SASKATOON9999,
The thrust generated by the APU on any aircraft is in the tenths of a percent of thrust increase vs. the engines. The extra thrust would not even add one passenger worth of capable MTOW.
Bmused55,
You have no idea what your talking about. Ron Woodard (EX-Boeing BAS President) has a company that makes electric motors that generate 500 horsepower and weigh only 75 pounds. Tugs have big tires for a reason. The skinny small tires on the nose gear of aircraft are not ideal for pulling that much weight. You need a lot of torque to even get the thing moving.
One of the bigger challenges is how to transfer the power to the ground. Imagine the complex gearing system required that would need to be built into the front gear. Gear are already draggy enough. Imagine the cost of a failure of the system where it locks the front gear from rotating. I am sure you can remember the pictures of that Air Canada 767 that ran out of fuel and busted the front gear on landing.
Technological advances are always tough in this industry. But, like I said above..... This one looks good in theory, but once you get down to the nitty gritty of airline operations it all falls apart.
