Quote:
Originally Posted by RustyLugNut
So which comes first? The road or the cars? I won't buy the car if you don't have a charging road. Who is on the hook to build and maintain the road charging sections? So, you want to put charge pads under roads that need repair. How about the little used roadways that will be decades in the backlog of repairs? How about the long private roads that lead to private homes and businesses?
|
Sort of like hydrogen cars without hydrogen available at every service station.
There will always be early adopters of technology.
But unlike hydrogen there is already large numbers of all electric vehicles out there.
Just as drivers of petrol cars paid to convert to LPG or go dual fuel so to will electric car drivers retrofit road charging to their vehicles if the road they commute on gets charging installed. Car manufactures could offer road charging as an option on new vehicles.
It doesn't need to be an all or nothing deal. Just because every road doesn't have road charging it doesn't mean nobody will buy it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RustyLugNut
So you say you can "pulse charge" a capacitor with enough charge for a few kilometers. Have you calculated the energy transfer needed? What will be your current and voltage to provide such an energy pulse? What will be your air gap? What happens if another vehicle is in close proximity to such a pulse? What will be the effect of the resultant electro-magnetic radiation on your vehicle systems? Have you had this discussion with other EEs and Physicists as I have?
|
I am not an EE or a physicist but i don't think they are all knowing either. EE's not involved in the technologies development may have questions and may even have their doubts but i don't think they would say it was impossible or dangerous without first studying in detail the technology. And probably not until they had actually tested the equipment.
If the EE's involved in the development of the road charging systems believe they have a marketable and safe system then who am i to question them. There is more than enough bureaucracy in place to ensure the technology is safe before being allowed on the roads. Actually considering the possible fears that could easily be placed in the general public i would imagine the technology would need rigorous testing to allay those fears.
I have a friend who will not eat micro waved food because it has been exposed to radiation and they don't want radiation poisoning. These are the sorts of people that the proponents of the technology need to convince. I don't envy them their task.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RustyLugNut
What happens when a travel disruption leaves you stranded between charge points for a period of time such that your secondary loads drain your power systems? I'm thinking of the stretch from Baker to Las Vegas in the middle of summer.
|
Tricky question as i don't know precisely what load the secondary systems place on the battery system. I can make a bit of a guess. If you are stationary then the drive train is not consuming. I imagine as you sit in traffic you would be using your air conditioner and the radio/sound system.
Say you were driving a road charge enabled Leaf. A quick check of wikipedia gives me a table of EPA tests. One of which is the heavy stop go traffic scenario with the air conditioning running. They list a speed of 10km/h and a drive time of 7 hours 50 minutes. I am guessing if you were totally stationary then the drive time would be even longer.
7 hours 50 minutes seems like a long time in traffic to me. I would imagine many of the ICE drivers sitting in their vehicles with the engine idling to keep their air conditioning going may have ran out of petrol by that time and may be looking enviously at the Leaf with the nicely air conditioned cabin.
Then once the travel disruption clears you continue on your way, powered by the road charging system and your batteries start recharging as you go. Meanwhile those ICE drivers that haven't ran out of petrol nervously look for the nearest petrol station and then get to queue up for an extended period due to the large number of vehicles involved in the traffic disruption that are now also looking for fuel.