Is fast charging and short periods of stopping really that much of an issue?
World's first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden
81–90 of 104 posts
Re: World's first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden
#82I 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…
Tracks are a superior design in theory but fail to be flexible enough to work in varying weather conditions and complex dynamic routes. It's better to have invisible guidance rails and let vehicles maneuver easier.
Re: World's first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden
#83Wow I always assumed plugin batteries would be the only way to run electric cars, this is great. Also searching I saw these trucks using overhead electric lines, also in Sweden https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27100u7IcII
A lot of electric busses in San Francisco also use pantographs, though usually without a substantial battery, meaning they can't disconnect and reconnect like these cars could.
Re: World's first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden
#84Earlier 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.
> Moving goods from the train to the truck is not a negligible cost.
Really? I was under the impression that this was one of the primary benefits of standard shipping containers.
Re: World's first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> Moving goods from the train to the truck is not a negligible cost. Really? I was under the impression that this was one of the primary benefits of standard shipping containers.
That goods transfer costs would be negligible?
Re: World's first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden
#86This doesn't make much sense as an urban project, where chargers are close by, lane-switching is frequent, people are likely to be on the road, and which the article invites you to think about by comparing the cost to an urban tram. but it makes ton of sense for long-distance highway journeys, which is a problem that really needs solving before electric vehicles can be practical.
Even on highways, you wouldn't need this to be on 100% of the roads to be useful. You could have, say, a mile of charging rails for every ten miles of road and on lanes that go uphill. I guess the limit comes down to how much power the rails can produce and how fast the vehicles can charge. If a vehicle can charge at N times the rate they use that energy at highway speeds, then it needs to have at least 1/N of the ro…
You can get by with significantly less than 1/N I think. The goal doesn't need to be infinite travel distances, just enough to get to the next destination. Personally, I'm unlikely to drive more than 1000km in a day. Any more than that, and I need to rest for longer than it takes a car to charge.
If electric rails are placed in the road frequently enough to extend the range of an electric car from 400km to 1000km, they've suddenly made electric more practical than gasoline for long distance travel.
Re: World's first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden
#87Wow I always assumed plugin batteries would be the only way to run electric cars, this is great. Also searching I saw these trucks using overhead electric lines, also in Sweden https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27100u7IcII
A lot of electric busses in San Francisco also use pantographs, though usually without a substantial battery, meaning they can't disconnect and reconnect like these cars could.
Many of the electric buses in SF do have a backup battery. Not much range, but enough to get it back to the wire if one gets out of position. The older buses needed a tow truck if they became disconnected from power.
Re: World's first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden
#88What happens when the tracks are flooded by rain water. Would it not shortcircuit the tracks? How does one get rid of rain water filled in the tracks to make them operational again?
Re: World's first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden
#89What happens when the tracks are flooded by rain water. Would it not shortcircuit the tracks? How does one get rid of rain water filled in the tracks to make them operational again?
Sounds like it's a low voltage system with recessed terminals. The article claims that if the road is flooded with saltwater, it's only ~1 volt at the surface.
Re: World's first electrified road for charging vehicles opens in Sweden
#90Next step: wireless induction charging in parking spaces
Unless a revolution comes along in the field, it's too inefficient. Best condition inductive chargers can yield 90% efficiency, and that is not too bad. But that require perfect alignment, and no distance between the coils. Neither is realistic in a "park and charge without doing anything" scenario.