Slashdot Mirror
Volvo's Electric Roads Concept Points To Battery-Free EV Future
Zothecula writes "While quick charging technology installed at strategic points along a planned route might be a good fit for inner city buses, it's not going to be of much use to electric vehicles that stop infrequently. Volvo sees our future long-haul trucks and buses drawing the juice they need from the road itself, making large onboard batteries a thing of the past. 'The two power rails/lines run along the road's entire length. One is a positive pole, and the other is used to return the current. The lines are sectioned so that live current is only delivered to a collector mounted at the rear of, or under, the truck if an appropriate signal is detected. As an additional safety measure, the current flows only when the vehicle is moving at speeds greater than 60 km/h (37 mph). "The vehicle is equipped with a radio emitter, which the road segments can sense," explains Volvo's Per-Martin Johnansson. "If an electric vehicle passes a road segment with a proper encrypted signal, then the road will energize the segments that sense the vehicle.'"
So the tax payers will be funding roads with this technology for the use of very few users?
Although recovering electricity from piezoelectric roads that also power the cars driving on them might be cool too.
You go change it.
I'm not going to change it, I'll get fried.
We are stopped, no juice.
Yeah, right. Then you change the tire.
No Way!
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
looks impractical, to be honest. might be suitable for some routes, but for those you might just as well put over the road electric rails(some busses in russia do this, or at least did kinda like tram on rubber wheels). they claim this system is used on some trams too, not sure if those trams are on rails though which makes it a lot simpler and reliable.
for example, what about winter?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
You need an appropriate device on your car to activate the power to the rails on your section of the road. This gives a great opportunity to track your vehicle, where it is, what speed it's travelling, how much energy it's using and then send you a bill as a sort of dynamic road toll for the use of the road, a bill for the energy you used and the fines for exceeding the speed limit all without actually having an officer present.
Wouldn't mind it, though, if the system were intelligent enough that I could tell the car where I wanted to stop and then it could take care of the details of getting me there and wake me up from my nap once we get within a few miles of the destination. If the car's driving while I'm napping then they can send any moving violations to the company that built the car and its software.
trains
Think you've got people complaining about EM sicknesses now? Just wait till they find out about this. Power drain and costs per mile are going to put it too far out of reach (look around at the crumbling road infrastructure we have now and ask yourself if you also want a few hundred amps going through there, too...)
Volvo, the truck company (The one we are talking about), spun off Volvo, the car company, a long time ago.
complete with all the limitation thereof.
While quick charging technology installed at strategic points along a planned route might be a good fit for inner city buses, it's not going to be of much use to electric vehicles that stop infrequently.
Ya, that sort of thing hasn't really worked out for petrol-type vehicles at all. If only there were places I could buy gasoline (or electricity) along the way... Oh well, one can dream.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Road maintenance is already a problem on many a government's budget. I have the impression that adding a complex system of energy delivery which includes encryption and selective power-up seems too complex.
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
Wow, just like in Quarantine?
and go full inductive?
This would be a great opportunity for the politicians who have been trying to tax road usage by the mile, because then the power bill would be a function of your mileage and you can just stick a tax on that and you're done.
"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
Since location would be implicit, this would be great information for the feds to use in order to prevent terrorism!
while i agree finding affordable solutions to retrofit existing vehicles for alternative energy should be a near-term priority, I detest the idea of the long-haul truck as being anything sustainable. we have an entire infrastructure of bought-and-paid-for rail that stretches across the nation to deliver goods. its already partially electric by virtue of its diesel to electric locomotive propulsion system, and could be almost trivial to convert to a hybrid electric system that returns energy to the grid. eventually going full electric would be largely feasible and we'd take some of the largest polluters off the roads in the process.
volvo might use this technology to create rechargeable cities. for example: san diego is a charging city, but once on the freeway you're "wireless" and running off the battery. upon entering say, downtown los angeles, you're in a charging city and running off the grid. grid fees are integrated with parking fees, etc..
Good people go to bed earlier.
You could call them "rails" or something... and connect multiple trucks together when they were all going the same direction.
Brilliant!
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
An interesting concept but it seems very unlikely this will be a prefered solution in 30 years as battery technology improves.
There's nothing new under the sun.
They want to start with the trucking industry. That means they will have to remove each and every tractor (the driving part for you non trucking people) from the road and replace them with a suitable tractor. This tractor will need to have the current engine for long hauls and the electric for inner city travel as they currently perform both. Or you will need to build transfer point just outside of cities where the truckers can unload, transfer to smaller hybrid trucks to utilize this. This would be fantastic for the trucking industry/ drivers which is why it will never be done.
