Google Working On Wireless Charging For Self-Driving Cars (inhabitat.com) 60
MikeChino writes: New FCC filings suggest that Google is currently installing wireless charging systems for self-driving cars at its headquarters in Mountain View. The documents suggest that the systems will be installed by Hevo Power and Momentum Dynamics. Both companies offer technology that can wirelessly charge an electric car via plates that are embedded in the ground.
cellphones are bad enough (Score:3, Interesting)
Wireless charging is wildly inefficient, in no way is it a better idea to do this than using a plug especially for something as hungry as a car.
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Imagine the number of YouTube cooked-cat videos and the resulting ad revenue!
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You may well be right - but I think the idea is to be able to charge while you drive. Even if it is wildly inefficient and almost certainly can't give you continuous driving (at least no time soon) - it could likely extend the range of an electric vehicle by a good 30% or so, which many people would value. The cost of the infrastructure will be high but since it's value is spread over so many beneficiaries it's cost-per-user is actually quite low.
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Wireless charging is wildly inefficient, in no way is it a better idea to do this than using a plug especially for something as hungry as a car.
You may well be right - but I think the idea is to be able to charge while you drive. Even if it is wildly inefficient and almost certainly can't give you continuous driving (at least no time soon) - it could likely extend the range of an electric vehicle by a good 30% or so, which many people would value. The cost of the infrastructure will be high but since it's value is spread over so many beneficiaries it's cost-per-user is actually quite low.
A simple way to provide charging is to have a ground plate that would spring up and mate with an identical plate in the car therefore providing energy transfer very much like a standard transformer with a small air gap. It would be more efficient to have a charging plug which would remove the need to extra locating circuitry for the plates not to mention the losses associated with a loosely coupled transformer. Not to be a spoilsport but energy stored plus energy lost still has to be paid for by the consume
Re: cellphones are bad enough (Score:2)
Today. But just a few years ago it was the population of a small suburb. That number is liable to grow exponentially.
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People want electric cars in order to conserve energy, not for themselves but for the environment. So having a very inefficient charger defeats that purpose.
Re: cellphones are bad enough (Score:2)
I think its both. I want an electric car because electricity is a shitload cheaper than petrol or diesel here. The enviromental benefits are a bonus though. By that reasoning nobody would buy electric cars when their grid is fossil fuel powered. It reduces the benefit it does not negate it.
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I think its both. I want an electric car because electricity is a shitload cheaper than petrol or diesel here.
Only because there is massive tax on petrol and diesel (in the UK anyway) and not on electricity. As long as only a few people adopt electric cars the government will be content to posture as the Godfather of Green-ness, and even give subsidies for it, but if/when most cars are electric do we really believe that the government will tolerate the loss of all that tax revenue? Good luck with that.
By that reasoning nobody would buy electric cars when their grid is fossil fuel powered. It reduces the benefit it does not negate it.
You are under-estimating the power of marketing. I once tried in vain to explain to a chatty guy on a train that
Re: cellphones are bad enough (Score:2)
For fossil fuels though thats far from the only factor. Big generators will always be cheaper per joule there because they have access to a wider range of fuels (when oil is expensive crank up the gas generators) and much better economies of scale. Coal by the ton costs a lot less than coal by the kilo.
inductive charging efficiency (Score:4, Informative)
At the scale they're doing induction charging, it's actually quite efficient. Part of it is that you don't need a separate transformer to get the voltage to the right level for the car. You're only loosing a percent or so for the systems they're examining.
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People want electric cars in order to conserve energy, not for themselves but for the environment. So having a very inefficient charger defeats that purpose.
People are very different. I bought an electric car because it doesn't shake, rattle or stink, it's silent, and when I hit the accelerator it actually accelerates.
If it's also environmentally friendly, then I'll take that. Nice bonus. It's not my primary motivator however.
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"Wildly inefficient" is the key thing. Stationary charging
Re: cellphones are bad enough (Score:2)
On the other hand it could help keep the roads clear of snow :p
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That's not what this article is talking about. These are fixed charging stations at Google's headquarters. Here's one of the companies [hevopower.com] they're working with. As they describe on their website, it's something where you drive up to the charger, stop your car, use your phone to monitor the progress of charging, etc.
