Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

World's first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 104 posts

Re: World's first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden

#41

Post by seanmcdirmid »

stefan_ wrote: post #39
acd wrote: post #35

I hope Sweden and Germany can make a common DIN Deutche industri normen standard for charging electric vehicles on roads. There would be an added benefit if we could build rail tracks among the electric guidance line. Rail tracks to lower the rolling resistance, metal on metal vs rubber on asphalt. We would then have a hybrid car rail track which should make it easy for autonomous driving. The aim would to bring down…

Let's just only have train tracks? We can still have electric trucks for the last mile, but then they won't need electrified roads. Long-distance goods transport with trucks is such a ridiculous concept, it's really time we just face it: it only ever made sense because the state funds the roads and road repair from general taxation, we have ridiculous subsidies for the fossil fuels that make it run and trains had the…

Moving goods from the train to the truck is not a negligible cost. Also, you have to move lots of things in batch with the train, which makes product and supply chains unless nimble. Perishable agriculture products, for one thing, benefit greatly from truck transport.

Re: World's first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden

#44

Post by stefan_ »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #41
stefan_ wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's just only have train tracks? We can still have electric trucks for the last mile, but then they won't need electrified roads. Long-distance goods transport with trucks is such a ridiculous concept, it's really time we just face it: it only ever made sense because the state funds the roads and road repair from general taxation, we have ridiculous subsidies for the fossil fuels that make it run and trains had the…

Moving goods from the train to the truck is not a negligible cost. Also, you have to move lots of things in batch with the train, which makes product and supply chains unless nimble. Perishable agriculture products, for one thing, benefit greatly from truck transport.

A nimble supply chain, or "just in time" as they call it, is a hack large companies use to shift quantities from one column of their quarterly reports to another that the stock market looks more favourably upon. Analysts can't very well quantify the risk of a JIT supply chain but they know cash flow over finished goods.

Re: World's first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden

#45

Post by erl »

jacquesm wrote: post #11

Slotcar track that has been scaled up, so: arcing, dangerous, will wear, finicky as hell and impossible to change lanes without losing contact. Probably not the best idea but props for trying.

It is used for charging batteries, not providing constant power. It disengages on lane change according to the article, but that should not be a problem if there are batteries.

Re: World's first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden

#47

Post by jacquesm »

erl wrote: post #45
jacquesm wrote: post #11

Slotcar track that has been scaled up, so: arcing, dangerous, will wear, finicky as hell and impossible to change lanes without losing contact. Probably not the best idea but props for trying.

It is used for charging batteries, not providing constant power. It disengages on lane change according to the article, but that should not be a problem if there are batteries.

Sure, but you'll be disconnected for that and you're going to have to reconnect on the far side. That's going to cause some arcing and wear. On the plus side, self driving cars will have something to aim for. Provided there isn't any snow or ice to deal with.

Re: World's first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden

#49

Post by rcthompson »

vesinisa wrote: post #46

I wonder what is the charging power with this? Can the car sustain its battery infinitely if you drive over electrified highways only?

Yes, but it's still not enough to power your smartphone while it's doing turn-by-turn navigation.

Re: World's first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden

#50

Post by dsfyu404ed »

ConceitedCode wrote: post #16
rb808 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to see how it works with a salted wet road too - do they turn it off?

Apparently they tested just that - Säll said: “There is no electricity on the surface. There are two tracks, just like an outlet in the wall. Five or six centimetres down is where the electricity is. But if you flood the road with salt water then we have found that the electricity level at the surface is just one volt. You could walk on it barefoot.” They also mentioned they turn off each segment if there is not a ca…

They said nothing about the wear characteristics of the rail when covered in salty road crap.

Stray current wreaks all sorts of havoc on electric light rail systems. I don't see why this would be different.

Post reply on HN