"Remember, politicians and diapers should be changed often and for the same reason."
Wasn't there some scheme a few years ago someone came up with that used the concept of charging cars by putting magnets under the roads so that as the cars passed over them it would induce an electric current in coils contained in the undercarriage? Seems like that would be a lot safer and cost-effective than rolling out electric rails, and wouldn't require physical contact.
1:1 scale slot cars FTW
So F-Zero, basically.
F-Zero
http://www.retronintendoreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/F-Zero006.png
Keep telling yourself that. My turbobrick is a BAMF!
"Lame" - Galaxar
Current flows from the negative pole to the positive pole. It's just an accident of history how the two poles got named. It wasn't discovered until later that the particle (electron) is negative.
The price of freedom is eternal litigation.
This has been tried before. It's called a ground level power supply. Trams in Bordeaux use it. The sections are powered on and off in 8-meter sections. When a section is off, it's grounded. For safety, there are two levels of switching. The 8-meter sections each have their own power control box, and there's a second level of control which monitors a number of sections and will cut power for many sections if something is live that shouldn't be. The trams have battery backup so they can get through dead sections. Bordeaux only uses the system in their scenic historic area. Once out of that area, the trams raise pantographs to connect to overhead wire. Two other small cities in France have installed that system, but only short sections in the city center use that system. Dubai is putting in 14km of a similar system.
Drainage, water, and ice are big problems. (Not in Dubai, though.) So is cost. There's a lot of high-voltage switchgear involved.
So we're talking about Volvo, not Volvo. It's hard to see how AC got confused.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
One aspect of solar power is the question of where to put the collectors. Land area is expensive and in short supply around cities, and putting the collectors close to where the energy is needed makes better efficiency.
It occurred to me that we have lots of land in the medians between highways, many of which are enclosed by guard rails or Denver barriers. The road already has easements which could be used to run powerlines (metal conduits at ground level, no digging needed).
For example, highways in "fly over country" have long, unused stretches of median which could be tiled with solar collectors. With modern power conversion tech, these could add energy to integrated powerlines that run straight to the next city. (Adding guardrails as needed.)
Perhaps add a few liquid metal batteries for storage and load balancing.
Is it possible to get popular support and political will at the level that built the US federal highway system? The benefit from this infrastructure would be enormous.
I'm guessing this system meters which car used X amount of electricity and bills accordingly? You pay what you use, right? Or is this some sort of ploy to charge each tax payer a flat monthly fee across the board?
Life is not for the lazy.
Rails in the roads. Did anyone think to stop and say - "Wait a minute. What about when it snows?"
Just wait until they go into partnership with SAAB, either the aerospace or car company. Those Swedes.
You haven't driven a recent version of the S60, have you?
"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
There are so many issues with this idea, and believe me I love the electric car future. If I had the money to throw down for a Tesla I would do it in a heartbeat, but alas I bought a new car a couple years ago that gets 35MPG so I can't even justify that yet. Maybe in 4-6 years when I replace this car electric cars will start to become popular.
One: There has to be batteries still. There are power outages, and no one is going to buy into a system that will grind their business to a halt if they have to ship anything through an area without power. All the trucks and cars that need to park off of streets in dirt area for construction, etc. The list is near endless.
Two: Electrifying the roadway, seriously? The cost of doing that safely would be a major limiting factor. You can't worry about some kids playing in the road and getting killed because they touched some piece of metal. Not to mention they would need a way to track and block usage or the power companies won't buy into it. If someone can leech power from the road without paying that will be cause all sorts of investment problems. So this means you would really need to have computers on basically every street.
What if I want to go somewhere there is no infrastructure to power the car? What if I don't want my tax dollars going to the probably trillions of dollars necessary to install this everywhere? What if I don't think it's a good idea to have powered rails carrying hundreds (maybe thousands) of volts along major roads? If there's a glitch somewhere, then everyone on that road is stranded? I could go on. I think this is a really dumb idea. Focus on better, higher-density, longer-lifespan battery technology instead.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
with a proper encrypted signal
If Volvo has their way they will be sole provider of said service. Enough said...
If they go ahead and build this, Matel is going to sue them for patent infringement.
I think volvo, and most people, forget that the benefit of fuels (solid, liquid, or gaseous) is that they are very cheap to transport. Electricity, on the other hand, is insanely expensive to transport. Think about a 10% loss for every major hop. The middle of the road in a large city is likely 4 major hops from the power plant. That takes 100 down to 65. That's up to a 35% total loss.