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Gee, the Roger Rabbit electric bus revisited (Score:1)
Back when the Disneyland Roger Rabbit area of Fantasy land was brand new there were little charging pads to charge up the bus people could ride from one side to the other of the area. At the places the bus would stop charging coils were installed in the ground. This didn't last long at all. It's nice to see Google reviving the fantasy.
{^_-}
Re:Gee, the Roger Rabbit electric bus revisited (Score:5, Informative)
So you're example of a past attempt is from circa 1989 ? You do realize that practically every piece of technology in the tool-chain up to and including the batteries (and their charge times) have gotten orders better in the decades since then ? That's like saying "New horizons was an impossible mission because when we launched Apollo 11 it could barely make it to the moon and back".
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practically every piece of technology in the tool-chain up to and including the batteries (and their charge times) have gotten orders better in the decades since then
The laws of physics have not gotten better though. Charging across a significant air gap remains an inefficient part of the chain, no matter how much you improve the bits either side.
We've had these for 2 years already (Score:2, Interesting)
Buses in Milton Keynes (England), have been using this for two years.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25621426
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the bus parks over plates buried in the road. The driver then lowers receiver plates on the bottom of the bus to within 4cm of the road surface and the bus is charged
So it is not on the move, and the bus lowers plates. Might as well lower contacts - much cheaper and more efficient.
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The plate is used to provide a large area for induction because the charging is done while passengers are getting on and off the bus. Using contacts would be cheaper and more efficient but would require the driver to be very precise in their placement of the bus if they were to be automatically deployed or have live connections open at street level. You lose some efficiency by using induction but gain in usability.
Hey, didn't you know? (Score:3, Insightful)
Something hasn't been invented until someone in america re-invents it and pretends its an original and unique idea worthy of a patent at the not-at-all-partisan US Patent Office.
like an electric toothbrush? (Score:3)
Why link to that useless tease at inhabitat?
Here is TFA: http://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-... [ieee.org]
Though it still does not explain why induction might be better than using a conventional dock, especially for an automated car.
Re:like an electric toothbrush? (Score:5, Interesting)
Though it still does not explain why induction might be better than using a conventional dock, especially for an automated car.
Okay, have you seen tesla's automated charge connector? It's like something out of a bad horror movie.
Still, a list in no particular order:
More resistant against vandals
doesn't take up real estate with a charging station
No need for a person to hook up the charger(or a horror movie snake-thing)
faster connection
no need to play with adapters
no cables to trip over
ability to embed charger at stop lights, bus stops(for electric buses), taxi stops(for taxis), and such for a 'quick top-off'. Might not matter for a Tesla type car, but for a electric bus? Might be the difference between getting through en entire day and having to swap out the batteries for a bus or taxi.
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Wireless charging can be done via two means.
The first being by induction charging [wikipedia.org].
The second being by beamed radiation which could be ultrasonic or microwave or even Laser. See the following [wikipedia.org].
In principle wireless charging sounds good however there are normally huge losses associate with this and since we live in a society of "user pays" I don't think that many people would like to pay for energy losses. Fine for a mobile phone wireless charger since the losses are relatively small but for a car or bus
Strange (Score:2)
Yes, there's a few ways to do wireless charging. Given that in this context we're talking about inductive charging and that's what I was talking about(even though I didn't specify it) I'm not sure why you're bringing up the other ways.
When you're making a charge array as large as that for a wireless car, it's actually quite efficient over the relatively few inches from the charger to the car's receiver. So the losses aren't 'huge'.
Now, you're actually right about the additional batteries - when I last rea
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........ why induction might be better than using a conventional dock, especially for an automated car.
More resistant against vandals.
A plug-in point on a post does not seem particularly vandal prone. Avoid putting them in vandal-prone areas - cars are generally more mobile than vandals.
doesn't take up real estate with a charging station
Except for the credit card reader, unless everything is going to be free in La-La Land. Anyway, people (and entrepreneurs) will still want the adjacent shop to buy their booze and fags when they top up, so a few charging pillars wont make much difference.
