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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.'"
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.
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
I guess you don't live anywhere where they have electric trams. nobody really gives a shit about the em wackos.
this concept as it is can't work anywhere in near future except limited areas, like cities using them for tram routes or such, big factory installations and docks etc.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
If one assumes that this is the solution for electric cars, then a logical extension is that everybody will adopt it. Intercity truck hauling is the low hanging fruit so that is where you start. Then it cascades down to everybody. In 20 years half the cars driving would use the technology.
Initially costs would have to be subsidized by the taxpayers, but as usage grows then subsides would disappear with costs being recouped by charging for the electricity.
It’s a long shot but there could be huge wins. That is how I would evaluate it.
I agree I just don't see this as a workable idea for every road. I surely wouldn't want to pay for the upgrade. There was an article not to long ago on slashdot about promising battery research I wish I could find it. It appeared to be a more achievable.
Sadly probably no. Piezoelectric works because of an elastic spring when pressure is applied. Increasing the elastic spring of a road increases rolling resistance, which decreases the efficiency of the car, resulting in a net energy loss.
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."
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.
I could see it being used in high-traffic areas, so the electric cars can get a nice charge-up while they are sitting in the parking lot.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
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.
This one?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
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.
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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.
Yes that was one of them. Thanks.
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.
If one assumes that this is the solution for electric cars, then a logical extension is that everybody will adopt it. Intercity truck hauling is the low hanging fruit so that is where you start. Then it cascades down to everybody. In 20 years half the cars driving would use the technology.
Initially costs would have to be subsidized by the taxpayers, but as usage grows then subsides would disappear with costs being recouped by charging for the electricity.
It’s a long shot but there could be huge wins. That is how I would evaluate it.
I can see a couple of 'gotchas' already.
First, those are conductors embedded in the road. They'll be exposed to the weather and climate. What happens when a snow plow drives over it scraping snow away from the road bed? Won't the blade short out the strip? Can it get all the snow and ice off the conductors? Will there be shorts when a vehicle activates a strip? What happens if a strip goes dead for a bit? Are they going to be designed short enough that momentum will take the vehicle to the next strip?
How are you going to power this sucker?
This is an interesting concept, though, a way to get engineers thinking outside the box. But why use strips embedded in a road surface when you can build maser towers and beam power to a rectenna installed on the vehicle?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
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."
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!
Because that would impose staggering losses in the energy transfer. Inductive (magnetic) transfer of energy is not very efficient when there are air gaps involved. You can do it, but you are going to waste a LOT of energy. You do solve the problem of having large voltages touchable by the public.
Of course... One could just produce a magnetic system to push the cars forward in a linear motor setup and avoid much of the transfer losses. Just imagine the automated traffic control you could have with being able to control the speed of cars on your road system...
Or... Just do what we've done for years and put wires up in the air over the road.
Perhaps we had better just go find some more Oil and burn gasoline...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
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.
Earthquake Surfing! An Olympic sport by 2026.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
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.
It will likely start with the city bus system funded by taxpayers. Just move the overhead power lines underground on selected routes to test the concept. The encrypted signal is so other users can't steal the power without a subscription. Quick, someone patent storing energy in a capacitor so you can get the car/truck/bus the next 100 yards down the road.
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.
Not possible. The only way that would be possible is if you've got millions of individual power cells that the car is charging from as it goes. With the cells turning on and off in response to the signal.
So, I guess it's technically possible, but the likelihood of getting a device like that to function would be pretty much nihil.
A better move would be to just charge a tax based upon the distance driven and the type of vehicle, knowing approximately how much juice the vehicle would be using to cover the distance on average.
But, I see serious problems with this, we get a lot of flooding around here, which would reek havoc on a system like this, even when the flood waters are only a quarter inch deep. We sometimes get as much as 5" of rain in a 24 hour period, which would require the system to be shut down, even when it's still safe to drive.
I'm not so sure about that, the cars already cause the ground to vibrate a bit. Absorbing some of that and converting it to electricity would be a net win. Especially in places like Athens where the vibrations are damaging ancient buildings.
So the tax payers will be funding roads with this technology for the use of very few users?
From TFS:
Volvo sees our future long-haul trucks and buses drawing the juice they need from the road itself,
Unless you buy... well, nothing, then you as well as the rest of us very much are "users" of the technology, and would benefit from not having to pay those damn fuel surcharges for goods.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
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.
It took me all of thirty seconds to find a quote on that:
Transmission and distribution losses in the USA were estimated at 6.6% in 1997[10] and 6.5% in 2007.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission
This is a fair cry from the 35% losses you are postulating.
And let's not forget that an electric motor is 90%+ efficient, while an ICE is somewhere around 18%-20%.
So basically, they reinvented the train...
Maybe the consumer version will be like this...
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.
According to EIA data, national, annual electricity transmission and distribution losses average about 7% of the electricity that is transmitted in the United States.
