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Building the first highway segment in the U.S. that can charge electric vehicles

purdue.edu

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Re: Building the first highway segment in the U.S. that can charge electric vehicles

#31

Post by mardef »

Moto7451 wrote: post #22
310260 wrote: post #13

It 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…

TFA mentions that charging during travel would allow trucks to carry fewer batteries, would would reduce weight and increase range, efficiency, and cargo capacity.

You cannot achieve that by charging your semi at home.

Re: Building the first highway segment in the U.S. that can charge electric vehicles

#32

Post by pech0rin »

310260 wrote: post #13

It 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.

Obviously you didn’t read the article because its talking about freight and trucks, which is how the majority of US shipping economy is run. So many low effort comments on this site recently.

Re: Building the first highway segment in the U.S. that can charge electric vehicles

#34

Post by Retric »

DemocracyFTW2 wrote: post #16
Retric wrote: post #5

Earlier 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…

@#1 no reason you can't put a raised collector on the roof of a truck @#2 yeah nice dream. Ever seen a highway under refurbishment? "Deep enough" to survive those machines means you waste even more energy. Total fantasy this.

#1 is about cars not trucks. You could stick something physically tall enough but you’d run into serious aerodynamic issues.

#2 There’s wireless charging systems more efficient when using power directly than plugging in and charging an EV’s batteries. (edit with a 9 inch air gap) That’s quite a bit of wiggle room if the goal is indefinite range rather than actually charging cars on the freeway. So yes there’s definitely a trade off of efficiency vs maintenance, but it’s not that big a gap.

Re: Building the first highway segment in the U.S. that can charge electric vehicles

#36

Post by viciousvoxel »

mlinhares wrote: post #26
viciousvoxel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I meant it mostly jokingly, and I actually agree with you for the most part, though I do think literally catching on fire multiple times is not so amazing. I grew up riding the MBTA and mostly just lament how it's been mismanaged and saddled with debts, resulting in most of their current problems.

Re: Building the first highway segment in the U.S. that can charge electric vehicles

#37

Post by reaperman »

mlinhares wrote: post #26
viciousvoxel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

USA’s 4th largest city (Houston) has essentially zero usable public transport. Anything remotely usable a few times per week by more than 5% of the city’s population is amazing by USA standards.

Houston population is 2.2M in the city, 7.2M metro area (most of whom at least regularly spend time in or commute to Houston proper).

Re: Building the first highway segment in the U.S. that can charge electric vehicles

#38

Post by etrautmann »

Retric wrote: post #34
DemocracyFTW2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@#1 no reason you can't put a raised collector on the roof of a truck @#2 yeah nice dream. Ever seen a highway under refurbishment? "Deep enough" to survive those machines means you waste even more energy. Total fantasy this.

#1 is about cars not trucks. You could stick something physically tall enough but you’d run into serious aerodynamic issues. #2 There’s wireless charging systems more efficient when using power directly than plugging in and charging an EV’s batteries. (edit with a 9 inch air gap) That’s quite a bit of wiggle room if the goal is indefinite range rather than actually charging cars on the freeway. So yes there’s definit…

This just simply isn’t going to be an efficient, cost effective, or maintainable solution relative to alternatives. We’re also not going to have solar roads for the same reason. Sure take moonshots, but they should make sense from first principles.

Re: Building the first highway segment in the U.S. that can charge electric vehicles

#40

Post by rootusrootus »

Doesn't take complicated math to conclude that there's no way a method this inefficient is going to flow anywhere near enough electrons to charge a moving car. It won't get anywhere near enough to keep the thing moving, even.
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