No need for a person to hook up the charger.
faster connection
no need to play with adapters
no cables to trip over
A hard connection could be automated with a connector descending from the car to sockets on the grou
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Except for the credit card reader, unless everything is going to be free in La-La Land.
Well, outside of La-La land they can just use wireless billing or subscription services, you know?
Anyway, people (and entrepreneurs) will still want the adjacent shop to buy their booze and fags when they top up, so a few charging pillars wont make much difference.
Note how I said buses and taxis. Not vehicles that can be EVs spend that much time in parking lots. Also, on road charging.
Though as batteries keep getting cheaper such ideas become financially less feasible compared to just adding more batteries.
although as I said even a hard connection could be automated.
As I mentioned as well, remember Tesla's automated charger?
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Actually, they don't need any kind of payment system built in to the charger. The charger just asks the car for its VIN number, the back end checks that it has an account and tells the charger to turn on. When the charger is finished it reports back how much energy it dispensed and the back end bills the user.
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IE a subscription service, right?
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Might be the difference between getting through en entire day and having to swap out the batteries for a bus or taxi.
But with an automated bus/taxi fleet (or even a manned one), the vehicle that's running low on juice can be swapped out for a freshly charged one, sending the low-charge vehicle back to the charging station (and to be inspected). This fills two needs: energy efficiency and regular maintenance. You could also have forklift-loadable batteries always charging to be swapped out as needed during high volume days to get vehicles back out sooner without the maintenance checks.
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But with an automated bus/taxi fleet (or even a manned one), the vehicle that's running low on juice can be swapped out for a freshly charged one
Swapping means you need an extra bus, and they're expensive. You can do maintenance checks daily, not 'per charge'.
Rather than forklifting batteries, have a dedicated robot doing it that undoes the bolts and replaces the battery.
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Perhaps, but inductive chargers are going to be havens for vagrants and the homeless - just think of how warm and toasty they'll be!
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heh. Not really - they're very efficient today, and would only be powered when there's a vehicle to charge on top of them.
That being said, it'd be cheaper to just put those types up in housing.
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yet we're going to throw away all sorts of power as useless heat (which the world does not need!) just to solve your first-world convenience problems?
The systems aren't that less efficient. At those scales, induction charging is only a percent or two less efficient than a cable hook-up.
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How about ZERO inefficiency by just plugging your damn car in?
There's still loss from the cable, and the transformer that's in the charging unit - whether in the car or in the exterior charger. You can get rid of that transformer when you're using induction.
As for the danger, at the voltages and amps we're looking at, it actually IS dangerous if it wasn't for that said cables are very much NOT simple, containing sensors to limit voltage potential to what's needed to detect a connection. Something like 1V until it's done a handshake, then it can ramp up to 400V or mo
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Induction for opportunistic charging with less maintenance than using a connector. Connectors wear out, incorrect insertion can damage one or both ends, and they require some sort of above-ground post that can be hit by bad drivers. Inductive plates on the ground are much more robust, so you trade that against the reduced efficiency.
There is also the convenience. Say you install them at a bus stop, the bus can recharge while it is taking on passengers and then move off immediately.
"working on" or let other install? (Score:2)
seems it is other companies that are "working on" the technology of wireless charging. and there is no particular technological breakthrough to warrant a story.
google is just using it, as does others.
You mean like the buses in Italy? (Score:3)
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That's just what I want... not only do I want google to monitor every site people visit on the net, to record everyone's email (even if you don't use gmail, everyone ELSE does), to know every site people sign up for via google captcha, everyone's location and who they associate with in real life, know their social network, and what they buy, and almost everything they've ever done online... but google should ALSO know where everyone drives and have the ultimate control over their cars.
Big Brother is here. But he wasn't forced on us. We invited him in.
At least when they determine you've done something wrong they will be able to lock the doors and drive you straight to the jail house
Does Roomba have the patents locked up? (Score:2)
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Because you could place these at spots where the vehicles would commonly be dropping people off or picking them up and each time they did the vehicle could charge. For example put one at the drop off point at the airport and while the person is getting out and taking the luggage out of the trunk you might get a minute or two of charging. Enough of these top ups during the day might let a vehicle get an extra run or two in before having to return to the garage.
It might make building garages for fleets easi
Free Degaussing! (Score:2)