A question about electric cars.

[JVS]

With battery technology currently limited, and range being such a concern for many of these cars, wouldn't it be an easier and less environmentally damaging solution to lay an electric cable on every lane of interstate highway than to try to create rapid charging stations. The car could even pull enough current from the wire that it would be recharged after going a good distance to the next city.

[Radical Activist]

1. What would that cost?

I don't see why it would be worth it. People can use electric cars for nearly all of their travel. People will have to get used to renting a car for long trips. Or they trade out batteries.

[JVS]

4. Probably not much. I'm talking about laying down a small metal strip along the painted lines.

[jberryhill]

7. A "small metal strip"

You mean "two small metal strips". Not sure where you are getting ground from.

If the strip is "small", then I gather you are running high voltage AC instead of DC? I hope you weren't planning on walking near a wet road.

[JVS]

8. Who walks close to the interstate highway?

[jberryhill]

11. Emergency crews, construction workers, drivers of disabled vehicles

The water alone is going to get you a good arc-over. You can't just lay an HV line in concrete.

Then you'll need an HV step down transformer in the vehicle.

[DeSwiss]

2. Limited?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd9hDa-JHZ8&feature=related">A 1972 Datsun 1200 converted into a fully electric car

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8sgvVdSCHU">American Muscle Vs. White Zombie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsGeQby7Jnw&NR=1">Electric Car QUICKER THAN A FERRARI ENZO 0-60 3.07 sec!


- The only thing that's limited that I can see, is the will of the people to make their government work for them -- instead of corporations.

[upi402]

19. +1000

zactly

to induce enough power the OP idea would need almost IEEE medium voltage, at least NEC high voltage. it could work though, and it all needs to be given decent R and D ...by a fictitious government in the sky.

[PJPhreak]

20. For the internet impaired....

White Zombie is the Worlds fastest EV 10.05 @ 125 mph...





I know,I know, What does Drag Racing have to do with this...A large portion of Auto innovation comes from Racing,Look at most of the safety gear in your car,And how did they figure out how to build a 400Hp car that gets 26 mpg...Racing.

[flvegan]

3. Dude, bumper cars!

Put that electric roof thing over all the roads and each car has one of those poles that contacts it.

Plus I can ram every hypermiling/texting/ignorant moron in front of me. This, I like.

[JVS]

5. You'd also get to ride in the shade

[flvegan]

6. See???!!!

You need a patent lawyer, stat!

[JVS]

9. And above the roof, the solar panels.

[flvegan]

12. Someone is going to steal this from you.

[Warpy]

10. That would limit things like lane changes and merging and

would be a nightmare to install. About the only way you could do it is by a dual rail system. Remember, a single wire won't do anything. You require a circuit and you have to isolate it from ground. Then you have to design something to get the power to the car without dragging too much and wasting energy there. You also don't want people to wreck out if they have to change lanes. Then there's devising a system that will work in snow.

Seriously, long distance transport is going to be by diesel or rail until and unless electrical storage technology improves dramatically. If the carbon nanotube batteries pan out as advertised, that might make it feasible for moderate trips by passenger car. If not, you'll have to rent a diesel to go over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house.

Electrical cars will be great urban and even near suburban transport. If they adopt the small, 3 wheel design of the small cabs they use in southeast Asia, they'd be great errand/shopping cars. However, barring the improvements in batteries, they'll be a bad idea in exurbs or rural areas.

It's unlikely one solution will fit all as the oil runs out.

[NBachers]

13. What happens in wintertime?

[AdHocSolver]

14. The cost and amount of materials needed to use cables to power electric cars is prohibitive.

When cities had electric street cars and electric interurban trains that traveled fixed routes, using cables was practical. Automobiles don't follow fixed routes.

One practical way to extend the range of an electric powered vehicle is to have a small on-board gasoline or diesel engine to drive an alternator to recharge the batteries. This would be feasible on long trips and the equivalent mileage could approach a hundred miles per gallon.

A gasoline or diesel engine normally wastes a large amount of energy in generating and dissipating heat. A small engine designed just to drive the alternator at a constant speed could be air-cooled and would be much more efficient.

Electric motors don't waste fuel just to keep them at operating temperature like a gasoline engine does. Whereas gasoline engines produce low torque at low RPM requiring a complicated and energy wasting transmission to convert high engine RPM's to high torque at low speed, electric motors can produce high torque even at low RPM's. This is one reason why electric cars can accelerate so quickly.

[the redcoat]

15. What would you say when people die from touching these cables?

I know you're just putting forth a general idea for discussion, but I have to absolutely shut down this argument right now.

What you're proposing is absolutely insane. People would die every day from accidentally touching these cables. You'd have to be on constant alert. Less than half an amp can stop a heart. Because they're on the ground, it would be a state of emergency every time it rained.

And that's besides the secondary fact that yes, it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, to manufacture and distribute lengths of cable.

[JVS]

17. I'm not saying put them on every road, I'm saying put them on every Interstate highway.

You know, those big multi lane highways that are not intended for non-motorized traffic. So, I guess what I'd say is "WTF was this person doing fucking around on the surface of I-95?"

Within towns the cars would use their batteries, but we would no longer need to attempt to make batteries capable of powering a car for 200 miles.

[whyverne]

16. Don't waste your fine ideas on the Luddites on this board.

This is being worked on using inductance.
http://www.allcarselectric.com/blog/1036051_german-firm-says-inductive-road-charging-of-vehicles-only-2-3-years-away

[Greyhound]

18. Interesting idea but it is a solution looking for a problem. The whole limited range "issue"

is manufactured by (I'll give you two guesses).

The average American passenger car is driven http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/rtecs/chapter3.html">less than 40 miles per day, current technology provides well over 100. The bottom line is that all electric vehicles built with current technology would be more than adequate but, and this is the key, if they became common it would be devastating to the oil industry.