That means generating more electricity -- a lot more electricity. There's no way to do that without huge environmental compromises. Wind turbines slow the wind, consume territory, look hideous, require huge maintenance, and make noise. Solar panels take up a huge about of territory, polute to manufacture, and require total replacement to upgrade.
On top of all of that, live current traveling across the city everywhere requires a level of infrastructure that simply doesn't exist. Roads tear, there's snow and ice and water and sand and debris. And pot holes, and pedestrians, and squirrels.
And you're going to make repairing the road that much more time consuming and costly? now every road construction crew needs specialized electricians just to fix the pavement?
Thanks for the solution based on more complicated and more specialized and more expensive infrastructure. I could have done that too. Hey! Let's just put electricity everywhere! That'll solve our electricity problem!
I'll do one better. Let's electrify the air itself. Very little, we don't want chain lightning. But just enough that it's there. And then we'll have these vaccuum suckers on all the cars, and as they move they'll suck in the air, and absorb the electricity that we'll store in the humidity itself. And we'll only electrify the air over highways. And somehow, it won't kill the billions of insects that get sucked up and electrified.
Hey volvo, how many insects are going to get fried during your electricity transfer? Will it be millions per minute per mile of road?
I was thinking slot cars. I had a set when I was a kid. Lots of fun.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
When I was a kid
Called them slot cars
A bullet may have your name on it, but artillery is addressed to " Whom It May concern"
So every single road needs power lines along it on both sides so tall trucks an cranes can't make a left or right turn anywhere ever. Then when the power goes out, you can't drive anywhere. Then it's one unbelievably large target for hacking and terrorism so no home electricity OR transportation. This is quite possibly the stupidest idea since flying cars.
....small high capacity ultracapacitor. If you could have such a device, you could charge your car in the matter of seconds and cruise.
Just think of the demand it would create for 100000 amp fuses and circuit breakers.
That's a great idea... on Paved roads...
what about ice roads? what about dirt roads? what about logging roads? Temporary roads?
not every road will be able to get that installed quickly. a lot of roads that truckers use are not paved, and are just a dirt path graded out to allow trucks access in and out of a location.
So basically, they reinvented the train...
Maybe the consumer version will be like this...
That's why tuned inductive would be better. You only need to put coils in periodically. Further, there's no need for complicated energizing controls - to a reasonable extent, power is only drawn when a tuned coil is present. Further you don't need to protect anybody from a rail or have complicated mechanisms to contact a rail.
Euro-AC here. Mine is an XC60. I'm very happy with it. A Citroën-driver decided to play chicken with me in January (oncoming, in my side of the road). His C3 is written off, now.
https://www.google.com/search?um=1&safe=off&client=opera&channel=suggest&hl=en&biw=1600&bih=1141&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=trolejbus
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
then the problem is how do we get smart roads?
Smart roads would fix a lot of the problems we have, with today's technology.
Delivering electricity would actually be a pretty futuristic concept compared to to-the-minute traffic analysis and management, silently collecting tolls, automatically alerting emergency crews in the case of accidents, telling driver-less cars the exact road terrain instead of relying purely on gps and cameras, and so on.
You could even set up the right arrangement of coils and such, and collect energy from passing cars to power it, just siphoning a bit off the magnetic fields (or a lot, if you want frictionless breaks in certain situations). They already do this for trains and such, so it's not a matter of "Can we?" ... but no one seems to be trying to fix these otherwise hard problems this way? They spend millions of man hours trying to get a car that drives based on less clean data sources, which is a fun problem to solve, but why aren't the various industries coming together to pitch an all-in-one smart road?
This is a very clever idea.
To those making fun of it, it is *not* a railroad/railway, nor is it slot cars. The vehicle is not on a fixed track.
Railways have had "third rail" power supply systems for a very long time. The biggest issue with them is safety; miles and miles of exposed high voltage terminal that will fry you if you touch them. Ouch. The mitigating factor that makes them a sensible option for a railway is that the railway is dangerous enough even without them that it needs to be fenced off.
This invention is basically giving this system to the roads.
The important point here is that the power is only activated for very short stretches of track at once, when that stretch is directly underneath the vehicle. This makes it safe enough to put it onto the public roads where you can't fence it off.
What it *won't* do is give us battery-less cars any time soon. We might be able to get away with smaller batteries, but we will still need them. The summary states that it won't provide power if you're going at low speed. That means city drivers could go an entire journey without being able to use the system, and even for journeys where you can use it, you'll still have low-speed parts of your journey. Even if we decided to start building it now, it will be many decades before it has widescale coverage; there will be plenty of minor roads that are likely never to be upgraded (there are plenty today that are still dirt-roads). And of course, your own driveway probably won't be connected to the grid either.
