One advantage of turbo-electric drive was that the substitution of flexible electric cables for bulky steam-lines allowed the motors to be mounted further to the stern of the ship; this reduced vibration and weight by shortening the propeller shafts.
Using electric vehicles to carry bulky but light loads – such as fashion goods – is one way of making them viable, he adds.
Such batteries can also propel an electric car, but they are bulky and, compared with gasoline, pack less punch.
But China's ascendancy is in manufactured goods, from shoes and furniture to fax machines and electric fans, and these tend to be bulky products for which shipping and logistics account for a considerable portion of the final price.
Chinese boffins have engineered air-conditioning units with (bulkier) aluminium heat exchangers.Aluminium can also be used for electric cables but much more has to be used for the same effect.
Designers don't have to sculpt around bulky engines and steering columns; once the power plant is electric, the mechanical linkages that clutter today's cars can be replaced with electrical and electronic ones, similar to the controls on an airplane.
Four years later, with his frame bulkier and his legs increasingly vulnerable to muscle strains, the electric moments were rare.
For another, because it needs no bulky traction batteries, it would be lighter and cheaper still than an electric vehicle.
Indeed, there's nothing groundbreaking in electric design: a more compact head, perhaps, or a bulkier handle.
His prototype electric alternative resembled modern razors, but it was attached to a bulky external motor: self-contained shavers appeared in 1928.
