Charging While Driving

[Ozukus]

Just saw this article on Yahoo.

Now that really woul be great, can the first road be the M25 please.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/uk-set-trial-electric-car-095516881.html#oVDiMoe

 

[greendwarf]

Just saw this article on Yahoo.

Now that really woul be great, can the first road be the M25 please.
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/uk-set-trial-electric-car-095516881.html#oVDiMoe

Yes, but read the comments - very depressing

 

[Ozukus]

Yes, but read the comments - very depressing

Actually considering the number of EV based car owners to the number of traditional cars, there is enough spattering of positive comments to say that this has some positive attention. If you remove the "can't feed people" and downright trolls, then I'd say it's not too bad. It's a start.

 

[maby]

Well, I would say that it is a pretty stupid idea with current technology. Are there any cars at all on the market that can benefit from it? It's a very large amount of money and a great deal of disruption to the transport network to test out the technology on a handful of cars travelling just a few miles on a single motorway.

 

[jaapv]

It is not a stupid idea, but it is a stupid duplication. Electricity generating roads are nothing new, these experiments, when implemented, will be five years behind. There are solar road experiments in a number of places, at the moment used for lighting. Obviously the link to induction charging is the next step.

 

[ian4x4]

It doesn't seem practical to me, and what about the losses from inductive pickup on all the normal cars.

However, I have learnt that anything is possible.

On different courses during my career, I was told that transistors would never become reliable enough for aviation use, and more relevantly I was told that the energy density now used in batteries was impossible because it would make them prone to overheat and be unstable.

Also I remember that lithium was said to be very volatile. (definition - liable to change rapidly and unpredictably, especially for the worse)

Perhaps it would be better to spend the money installing a linear electric motor under the road to help all the cars along the road.

 

[RichardOFB]

It's the same chicken and egg as public EV charging stations, and what sort of connector should it be.

If there were enough roads that had it, in enough Countries around the world, to make it worth the manufactures makign it an option to fit on the cars, so that we picked the option, then it might be a good idea, in another 10 years time, whent he technology might have matured a bit more.


I've seen adverts on the TV for a new Galaxy phone, with wireless charging.
Rumor has it the next iPhone might do it.
*IF* they pick the same (or compatible) standard, perhaps more phones will do it the follow year, and it will become the new standard in the future, and it will become a standard thing at pubs, restaurants and other places where people want to charge their phone while they are there spending their money on eating and drinking.
but that is pennies on each phone, pounds on each charger, to benefit millions of potential users.

I think there is going to be more politics than technical issues on how you get a few KWh into your battery while you are moving.

 

[greendwarf]

I seem to recall reading somewhere that induction charging (albeit when parked) is being seriously considered by manufacturers. Presumably it puts some of the cost/reliability issues into the car rather than expensive/high maintenance charging stations.

 

[Neverfuel]

Isn't this what Nicola Tesla's dream was? He failed because the free electricity could not be put on a meter and paid for. £500m that could be spent on improving the existing infrastructure IMHO.

 

[gwatpe]

I suspect that "inductive"charging while driving is a far way off, given the exacting requirements of QI charging pads used on say mobile phones. My own QI pad system on my SAMSUNG phone requires the phone to be placed within a few mm on the pad to get good recharging. system uses 100kHz induction coils and this will not scale up well for kW needs of a car.

 

[greendwarf]

I suspect that "inductive"charging while driving is a far way off, given the exacting requirements of QI charging pads used on say mobile phones. My own QI pad system on my SAMSUNG phone requires the phone to be placed within a few mm on the pad to get good recharging. system uses 100kHz induction coils and this will not scale up well for kW needs of a car.

And even Rita Ora's advert states that a full charge takes 3 hours However, doesn't moving across an induction coil generate electricity itself - so no good in a traffic jam :lol:

 

[Neverfuel]

Unless they had a linear flow arrangement that went in the opposite direction to the flow of traffic (think levitating train principle but the other way round). The problem would be with the manufacturers providing vehicles that had several methods of charging so that the vehicle was not dependent on being restricted to certain roads / routes. However, how much could battery technology be improved with £500m though? It would certainly be more scalable than an "experiment" - it would also be exportable, does anyone think that the rest of the countries that sell the PHEV will put in "Green Charging Lanes" ? Rant over - just thought we had a deficit to pay, that's all! :?

 

[RichardOFB]

sounds like a lot of money to spend on developing a new technology, when there is an existing method that already works fine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantograph_%28transport%29

:lol: