A) It is admittedly using stored energy - the propellers are spun by the wheels, which are spinning due to the vehicle's forward motion. I suspect that they may have come up with a clever trick to manage a burst of speed before slowing down back below the speed of the wind. The treadmill demo video shows the model speeding up, then slowing down.
B) I'm not sure how long the temporary burst of speed would last on a larger model; I'd prefer an engineer coming up with that. My WAG would have that period be rather less than an hour.
I'm reminded of perpetual motion scams, especially by someone creating a login to start defending them and demanding what would convince someone. Trying to put skeptics on the defensive and trying to force them to disprove the remarkable claim put forth is a classic shtick.
And I think the perpetual motion bit is fair - if we take the treadmill video on its face, this is a vehicle that, in still air, would go uphill under its own lack of power - and even accelerate for a while after an initial push. This has nothing to do with apparent wind velocity.
B) I'm not sure how long the temporary burst of speed would last on a larger model; I'd prefer an engineer coming up with that. My WAG would have that period be rather less than an hour.
I'm reminded of perpetual motion scams, especially by someone creating a login to start defending them and demanding what would convince someone. Trying to put skeptics on the defensive and trying to force them to disprove the remarkable claim put forth is a classic shtick.
And I think the perpetual motion bit is fair - if we take the treadmill video on its face, this is a vehicle that, in still air, would go uphill under its own lack of power - and even accelerate for a while after an initial push. This has nothing to do with apparent wind velocity.