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=105&t=3
I would think the US Energy Information Administration knows what they are talking about.
"distribution" doesn't start at the plant and end at the wheels.
That's actually exactly where the electricity is generated and where it is consumed. There is no electricity before that, and none after that. If that does not include the whole of the "distribution", then I don't know what does.
You argue that from the plant to the middle of the road 35% of the energy is lost. But the above source says that the transmission and distribution losses in the grid are 7%. Even if you include additional transformers (which have efficiencies of upwards of 98%) for getting the electricity into the road, you are still far, far away from losses of 35%.
So please, where from exactly do you get these 35% losses?
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?
so says the anonymous.
"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
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.
These numbers clearly came from a questionable source. (perhaps your backside?) The PDF available here indicates a transmission and distribution loss of between 6% and 8% for the United States power grid.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
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.
I certainly agree, there's unlikely to be an economic breakeven for most roads. But most people don't travel long distances on most roads either - they do so on highways. And any highway that sees a lot of traffic (trucking at first) is a viable candidate. It makes the highway range of electric vehicles effectively infinite, and you can still top off the battery at home/charging stations for the rest of your driving.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Completely agreed until
>Or... Just do what we've done for years and put wires up in the air over the road.
Do you really want to deal with everyone in town evenutally having trolley-style power arms sticking out of the top of their car? Not to mention the potential infrastrucutre damage when these people repeatedly connect and disconnect to a dangling power cable. How long do you suppose it will be before someone gets their power-arm snagged on the cable and drives off without noticing?
There's lots of options if we're just looking at todays limited usages. Significantly fewer scale well to widespread adoption. We *could* just run cables overhead on highways and restrict access to only licensed long-haul truckers, but that would be an awful waste of infrastructure which would also solve almost all of the shortcomings of personal electric vehicles.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
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.
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.
"distribution" and "in the grid" and "transmission" aren't end points and they aren't cradle to grave. For example, if it's 7% from the power plant to the curb, then it's another 7% from the curb to your fuse box in your basement, and then that big transformer that you plug in loses another 7%, and then there's loss in the motor of your desk fan. Then the 7% "distribution" from the power plant to your property is still correct. But it's no where near the desk fan.
"transmission" can be how much exists at the end of the five mile wire down the street, but it might have taken three devices along the way to keep it going, and those devices need electricity to run. so sure 93% of the electricity was transmitted, and it also cost us a few hundreds watts to make that happen. Factor that into your percentage.
The thing about fuels is that they are stored energy. The storage doesn't usually degrade at all. If the truck has 50 gallons of gasolene when it leaves, it's got 50 gallons of gasolene when it arrives. These days, motors can be quite mechanically efficient at converting explosions into crankshafts. But in any case, we know exactly how much fuel the truck burned to transport the gasolene, and we know exactly how many times the crank shaft turns and how much horsepower we got out of it.
But when we transmit electricity, it's an open system without solid checkpoints. It isn't one wire that travels from the plant to your driveway. There's loss everywhere, there's powered equipment throughout, and most of it isn't a part of the "distribution" or "transmission" loss. These are all either calculated estimates or incomplete segments.
Do you know how much loss ocurrs at your breaker panel? Did you consider a better panel? Your computer's power supply also has a real-world loss. It's about 20% typically. Really really good ones are 10%. And that's over a distance of twelve inches, an directly into computer circuitry, in a clean and controlled indoor environment.
oh, I'm with you. I'm not at all saying that lp is highly efficient. But it is very very well known. All of that spillage is understood, and the vast majority of it is at the hub, not at the consumer side. Electricity is the other way around.
while we're on the transmission part, here's my crazy idea. transmission microwave dishes road-side, pointed at the cars. A receiving dish on the cars. So there's nothing in the road. when they align, a micro-burst of micro-wave gets blasted, and caught. That's it.
My wheels aren't connected to the power grid. My house's breaker box isn't connected to the power grid. My curb is.
My desk fan is connected to my wall socket through a giant brick transformer. The wall socket is connected to my breaker panel through a fuse-like-device. My breaker panel is connected to the curb through something else. Those three connections are not a part of the power grid.
By the way, my computer power supply is only 84% efficient. That's a drop of 16% over 4 inches.
Stop reading one number that covers one segment of a multi-segment system. No one cares about the power grid. Start thinking cradle to grave.
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
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
Fuel surcharges for goods? Aren't transportation costs covered by tolls, vehicle registration, car taxes, taxes on gasoline, and other transport related things?
Have you compared your alleged loss due to transport to the weight savings in not lugging hundreds of pounds of batteries with you?
You shouldn't be so dismissive of an idea and pointing out the challenges as insurmountable. You should instead keep an open mind to the possibilities. Many people in the past faced almost insurmountable obstacles, but they pushed ahead and now you get to live in the great world that's around you.
I mean, who is going to run a cable from California to the UK, so that you could watch the BBC on your iPad in 720p? Think of the men that could die on that ship making the crossing.
