Slashdot Mirror
Inductive Charging For EVs To Be Tested In Berlin
cylonlover writes "The increasing availability of more practical electric vehicles has seen inductive charging technology attract the attention of those looking for for a cable-free way to charge EV batteries. German automakers are taking the opportunity to put inductive charging of EVs to a real-world test as part of the 'Effizienzhaus-Plus mit Elektromobilität' project. The project is a German government-backed initiative to build an energy-efficient house that generates more electricity than it consumes, with the surplus being fed back into the grid or used to charge the occupants' electric vehicles."
I suppose when you only need a few watts of energy for a cellphone or something, I can understand the use of inductive charging. But if you lower your efficiency by a significant amount in a single step while charging a car (a few dozen kWh), and this is multiplied across a population of EV owning people, this is potentially adding a lot of unnecessary strain to the electric grid.
Is it so hard just to plug the dang thing in? We don't have tubeless fuel transfer do we?
Who would? I'd much rather be caught alive in one.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Who's the idiot who decided to put 'inductive charging' and 'energy-efficient' in the same paragraph? If you're trying to be efficient, inductive charging is the LAST thing you want to do. If you really are that opposed to having to plug in, come up with some innovative solution using contacts embedded in the garage like cordless phone cradles. Or do something like bumper cars. Though I bet people wouldn't like the thought of having exposed high voltage contacts...but I'm sure they could figure out a way to make it safe. Hell, even a plug on the front of the car that drives into a receptacle. Inductive is just stupid.
Wikipedia cites an 86% efficiency for inductive charging. I would bet that efficiency is hurt as this scales up from a cell phone to a car. Other than helping to improve EV adoption by making it more convenient, why would we want such a system?
Given the current costs of an EV, plus the length of time it already takes to charge, it seems there are other areas of research that would be better focused on. This technology only makes an EV more expensive to own and would probably take longer to charge with. People seem to do just fine connecting a short, thick, clunky hose to their cars now.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_charging#Disadvantages)
As a RealGeek(tm), I'm fascinated by this report and its possibilities. But I wonder why fluffs like Facebook are valued billions more valuable than something useful like this. Not that there's anything wrong with Geeking to make said billions -- this is a criticism of the customer base.
Smart fortwo EV is doubleplus good.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
The project is a German government-backed initiative to build an energy-efficient house that generates more electricity than it consumes
Problem, thermodynamics?
I rarely respond to comments. Also, don't ask for clarifications: a brain and Google are faster, believe me!
Who's 'Inductive'?
and
Why are they charging for EVs to be tested in Berlin?
People are too stupid to plug their cars in, I mean, connecting something to the car to make it go? It just baffles the mind! That's why we all fuel up by driving into a pool of petrol and letting osmosis take its course!
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
We are running out of Oil fast and you worry about CO2 pollutions. Building cars which requires a vast array of batteries which are built by yet another limited resource. An unsustainable solution to a problem that will be fixed shortly due to completion of the oil.
They should just build that stuff into the roads so we can drive our cars like bumper cars. Charge while you drive.
That is the real interesting part. Simply park your car in the required spot and the house can pull back electricity if needed, or even sell it back on the market if allowed (and at a higher price).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Given its performance in crash testing, you may find yourself dead should you crash one.
They're trying this out with some electric buses in Chattanooga, Tennessee: CARTA's electric buses to charge on the go
I can tell you the meaning of life,
but you have to promise not to laugh.
Given its performance in crash testing, you may find yourself dead should you crash one.
Last crash test I saw for it was it surviving a head-on with a wall @ 60MPH and basically bouncing off with almost no structural damage. Source for your crash tests?
nissan leaf inductive charging pad is available as an extra here in japan.
just roll over it in the garage and go about your buisness...
Given its performance in crash testing, you may find yourself dead should you crash one.
Last crash test I saw for it was it surviving a head-on with a wall @ 60MPH and basically bouncing off with almost no structural damage.
[Citation needed]. No, seriously, I'm not being antagonistic, I'm interested.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Why don't they just embed the charging station in the ground? Electric car pulls into parking space, once turned off it lowers a contact panel to the ground and sends a few low voltage wake signals to the charging station. Charging station wakes up determines which of the small charging panels the wake signal came from and then begins to charge the battery. Heck if you wanted to get fancy you could even add more communication between the car and the charging station so the charging stations knows what the charge rate for the car is so you can have the inevitable 50 different cars with 50 different specs on the charge rate and they would all work. The only problem I can really foresee is the charging panels getting dirty, something flammable getting caught between the contact panels and the issue of rain, but a room full of engineers should be able to solve these problems, or at least make the idea more complicated for no reason what so ever.
SMART crash test on youtube - although not the fortwo, and nearly six years old.
Still impressive...
Where do you think all that energy goes when you decelerate from 60-0 in under a second. Oh, that's right, into you, when you die...
dumbass.
I like the idea of the "smart cards" idea, but just to change it imagine major roads with inductance grids under the road, the car charges as you drive (sort of like a bumpercar) and the amount you use on certain roads is collected by the smart card and then debited from your account. You still use the batteries to travel over roads that dont contain the grid.... but this does rely on Millions of $$$ being spent.. so the cost to charge your EV on such a system would be impractical... but the idea would fix/solve alot of problems...
No it isn't. For one the test was mostly show. Without accelerometers a crash test is of limited value. But visually, the car holds together but it is so rigid the passengers would have to take almost the full force of the acceleration of the impact. There is no real crumple which is what helps reduce the G forces on the passengers in bigger nosed cars if they crash. Even the windshield of the Smart Car crashed in the test lab didn't break. And when they crashed a Smart Car into concrete at 70 mph the driver's door still functioned. Given that the door basically starts at the front of the car, this thing didn't crumple hardly at all. As unscientific as the tests in that video are even the presenters noted this (I transcribed a short excerpt on it):
The downside of the shells rigidity is that there is a greater potential for the crash forces to be transmitted through to the passengers. Ideally you ought to slow them down as slowly as possible.
