Brilliant, but thwarted...
Like the unfortunate Mr Babbage, LDV's era lacked the technology to implement many of his notions effectively. As power sources, all LDV had were people and beasts of burden, literally a couple of horse-power-hours max. Besides, he seemed unable to stick to any project long enough to see it through to completion. He'd get bored and/or frustrated, then leave...
One tangential example: The Wright Brothers used bicycle technology to build a series of bigger, stronger and better gliders, tweaking these 'kites' until they could control them. They built a wind tunnel to check established aerofoil theory, found that was wrong and went from there. Their almost-forgotten mechanic built them a remarkable internal combustion engine with unheard-of power/weight. Even so, their Flyer needed a catapult launch, and still barely flew...