The beauty of this is that it is entirely compatible with the existing road network and could be implemented piecemeal. Roads could be upgraded with the system. Cars that can use it would benefit, but older cars could carry on using the same roads just the same as they always have. Likewise, if the electric cars also have a battery, they would be free to continue using roads that didn't have the electric rail as well as those that do.
My prediction is that it will be used initially for bus routes. If all the bus routes in a city like London were converted, it would amount to a significant amount of track. The fuel savings to the bus operator would make it very easy to pitch to the city. Existing electric and hybrid cars owned by the public could then be retro-fitted with power pickups for the system, and where the bus routes are public roads, people could benefit from the same fuel savings. If this was subsidised on the grounds of reducing pollution in the city, then the public take-up for the project would likely be quite big.
As the number of vehicles capable of using the system increases, the road network could be further upgraded beyond just the bus routes.
So yes, it is a clever system. However, don't be fooled into thinking it's a new idea. This system was first used a decade ago for a tram line in France. It was the first electric tram line in the world not to need overhead power cables. Ground-based power lines had never previously safe enough for a tram line that needed to run through city streets. This system has been in use for a decade now and has proved itself well. Building it into the regular road network seems to be the next sensible step.
Here's the wikipedia page about the existing tram system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-level_power_supply
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
Wind turbines slow the wind, consume territory, look hideous, require huge maintenance, and make noise.
You, sir, are bonkers. Of course they slow the wind locally! What's the problem? They are actually relatively cheap in maintenance (you can look up the financials of a modern wind turbine park if you don't believe me, we're talking maybe 1-2 US cent per kWh), as for the rest of your points, that's generally why you put them away somewhere far.
Solar panels take up a huge about of territory, polute to manufacture, and require total replacement to upgrade.
So you put them in a desert. "Polute to manufacture" - maybe but they're still a net win. "Require toal replacement to upgrade" - so what?
"the current flows only when the vehicle is moving at speeds greater than 60 km/h" Push starts just got a whole lot more desperate. Aad/or funnier looking to watch. Wait, nobody these days knows what push starts were. Only people of a certain age will mod this one.
nonsig. unsig. desig.
Radio announcer: "Well there's a traffic jam on I90. The power to that section of the city went out during a thunderstorm. The electric company has said power will be restored within 6 - 8 hours."
Two big problems with battery-based EVs are the battery itself (weight, expense, lifespan) and how long it takes to charge. Sure Tesla is working on their quick-charge stations, but even those are only quick compared to plugging in overnight - compared to pumping 10 gallons of gas, they're *really* slow.
Capacitors could address some of that, but the energy density is too low - you need to charge them frequently. Some kind of road-based "kick charger" to top them off quickly could have a lot of potential.
fencepost
just a little off
Actually I can imagine a lot of very good uses for commercial use of battery powered trucks. One item is in forcing the drivers to actually obey routes and time schedules. As it is drivers normally cheat and spend too many hours on the road without rest. If a phone home type of system is built into the charging stations the trucker will be forced to take breaks, will have to stay on route as he would not be allowed to charge at other stations and hijacking a truck would not get the thief where he wanted to go. Battery packs and electric motors could have an electronic identity such that chop shops could not sell the batteries or the drive motors. And with strain gauges built into the truck frames overloading could auto report to authorities rather easily. Speeding could also be more easily regulated as all electronic trucks could be tied into GPS with auto compliance to posted speed limits.
Some will cry that the truckers freedom is being stolen but in fact only the drivers' freedom to break the law would be effected.
its good god idea but i can see all kinds of things going wrong hear. first weather etc cause problems. also how would you pay for the sudden jump in power need pretty sure if all are cars and truck started running on a subway style rail system everyone's power bill instantly goes insane and its no better then current gas prices. or if its just bug trucks what would they do with all that extra disle fuel. hey im all for going green and junk but those people don't look at realty when they act like its somehow going to change everything.
And then we can all start using the metric system of measures and learn to speak the Queen's English!
This idea is sounding better by the minute! When do you suppose we'll come up with some sort of functional national healthcare and get rid of the outrageous tuitions and ... oh wait. I guess Britain has the police-state thing going on, too. Best we not imitate all the features of the Continent, then.
