Volvo's Electric Roads Concept Points To Battery-Free EV Future 216
Zothecula writes "While quick charging technology installed at strategic points along a planned route might be a good fit for inner city buses, it's not going to be of much use to electric vehicles that stop infrequently. Volvo sees our future long-haul trucks and buses drawing the juice they need from the road itself, making large onboard batteries a thing of the past. 'The two power rails/lines run along the road's entire length. One is a positive pole, and the other is used to return the current. The lines are sectioned so that live current is only delivered to a collector mounted at the rear of, or under, the truck if an appropriate signal is detected. As an additional safety measure, the current flows only when the vehicle is moving at speeds greater than 60 km/h (37 mph). "The vehicle is equipped with a radio emitter, which the road segments can sense," explains Volvo's Per-Martin Johnansson. "If an electric vehicle passes a road segment with a proper encrypted signal, then the road will energize the segments that sense the vehicle.'"
To sum up, it's an over-complicated trolley, (Score:5, Insightful)
complete with all the limitation thereof.
Re:Who Pays? (Score:5, Insightful)
If one assumes that this is the solution for electric cars, then a logical extension is that everybody will adopt it. Intercity truck hauling is the low hanging fruit so that is where you start. Then it cascades down to everybody. In 20 years half the cars driving would use the technology.
Initially costs would have to be subsidized by the taxpayers, but as usage grows then subsides would disappear with costs being recouped by charging for the electricity.
It’s a long shot but there could be huge wins. That is how I would evaluate it.
skip the road, use long thin metal guides instead (Score:5, Insightful)
You could call them "rails" or something... and connect multiple trucks together when they were all going the same direction.
Brilliant!
Re:Expensive, ultimately disposable infrastructure (Score:4, Insightful)
I will agree with you that batteries (or better yet, ultracapacitors) are the more likely solution, but they have gaps.
Cars work. Busses that travel along prearranged routs work either by battery swapping or fast charges at bus stops.
Trucks don’t work, or at least not as well. I different solution is going to be needed. If this is the solution for trucks (which I am not sure of) then would think it would be a simple add on for cars. Batteries for short trips, power from the road when on the highway. They would not be incompatible, but there would be some tradeoff for the extra weight..
Re:Expensive, ultimately disposable infrastructure (Score:4, Insightful)
Ultimately it's not going to work because rebuilding roads to fit all this crap underneath them would be insanely expensive compared to pretty much any other alternative. It might be viable in towns where the roads are close to capacity all the time, but stringing up overhead electrical cables would almost certainly be much cheaper. The idea that you'd rip up hundreds of miles of road between two North American cities to fit complex electrical systems under them so a few dozen trucks an hour could drive along there using electricity rather than diesel is simply laughable.
Re:Expensive, ultimately disposable infrastructure (Score:5, Insightful)
What they could do is have the trucks drive on the rails so they have to put them in. The upside is that there will be lower rolling resistance so it'll be more efficient anyway.
Ok so let's put metal rails between major cities and use electric vehicles on them.
Re:automobile methodone (Score:4, Insightful)
For long-haul bulk freight, rail is astonishingly efficient. Nothing you can do with trucks comes anywhere close. Rail is pretty useless for that last mile, of course, but for long haul it's a bit of a mystery why it doesn't get more use.