171–180 of 399 posts
Couldn't we use smart kites that would fly around hooking up to your car as sails whenever there's a lot of wind in an area with open skies? Get towed, charge a bit and/or save battery. The car automatically sends some fee payment as a thanks. Requires a lot of smart infrastructure that we don't have but it seems like one of those things that should be doable once we've figured out autonomous driving...
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This is fascinating. So they are essentially harvesting the gravitational potential energy of the iron ore at altitude to charge the batteries (and then some) for the cargoless return trip. Outstanding.
Reminds me of this dam operation around here that pumps water up to a mountain top reservoir during the day when power is cheap and then lets it go at night when it can generate and sell the electricity for more money. I was always in awe of the lake size battery they created.
This is exactly the feeling I had when visiting the Seneca Pumped Storage Generating Station that I mentioned in one of my other comments that I just posted before seeing your post. Truly awe inspiring. (Links provided in my other comment). Do go visit one of these!
Regenerative braking is so neat. I drove up a steep windy road to go on a hike with my plugin hybrid. On the way down I tried to let gravity do all of the acceleration and regenerative braking do all of the deceleration. At the bottom of the hill I had racked up +3 miles in total. Another fringe benefit is that brake pads wear out slower and produce less pollution.
You can get this sort of benefit with a gas car with a manual transmission too. Engine braking uses no gas, its just your wheels turning your pistons and the friction from all of that slows the car down. Most of the time I only hit the brakes to go from 5mph-0mph in a manual car thanks to this.
It seems like the tire wear wouldn't be worth it. You're pulling the tires at almost 100 horsepower of energy transfer. Sure, neat for a video gag though.
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This is fascinating. So they are essentially harvesting the gravitational potential energy of the iron ore at altitude to charge the batteries (and then some) for the cargoless return trip. Outstanding.
Reminds me of this dam operation around here that pumps water up to a mountain top reservoir during the day when power is cheap and then lets it go at night when it can generate and sell the electricity for more money. I was always in awe of the lake size battery they created.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taum_Sauk_Hydroelectric_Power_...
> ... catastrophic failure of a triangular section of the reservoir wall and the release of 1 billion US gallons (3,800,000 m3) of water in 12 minutes. The sudden release sent a 20-foot (6.1 m) crest of water down the East Fork of the Black River.
> A broad swath of dense forest was washed away and scoured to bedrock by the escaping flow.
A tidbit that will be interesting to any programmer or engineer: one of the causes of the failure was that the high-water gauges were moved to above the height of the dam wall because someone was annoyed by false positives.
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Years ago I visited the Seneca Pumped Storage Generating Station [0] reservoir in person. It's a massive man-made lake on the top of a small mountain in Pennsylvania, USA. They pump water up to it at night (when there is excess energy in the power grid), and let the water out in the day when the demand for energy is high (turning some turbines on its way down). Prior to visiting I had an intellectual understanding of…
Interesting. The first thought that comes to mind when I see that circle is Apple HQ.
Apple HQ - around 1,600ft diameter
Seneca Pumped Storage Lake: around 2,400ft diameter
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Diesel engines in large trucks have a similar feature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compression_release_engine_bra... However, unlike regenerative braking, you won't end up with more fuel in the tank afterwards.
The only downside is it can be really loud as you shift down the gear and engine RPMs bounce around. Hence, all the signs when you approach a town that say, "No engine braking".
Truckers will sometimes install a valve to bypass the muffler, so they can let someone know that they just cut them off, and that they should try moving out of the way.
The Mercedes got 5 MPG while towing the Tesla at freeway speeds. [1] 1: https://youtu.be/nILM_DEdBqM?t=336
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The only downside is it can be really loud as you shift down the gear and engine RPMs bounce around. Hence, all the signs when you approach a town that say, "No engine braking".
When correctly muffled, engine breaking is not really any noisier than the engine operating normally. Truckers will sometimes install a valve to bypass the muffler, so they can let someone know that they just cut them off, and that they should try moving out of the way.
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That is awesome but the article's date is April 1st 2014.
Be that as it may, I saw the actual car before I ever saw the article. Maybe it was him, maybe the article is fake, but it inspired someone to try it for real. Either way, I've seen a real life car doing this. EDIT I've found confirmation that the article is an April Fool's joke. I still, however, have seen a car doing this (or at least attempting to do this) on the streets of San Francisco.