- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmit.online
Research in Indiana lays groundwork for highways that recharge EVs of all sizes across the nation
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This must be beyond horrifically inefficient, a solution looking for a problem
We solved this issue 100 yeaes ago, electrified trains. Battery trucks at the depot for last mile.
Or you could use the money to build really good charging infrastructure, and accept that a truckload arrives in 2 days and 6 hours instead of 2 days and 3 hours. Then you don’t need a nuclear power plants worth of electricity in lost efficiency from charging wirelessly.
Or you know; trains for long haul freight… Regional freight should be perfectly possible with wired charging…
Do we know yet what the energy loss is?
I think if it’s like <= 10%, it’s fine. If we’re talking about 50%, this is beyond unacceptable.
This article claims 90% efficiency has been achieved for moving vehicles, but it should likely be taken with some grains of salt. On the other hand, with phones it’s unimportant on the level of the individual using it, so perhaps the phone wireless chargers aren’t particularly optimized and it’s possible to do better?
Or you know; trains for long haul freight…
Lovely idea and I’m very much in support of trains, but in a lot of countries the railroad infra just isn’t there and can’t be built on all routes. In my country, the 2nd, 4th and 6th largest cities by population likely can’t be connected by rail. It’d be a popular route for passengers for sure, and likely useful for cargo too given that I’ve for sure seen plenty of trucks driving between those cities, but there’s TWO large areas of wetlands in between. Super simple on a map, just draw a line east to west pretty much, but just isn’t happening in real life. Easiest way to take a train is to go through the capital. So 4-5 hours by train vs 1-2.5 hours of driving depending on what route you’re doing (actually one of the train routes to the capital is closed too right now, for a number of years already, but it’ll be replaced by Rail Baltica eventually at least so that’s nice). And that’s despite the trains being faster than cars (speaking passenger cars and trains here - I wouldn’t know about cargo)
It’s not a super long route end to end, but you could save on weight of batteries, which in turns increases maximum weight of cargo, since the total weight is limited. And charging would be a pain for long haul truckers in Europe because of the regulations on driving hours. E.g if because of a charge, your allowed 9 hours of daily driving time ends at midnight, well now you can’t start driving again before 9 AM and that’s if you haven’t used up your weekly allowance of 3 9+3 hour split rests yet - otherwise you’d have to wait 11 hours. I’ve heard tales of long haul truckers in Europe skipping their piss breaks just so they could make it to a good rest station in time instead of having to stop at a random roadside parking lot. The system sucks in some ways and truckers hate it, but it prevents their employers from coercing them into driving dangerous hours (and “hero” truckers can’t willingly do it either).
Seems like a lot of energy will be lost when transmitting the energy wirelessly. How about we put up some wires that can deliver the energy more efficiently. After that, we can switch out the rubber tyres on asphalt for steel wheels on steel rails, such that we improve the energy efficiency further. This way, we can transport so much more stuff at a fraction of the cost.
Many science fiction stories fall back to using rail for transporting goods. Because it’s efficient. Unless we come up with literal magic like anti-gravity, rail it is.
Elon Musk over here.
Anything but trains lmao
I’m convinced semi truck hauling is a government jobs program at this point.
I like a big jobs program, but I don’t have truck with this one
Conceptually neat, but the reality is that wireless charging for even small devices like phones is a pretty significant waste of energy, at scale. The amounts of energy involved with wirelessly charging a heavy truck - or even car - would be unconscionably large.
It’s a bit like uber with their not-a-bus bus service. Humans already invented a solution that works really well. It’s called a pantograph. Sweden is testing a ground-level power supply that provides 800kW per vehicle at 130kph.
pantograph
But highways are regularly utilized to transport oversized loads.
Wtf is wrong with that image?
Nothing? The turbine blade is sticking up just like it appears.
___Oh wow. Didn’t know they would transport them semi-upright.
They don’t always. I’ve seen plenty of semi trucks hauling these horizontally on the highway similar to how concrete beams are hauled.
Well, it sorta makes sense in hindsight, it’d be even longer otherwise + this way you can clear lower obstacles on curves… But holy shit does it look like it shouldn’t be possible. I mean they’re super heavy, right? Right?
Yeah, this sounds stupid, and I’m worried about the amount of power wasted by induction charging. Anyone who’s wirelessly charged a phone knows it can get quite hot; that’s wasted energy. And Indiana’s generation is still mostly natural gas and coal, so at some point, with enough losses in transmission and charging, you’ll end up with a higher-carbon vehicle than a diesel truck…
I am not sure what that point is, but the efficiency of charging is an important consideration in my mind.
If you could somehow safely combine induction charging with electrical transmission lines, it would be worth it. No more lines on poles.
Also, supplying electricity to fast moving ground vehicles isn’t new, just look at… every high speed rail system ever…
The pantograph system in Germany failed though… Too ahead of its time?
And I’m saying this while being very much pro-pantograph. This has no chance if Germans couldn’t make an economical pantograph system.
I didn’t realize until I read your linked article that wireless charging is essentially induction. Contactless. I have never had one of these devices. Now I want modern earbuds even less. Thanks for sharing that article!
Is this Solar Freaking Roadways all over again?
Haha i just said the same thing. I can’t get over how shit their product is/was. Even after all these years i’m shocked how little you actually heard about that.
This is a completely stupid idea that will seem good to children and idiots.
What if we had all the vehicles drive on purpose-built, dedicated lanes—tracks, we’ll call them—that provide them power, and go to specific destinations? That would be neat.
But what if they were self-driving? We could link them up together, and have them depart at regular intervals, too, so you don’t even need to drive your own car!
Great if it works, but I seriously doubt it’s going to work.
Solar freaking roadways.