Why are we burning all that fuel making rockets go up into space so that we have the GPS system, advanced atmospheric monitoring, and others? Someone might get hurt and a rocket might fall on someone's house. Use a map, and stick your head out the window.
I never said that someone getting hurt is a problem. I'm all for someone getting hurt. But in all of the examples you've listed, they never made existing things worse. A cable through the ocean doesn't stop ships from crossing it. Rockets to space doesn't block out the sun -- we'll set star-gazing aside for the moment.
But embedding anything into the road makes the road worse as a road. It makes repairing the road itself worse. And consuming that kind of electricity, considering the losses, would be fine if we had enough of it already. In my country we do. In your country we don't.
So that's my line. The mouse is great, it didn't ruin the keyboard. The car didn't ruin the bicycle.
On the other side, "reduced rolling resistance" tires save fuel by eliminating "traction". That means they specifically ruin the tires in order to save a few bucks on fuel. That's a safety hazard. And your children are in the car.
See the difference?
Not much better if they start a cooperation with Motorola. (Solutions vs. Mobility)
Yes but the cost would mean that these would most likely become toll roads, I'm not sure I would be happy about that either.
Fuel surcharges for goods? Aren't transportation costs covered by tolls, vehicle registration, car taxes, taxes on gasoline, and other transport related things?
No - those things pay for the roads the goods are transported on. The fuel surcharges are tacked on by the companies that transport the goods, not the government.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
You wouldn't necessarily have to charge a toll for the roads themselves - just charge a premium on the power sold to the drivers using the power rail. An extra cent or two per kWh would likely make them profitable once they catch on. Effectively it would be the same thing once most people tapped into road power, but it leaves you free to haul around big batteries instead if you so desire.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
First, When posting off-topic, it's best to post anonymous to preserve your reputation. Thus why the AC posted that way.
Back on your topic. It's true that 'distribution' doesn't start at the plant and end at the wheels, though I'd say that for an EV it does tend to 'end at the wheels'. It's just that it gets very, very hairy once you start looking past the plant. Sure, you can analyze a specific source/plant/generation facility, but if you analyze a different one the numbers can be completely different. Even averages are hard to come by.
Are you looking at a solar plant or wind turbine? How much energy went into creating the system, how much do you expect to get out of it, what's that individual KwH's share?
What about Natural Gas? How much energy went into drilling for the NG, collecting and purifying it, and shipping it to the plant? 60% efficiency for the plant itself.
Coal? Most coal plants are located close to their mines for logistical reasons - it's more efficient to ship the electricity than to ship the coal. Still, mining and shipping of the coal needs to be accounted for. You're looking at 40-50% efficient for coal plants.
Nuclear? Mining and enrichment(if necessary) of the Uranium needs to be added in. 30-40% efficient.
Still, you contend that hydrocarbons are 'cheap to ship'. Well, coal isn't that cheap to ship due to the shear amount of it necessary. Natural gas either needs to be piped(and NG pipelines are expensive to run long distances), or it needs to be compressed to a liquid. This costs $1.50-$2 per mcf. This is significant, considering the wellhead price of $3 per mcf. Shipping runs $.30 per mcf.
Liquid fuels such as diesel and gasoline, of course, need to be extracted from a well, shipped as crude to a refinery, refined(~70% efficient), then shipped to the final destination. I think that you'd find that it's quite hilariously expensive from that perspective, in line with power plant costs.
The vast majority of real studies have figured that even if you use a relatively dirty coal plant for power that EVs still come out ahead energy wise due to the shear efficiency.
The grid is better than 90% efficient, on average, the charger is better than 90%, as is the battery and motor. You go beyond that if you still want to compare it to IC vehicles you have to look at energy losses in pumping out of the well, transporting to the refinery, then to the distribution point, etc...
It would take a lot of efficiency within the hydrocarbon supply chain, and a lot of inefficiency in the electric one, to make up for the difference between a ~73% efficient plant-wheel EV w/regenerative brakes vs the 20% efficient engine and 80% efficient transmission, with no regeneration of a gasoline engine.
I don't read AC A human right
By the way, my computer power supply is only 84% efficient. That's a drop of 16% over 4 inches.
No, that's a 16% drop going through a small scale rectifier, wave chopper, multiple transformers, capacitors, and finally voltage regulators to produce multiple voltages in relatively very clean and tightly controlled levels: +/-12, +/-5, and 3.3.
Power systems get more efficient the larger they are. A neighborhood level transformer is going to be better than 98% efficient.
You're NOT going to lose 7% from your curb drop to your circuit breaker panel.
Calculations: 240V service, 1/0 awg(100Amp service, I'm being nice), 200 feet of wire(I'm being generous here), fully utilized at 100A, you get 2.1% drop. I had a 60A service once, couldn't blow it even running the oven, stove, and water heater all at once. That's a mere 1.3% drop.
I don't read AC A human right
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.