Slashdot Mirror
England To Test "Electric Motorways"
DaneTerry88 writes: Highways England plans to test under-road wireless charging equipment that could be buried beneath motorways to top-up cars as they drive. Charge-as-you-drive technologies have already been used in the South Korean town of Gumi. The town has a 12km (7.5 miles) route that allows buses to be charged as they drive over it. In a press release the agency says: "The trials are expected to begin later this year following the completion of an ongoing procurement process. The trials will involve fitting vehicles with wireless technology and testing the equipment, installed underneath the road, to replicate motorway conditions. Full details of the trials will be publicised when a successful contractor has been appointed."
Think of the Big Brother scenarios . Presumably cars will have to be fitted with some sort of identifier so that drivers / owners can pay for the charging in some way.
So while its a great idea - Id want to know whats happening to the data about my driving habits!
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Half the advantage of electric cars is efficiency (the other half being moving the pollution out of the city to a place where less people live). Can anyone comment on the theoretical or actual efficiency of this process? And is it simple induction, or does "Shaped Magnetic Field" mean more than activate a coil?
This technology is so old it's in my attiic collecting cobwebs. Literally.
that this won't take the shape of 2 metal strips along the centerline of each lane.
I thought wireless charging was inefficient. A quick search over the internet shows me claims of between 50 and 70% efficiency on power delivery for the mobile charging standard Qi. As for automobiles, I like the following graph, but I cannot tell how true it is: ecoupled-infographic.png
Please note that charging may behave differently while in motion.
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Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Badly needed road widening schemes taking decades, very few new roads being built and pot-holes are left for years in smaller roads. It is obvious that we don't spend enough on our current road system - sop what's the chance of this getting funding?
How do you prevent any other party stealing electricity from one system like this?
Shame that driving on motorways in England has become tedious as hell now that they're installing average speed cameras everywhere. Slip over the the paltry 70mph limit a few times and you get banned from driving for a year. I try to avoid the motorways when driving nowadays.
*prepares to be cuckolded by speed limit Nazis who think even 70mph is "too dangerous"*
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And which vehicles will support this method of charging? How about currently? Why waste the money on a road for a feature that nothing supports.
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
First, powering wireless while driving is extremely expensive, as large portions of the road must be equipped with coils. This approach is also very resource hungry and therefore not applicable. Second, installing such coils for parking or on traffic lights is also expensive and complicated, as they have to be switched on and off 100s of times every day. Third, cars are by concept very inefficient, as normals cars weight 1-2 t and are used to carry around 1.3 persons weighting 80-120 kg. 1:10 to 1:20 ratio. In addition, they require a lot of space. While this is not a problem in large areas of North America, it is a problem in densely populated areas, like Central and Western Europe, and even more in India, China, Japan, etc.
The solution to present day transportation issues in metropolitan areas, where most people live, are public transport. Well implemented, it is faster than cars in traffic, they require less space than cars, and they require less energy. In addition we should promote bicycles, as they are more flexible and a good short range people mover. They also come with the bonus of better health. The individual traffic (with cars) is dead, as there is no individuality in traffic jams and when thousands of people all drive in the same direction every morning and back in the evening.
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Seems like that system would need to deliver a lot of current. Are there potential safety issues here, for example a piece of metal falling on the road over the inductors ?
at you mean. It's real irritating.
They can take my LifeAlert pendant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
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Qi compatible? Just think of all the poor saps standing the middle of the roadway trying to charge their phones!
Wouldn’t it be cheaper to install chains of synchronized declutchable treadmills on motorways? With today’s electronic controls wouldn’t it be worth studying? BTW it might make charging easier since the car does not move relative to the treadmill (until it is passed on to the next one).