Someday I'm confident we'll have nanite roads. Maybe we could have the roadway act as a solar collector - if all the roads on the planet were solar roads, we would generate 100x our current power demands (which includes oil/gas). Plus, the nanites could form power conduits, creating a large, redundant power generation and distribution network. Maybe we could use them for data too - gigabit to every home. Nanites could clear debris, break up ice, melt ice and snow, and could directly generate the lines on the road - allowing for glowing lines (which would greatly increase safety). Light poles would be more feasible since it's a few feet to connect them, instead of having to run power lines. The nanites could automatically repair themselves. Heck, maybe we could get them to self replicate within the confines of the road, so we just have to spray an initial thin layer on and let them do the rest of the work.
Holy shades of Nikola Tesla and his 1937 Packard.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Since 1971, EV tech has not changed very much (other than battery power density). That is largely due to the automotive and petroleum industries being in a sort of "gay marriage"; mutually gratifying, yet entirely counter-productive (yes, Herr Diesel would be turning electric in his grave). Electric cars are not silly, the obstacles to EV production and implementation are stupendously detrimental to global affairs! 20 minutes to quickcharge a Nissan Leaf or Mitsubishi iMiEV is enough for a coffee and a couple fags.
The powered road idea was depicted in my notebooks from 2007/8 but i envisaged it built into a single lane of the highway entrance ramp, and at any toll-gate or checkpoint areas. In the prison designs (confiscated), i included two-lanes for EV`s to charge at large intersections (at the traffic-lights).
These should be DRIVER-ACTIVATED, not automated (yes there are still anti-android drivers out there!)
Its a wonderful idea, particularly on long entry-ramps to elevated highways (going uphill takes more juice).
5x, dunno, but the leave can do 250km on a single charge, oh yes, and the 20minute charge only charges up to around 96 or 97%, so you might need another fag to get the "fill-er-up" feeling, far from a fantastic flatulation!!
I was thinking slot cars. I had a set when I was a kid. Lots of fun.
I don't know if i'd like to be on a road full of oversized slot cars, i remember mine used to kick the tail out on every corner!
I'mm surprised that no one has mentioned that this is the way the Daleks worked in the original Doctor Who Dalek serial. They ran off of the static electricity in the metal floors of their city. They defeat one Dalek by laying a cloak on the floor and getting it to run (roll?) over it. By their second serial they got radio dishes on their backs that received transitted power which allowed them to roam the Earth.
(not sure where this power was transmitted from; the individual small flying saucers or some off-screen mother ship)
After the second serial the producers/writters just seemed to forget the power problem altogether.
I hope no highway bandits have watched 1960's Doctor Who.
Daniel Klugh
crikey,
just build a train already... electrified roads!?? must we stick with the idea of individual self-piloted boxes for every being on the planet, or can we ever consider something sensible?
tubes. maglev trains with toroidal magnetic fields gliding through tubes and routed like packets (minus the collisions, i hope) now that sounds more sensible...
It's genius! And maybe you could make a passenger version as well?!?! Instead of a personal vehicle, we could, like, all pay a small amount to use this one thing to get us all to major cities!
I think I'll call it: FLOORPLANE
The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry had a 'roads of the future' exhibit in 1960 that suggested both power and control (speed, steering, etc) would come from embedded wiring systems in the roadway.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Not much better if they start a cooperation with Motorola. (Solutions vs. Mobility)
Who is going to pay for these roads? Let's make a few reasonable assumptions:
1. these roads will require maintenance, probably more so than normal non electrified roads
2. the same factors that damage and wear out normal roads will affect these as well
3. the costs to repair these roads per unit length is likely much higher than that for normal roads
so now, possible payment schemes I can think of:
1. make everyone pay for maintenance -- this would make non-EV drivers very unhappy. why should I pay 2-3 times the cost to maintain these fancy roads that I do not benefit from?
2. keep everyone's maintenance the same (pretend they're driving on normal roads) and make EV drivers who use the grid electricity pay for the difference -- this seems fairer, except if you assume 1 in 10 people use the electricity in the roads, and that the roads are 3 times as expensive to maintain, suddenly you have EV drivers paying 21 times what normal drivers pay... they won't be happy about that
3. make the government pay for maintenance -- this is essentially a rehash of #1 and #2, since govt gets its money from the people, so its taxing scheme determines who's paying for it
4. have some company invest in this system and pay for it, and possibly reap benefits if we reach critical mass -- except a lot of EV companies have bet on this and have gone kaput.
Call me crazy, but I've got this idea for long haul transport; rather than have individual vehicles traveling more or less in parallel (and interfering with each other) or powering them via conductors in the roadway, we can put all the loads on a huge moving device almost as big as a section of roadway itself; we could call it a twain, after Mark Twain, who used to work on riverboats, which are vaguely similar in concept.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.