https://apnews.com/article/wireless-roadway-electric-vehicle...
90% of the complexity in this is yet to be addressed... but as proofs-of-concept, sure.
Or we could, you know, invent trains.
Building the first highway segment in the U.S. that can charge electric vehicles
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Re: Building the first highway segment in the U.S. that can charge electric vehicles
#22It never ceases to amaze me the lengths we will go to overcomplicate transportation just so everyone has to continue to buy and maintain their own vehicle.
I think this is a literal example of a solution searching for a problem. I charge my car at home. Not everyone gets to do that, but solving that issue is a better use of resources. On a road trip the 20 minutes of fast charging is welcomed. I would stop even if I was charging while driving.
Having 16A of charging hanging off light poles and meters on a street in front of an apartment is a better use of resources than wiring the road. Having adequate DC charging is a better use of resources than moving the goal post to “which length of road can I charge on?”
Re: Building the first highway segment in the U.S. that can charge electric vehicles
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Overhead wires on freeways have hight issues when trying to power both cars and allow room for oversized loads. It works for trolleys because you have a full sized buss’s height plus the hight of the pickup bar which allows a lot of room below. Wireless also has quite a lot going for it from a safety, noise, and maintenance perspectives. If they’re deep enough you could theoretically have a 50+ year lifespan while th…
Germany installed "eHighways" in 2019 which can let heavy trucks charge from overhead lines. Heavy trucks can't really afford much of a weight penalty for batteries (look up "tesla semi load factor" for a bunch of debunks), but cars for general transport have tons of weight to spare. Skip the cars, just go for the heavy trucks. https://www.businessinsider.com/germany-opens-first-e-highwa...
Giving up on cars is also giving up on a lot of potential revenue which increases payback periods etc. Considering how much of a chicken and egg problem such a system would face you’d want to maximize the number of vehicles that could use it.
Re: Building the first highway segment in the U.S. that can charge electric vehicles
#24It never ceases to amaze me the lengths we will go to overcomplicate transportation just so everyone has to continue to buy and maintain their own vehicle.
Is it so that everyone has to buy their own vehicle or so that everyone has control over the space they travel in, who else is in that space and the travel schedule?
Re: Building the first highway segment in the U.S. that can charge electric vehicles
#25[dead]
Re: Building the first highway segment in the U.S. that can charge electric vehicles
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn't get VC money and crazy people screaming about it. Boston/Cambridge is full of those and it's a pleasure to be on them but there's no crazy CEO trying to sell it so no one bothers to pay attention to them.
Especially with all of the problems they've been having over the last couple of years, I had to double-take when I saw you describe riding the MBTA as "a pleasure"
I understand as someone that must have lived their whole life being served by the MBTA it might not be amazing (its also not amazing by european standards, i definitely rode better stuff in Spain, Portugal, England and other places) but by AMERICAN standards the MBTA is definitely one of the best public transportation systems there are.
I'd recommend you take SEPTA in PHL or use the shitty stuff we have here in Miami and Orlando and you'll be praying to go back to riding the Red Line or even, god forbid, the green line.
Re: Building the first highway segment in the U.S. that can charge electric vehicles
#27Re: Building the first highway segment in the U.S. that can charge electric vehicles
#28> Heavy-duty trucks are one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions for the U.S. transportation sector because they make up a large portion of interstate traffic.
The solution to this is to build trains. Heavy trucks destroy asphalt, which is expensive and carbon-intensive to replace. EV trucks emit pollution in the form of tire dust—microplastics that pollute the air and water.
Re: Building the first highway segment in the U.S. that can charge electric vehicles
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
That doesn't get VC money and crazy people screaming about it. Boston/Cambridge is full of those and it's a pleasure to be on them but there's no crazy CEO trying to sell it so no one bothers to pay attention to them.
Moscow was a trolleybus capital of the world just recently. I'm still salty that they destroyed it in just a couple of years, replacing with regular buses and a handful of electric ones (which still require a small ICE engine in winter to stay warm, ridiculously enough)
Was there ever a reason given?
Re: Building the first highway segment in the U.S. that can charge electric vehicles
#30What a waste of money. Fuck highways. I want housing. This country is stuck in the 1950s
I'm dying to hear your ideas on how logistics would work in the US without highways.