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."

Comments

Wrong Concept

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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.