This thing is really bad news for balls.

To start a standard car you would have to stomp on this thing how many times? A hundred? It is an interesting concept, but I question the real-world value.

Not a bad idea, but for $270 I might go with my current solution: carry my cellphone with me.

I always carry a $60 battery box with me. It's one of the best investments I have made to solve the dead battery problem in my car and in others that I come across. As a matter of fact, I had to jump my neighbor this morning. Oooohhh... Kinky!

I can also power campsite goodies on it which makes it a bonus.

Sure, get AAA and carry your cell phone. But don't call me when you are in the middle of nowhere without a cell tower in sight. Oh wait, you can't. Can you?

Get a battery box. And having to stomp on it 100 times is a good thing. Perhaps you might actually get some exercize.

If you could really start a car with 100 stomps, that would be pretty friggen sweet - honestly... 100? That would take what... 2 minutes? I know it's some work, but you don't really plan on having your battery die all the time, do you? Plus you can charge up from AC or stomp for camp-side electricity too. Sounds pretty good. Except I suspect that from a dead battery, it probably takes more than 100 stomps.

100 stomps sounds reasonable...you don't have to recharge the whole battery, I expect, just provide enough juice to roll the starter motor over a few times so the pistons can start firing on their own.

I wonder if you can use it "directly" -- with one foot hanging out the car door doing the stomping, and one arm turning the key (or, i suppose, two people involved)-- so the starter is powered directly by the device, instead of adding charge to a battery that might be dead due to an internal short (instead of just a "left the headlights on" type thing).

If you have a smaller car you can just push start it.