chairman of Mansfield-based Luedtke Enterprises Inc., has retrofitted the van with a variable-speed transmission that runs on a battery-powered electric motor. The van also houses a specially designed computer that monitors efficiency and stores performance data that Luedtke considers proof that his patent-pending technology has set the stage for mass production of electric vehicles.

That category goes well beyond minivans, because the transmission can be adapted for vehicles as small as mopeds or all-terrain vehicles to those as large as diesel tractor-trailers or bulldozers, Luedtke said. LEI also is experimenting with wind turbines.

“There’s so many markets for (the technology),” he said. “Anything that moves, this transmission can be applied to – if it’s scaled right.”

The revelation

About five years ago, Luedtke sold his logging and welding businesses in northern Minnesota and moved to the Ozarks after finding property in rural Wright County on eBay. The Wisconsin native and high school dropout said he was writing a patent for an electromagnetic automobile transmission when he had an epiphany: A variable-speed pulley system would greatly simplify the design.

Luedtke’s research revealed that no one had patented his idea, so he immediately filed for patent protection in 159 countries. He developed the new transmission with existing technology from Texas-based Coyote Electronics Inc., which supplied the vehicle’s electromagnetic drive, and Cleveland-based Speed Selector Inc., which engineered and manufactured the pulleys.

Luedtke and Edward House, executive vice president of LEI and one of 10 employees, showcased the electric minivan at the Ozark International Raceway in Rogersville earlier this month, and on Oct. 9, the duo furnished 14 auto manufacturers worldwide, including Chrysler and Honda, with data about their prototype vehicle.

House, a 24-year-old accounting major at Drury University, said LEI plans to remain a research and development firm that could sell the patent-pending technology or make it available to customers through licensing agreements. Either way, he and Luedtke, 47, envision a payoff in the billions.

“I’m supposed to count all the money when it comes in,” House joked.

Prototype partners

Luedtke’s quest to build a prototype vehicle for the variable-speed transmission led him to Texan Dewey Boggs, president and CEO of Coyote Electronics.

“When he found my product, he was really hyped, because it was just what he was looking for to fill in the blanks,” Boggs said.

Coyote manufactures a magnetically coupled variable-speed drive that serves as the transmission for the electric minivan, said Boggs, who noted that his company’s products are typically used in heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems.

“We made a few modifications to adapt it to automotive, and we have some ongoing designs that we’re working on now that will even streamline it a little more to get the weight down and increase efficiency,” he said.

Luedtke also has partnered with Speed Selector to develop the pulley system needed to exponentially ramp up the electric motor’s output for vehicles with more torque. Geoff Howson, the Ohio company’s vice president of sales, said Luedtke’s detailed schematic for the transmission was impressive.

“We get a lot inquiries over the course of a year from people that are looking into all kinds of experimental pieces of equipment,” he said. “The problem with Daren – and the problem with a lot of guys – is that he didn’t have any capital, and he was trying to get this idea to some sort of fruition.”

Howson said Speed Selector owner George Wick agreed to develop the pulley system for Luedtke in exchange for a 4.5 percent equity position in the patent. Speed Selector’s engineers designed and built the component, which retails for about $20,000, in three months.

Big plans with electric van

The white 1989 Dodge Caravan in Luedtke’s shop is missing its hood. In its place is a protruding apparatus powered by 16 six-volt, lead-acid batteries assembled in the rear of the minivan.

“It’s a museum piece,” Luedtke said of the prototype’s clunkiness. “It’s like the Wright brothers and their first airplane.”

The batteries weigh a whopping 1,200 pounds, but they can power the minivan’s 34-horsepower motor for several hundred miles under optimal conditions, Luedtke said. Recharging the batteries takes between four and eight hours, but lithium-ion batteries bring the promise of substantially shorter recharging times as well as longer battery life, he added.

Powering the transmission with energy from regenerative braking, which sends power to the battery as hybrid cars do, is another possibility for future models, Luedtke said.

House said the minivan, which was built with about $200,000 in private equity, is most efficient when cruising at higher speeds. At 55 mph, for example, the transmission only draws about 44 amperes. “That’s unheard of,” he said.

House and Luedtke are eyeing Europe and Southeast Asia as test markets for electric vehicles equipped with the variable-speed transmissions, and partner Boggs is likewise optimistic.

“We envision that – down the road – this is probably going to be the electric vehicle for the world if we find the right kind of player that’s big enough to do the volume,” he said.