if we took an electric car and put energy turbines in the wheels would it be possible to power the car without having to charge it up every 5 minutes

No.

 

The generators on the wheels would slow the car down, meaning the motor would have to work harder, resulting in a net energy loss. You CAN (and cars do) take energy to charge batteries whilst breaking, you will ALWAYS loose energy overall though.

In other words, all you'd be doing is using your engine to run the generator, rather than using it to drive the car. That doesn't give you any extra energy.

Much the same reason that we need to keep applying energy to keep the generators turning in a power plant. Otherwise, you could just crank them up by hand and they would continue generating electricity forever. Unfortunately, generating electricity slows them down.

 

However, what we can do is use the generators instead of brakes on the car, and this does save energy.

What is an "energy turbine"? Did you mean a dynamo or some other generator?

 

I suggest you briefly study the 1st law of thermodynamics.

most cars a running an alternator, this is normaly belt driven from the engine and draws a couple of Hp to keep the battery charged. putting generators on the wheel would just requir the engine to work harder. However theres nothing stopping you regaining some of the enregy lost in braking. F1 are currently looking into KERS (kinetic energy recovery systems) as a way store the kinetic energy lost in braking into chemical energy in batterys for a later time