If the people have to take the acceleration of a crash at any sort of speed, they will die. But maybe the resale value of the car would still be good. Personally I wouldn't feel comfortable riding in one at any sort of highway speed. But what am I saying??? I ride a motorbike. Never mind... I still wouldn't feel comfortable.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Have to agree here, cars that do well in collisions tend to compress as much as possible to dissipate energy, so a smart cart bouncing off a wall at 100km an hour probably isn't solid evidence.
2) It's cool.
Reasons not to do this:
1) 86% efficiency for a load of 10's of kW stinks. For 10kW input power, I get 8.6kW into the car. The missing 1.4kW heats the garage. Note that the efficiency could probably be improved, but this would cost more, and be bigger.
2) It will add a lot of cost. Are you willing to pay a couple of extra $k for this?
3) It has EMI and safety issues galore. You don't want to accidentally dump a few kilowatts into your kid's trike, or your lawn mower. This can be solved, but it will add cost, and even one mishap, or even an incident where a know-nothing jury pins the blame on the system (right or wrong), will cost millions.
This anonymous comment will probably never see the light of day, but I have to get it out here anyway - the GM-designed and built EV1 was inductively charged and it worked great.
see smart fortwo
:P
vs BMW 5 series
not too much of a difference, except that you have higher chances to kill pedestrians in a BMW
smart uses some tech to compensate for the lack of crumple. ;)
Basically some slightly-time-delayed absorber built-into the chassis.
The german word for it is "Tilgermasse" couldn't find a proper english term for it.
A lot of ppl fear driving smarts but being more endangered in a crash is just FUD.
Especially crumple seems to be a fetish of US car makers after their historical ignorance of it when they built massive chunks of metal that behaved the way you fear smarts would do.
It's probably already a tradition to lack behind in the automotive industry.
Swap the batteries for goodness sake!
- make it easier to swap the batteries!
1) The phyisical process of changing batteries needs to be easier
2) The possible trade of poor quality batteries for good quality needs to be addressed
^ these are more organisation issues than technical. If you have an EV you can already set this up yourself for a regular long journey to work. You stow your batteries along the route with people who charge them for you for a fee.
Unfortunately, you have to own a number of sets of batteries because trading batteries right now afaik is unworkable. But it is possible for basic routes.
A blog I run for the wealth
To Euro NCAP: Quote Wikipedia: The European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) is a European car safety performance assessment programme based in Brussels (Belgium) and founded in 1997 by the Transport Research Laboratory for the UK Department for Transport and backed by several European governments. So I take their words over your evidence. Because you know "We builds se kars!
The german word for it is "Tilgermasse" couldn't find a proper english term for it.
Try "Tuned mass" or "absorption mass".
But, Smarts still aren't safe. They're city cars, and for that they're more than capable enough, but at highway speeds they're basically death traps. I honestly have no idea why the hell anybody buys them in the US... I have no idea the relative economics of the vehicles in Europe, but in the US, you can get a car for the same price with equivalent gas mileage and more space, with more power, that's safer at highways speeds. I don't know, maybe people like parking sideways in parking spots? They think it makes them look "environmentally conscious" at half the price of a Prius?
The "Tilgermasse" is a suspended weight designed to stop vibration. It has nothing to do with crash protection.
but in the US, you can get a car for the same price with equivalent gas mileage and more space, with more power, that's safer at highways speeds.
The issue is that the US version of the smart is a gimped heap of crap riding on the name and reputation of the EU version without getting remotely similar performance.
Combined fuel economy:
US smart (premium gasoline) - 36 MPG, 6.5L/100km
EU smart (premium gasoline) - 50 MPG, 4.7L/100km
EU smart (diesel) - 69MPG, 3.4L/100km
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
"Didn't crumple"? Are we watching the same video? look at 2:29 and tell me that again. The front of the Smart is nothing but crumple as they stow the engine in the back.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
but in the US, you can get a car for the same price with equivalent gas mileage and more space, with more power, that's safer at highways speeds.
The issue is that the US version of the smart is a gimped heap of crap riding on the name and reputation of the EU version without getting remotely similar performance.
Combined fuel economy:
US smart (premium gasoline) - 36 MPG, 6.5L/100km
EU smart (premium gasoline) - 50 MPG, 4.7L/100km
EU smart (diesel) - 69MPG, 3.4L/100km
You're aware that the US and British have different gallons, right?
So that 36 MPG US is equivalent to ~45MPG British... Which, oh, hey, that's not that far off... within range of different mileage calculation cycles...
Again. It's fine in the city, but... I'd rather have, say, a Ford Fiesta or a Nissan Versa for approximately the same money...
86% is your typical switch-mode efficiency. Some reach in to the low 90's with synchronous rectification but the main thing is that all chargers have to translate voltages, ie: Plug-in versions do the inductive voltage translation internally.
Using superconductors for the inductor windings would improve it.
You're aware that the US and British have different gallons, right?
Yes, and all figures are in US gallons. And even if I did goof that up, litres and kilometres are still the same regardless of country.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Oh fuck please. One foot or so of crumple as compared to 4 or 5 feet in a regular car. That is a huge difference in energy dissipation. And if you can't figure that out, it is pointless saying anything more to you. You either can't or don't want to get it.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
For God's sake, how hard can it be to install a RCD in the things, as soon as the current goes somewhere it shouldn't, it's shutdown and the dumb user the standing there until the garage guy comes out to help after seeing an error on his panel.
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2603836&cid=38587742
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2603836&cid=38587742