# EV with no batries and wireless elctricity



## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

Really? After 130 posts? How much power does a crystal radio use? And a car? If you could broadcast enough power to wirelessly power even one car, everyone around would be toast.


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## Efiero (Feb 7, 2009)

so you are saying that one of the greatest minds on electricty Tessla had it all wrong Wow thats strong as far as how tesla did it no one is sure and he wasnt toast


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

How many cars did Tesla drive using wireless power? No, a light bulb does not count as a car.


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## bjfreeman (Dec 7, 2011)

Efiero said:


> Back many years Nickola Tesla worked on wireless electricity using radio waves and i am sure many of you know about a crystle raido and how they work so why not build a car that uses the radio waves to get the electrictiy needed . it was reported tesla achived wireless electricty but but he was shut down by JP morgan and a few others due to they dint know how they would charge for the electricty


have you investigated those that steal power, that live under the High powered transmission lines.
while your at it research the effect of High magnetic fields effect on the human body.
those that built the Imaging Gear came up with some interesting data.

finally consider that the power diminishes as the square of the distance.
Frankly, having lived near High powered lines, I don't like the buzzing and snapping when there is high humidity.


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## DJBecker (Nov 3, 2010)

Efiero said:


> so you are saying that one of the greatest minds on electricty Tessla had it all wrong


Yup.

Tesla was thinking about relatively small amounts of power, and even there he had it partially wrong. He expected to find a "sweet spot" at higher frequencies where moderate amounts of power could be transmitted efficiently.

It turns out that sweet spot is much higher in frequency, and power transmission becomes very directional and easily blocked.



Efiero said:


> Wow thats strong as far as how tesla did it no one is sure and he wasnt toast


He weakly lit the equivalent of modern fluorescent tubes using a RF field. It's likely that he used a spark gap transmitter with a tuned circuit to put most of the energy in the desired band. We don't know the exact details, but that's far from saying we couldn't easily reproduce his demonstration.

As far as not being toast, there are lots of scary-looking demos with Tesla coils that end up with no one harmed. But every once in a while someone is killed by electricity.


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## ga2500ev (Apr 20, 2008)

Efiero said:


> Back many years Nickola Tesla worked on wireless electricity using radio waves and i am sure many of you know about a crystle raido and how they work so why not build a car that uses the radio waves to get the electrictiy needed . it was reported tesla achived wireless electricty but but he was shut down by JP morgan and a few others due to they dint know how they would charge for the electricty


Physics primarily. Power drops off at the square of the distance. So to be efficient, the distance must be fairly short.

There has been quite a bit of work in efficient short range wireless power transfer. The company Witricity has been founded on the concept. They use the idea of resonant magnetic inductive coupling. From this Wikipedia article:



> Using resonance can help efficiency dramatically. If resonant coupling is used, each coil is capacitively loaded so as to form a tuned LC circuit. If the primary and secondary coils are resonant at a common frequency, it turns out that significant power may be transmitted between the coils over a range of a few times the coil diameters at reasonable efficiency.


So the big idea here is to use this type of coupling between the road and the car. The car can then charge while it is moving.

There's no reason to get rid of batteries. They are by far the tank with the most capacity and more efficient method of energy transfer. Magnetic resonance has shown efficiencies in the 60% range. Direct battery charging can get well above 90% efficiency. So it makes sense to plug in when possible. But using short range wireless transfer can create the range extension infrastructure required to put EVs in the mainstream of usage instead of on the fringes.

ga2500ev


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

ga2500ev said:


> So it makes sense to plug in when possible. But using short range wireless transfer can create the range extension infrastructure required to put EVs in the mainstream of usage instead of on the fringes.
> 
> ga2500ev


Wireless powered roads will never be mainstream. If they ever do anything, it will be one road on the west coast. There's no one else in the country willing to spend huge amounts of money on such a limited use case. In the time it will take to make such a road, battery tech will have improved enough that each of us can afford a 500 mile pack. There just won't be any need to charge en route, unless you're driving coast to coast, which high power charging stations can easily handle.


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## ga2500ev (Apr 20, 2008)

Ziggythewiz said:


> Wireless powered roads will never be mainstream. If they ever do anything, it will be one road on the west coast. There's no one else in the country willing to spend huge amounts of money on such a limited use case. In the time it will take to make such a road, battery tech will have improved enough that each of us can afford a 500 mile pack. There just won't be any need to charge en route, unless you're driving coast to coast, which high power charging stations can easily handle.


I'm not so quick to dismiss the idea. First off it does not need to be a situation where the entire road needs to be electified. Think of it more as a stationary charging station that's embedded into the road. They can be built in intervals such as 1 mile of station for every 25 miles of road. If one starts with federal highways, using the same arguments that got the federal highway system built in the first place (National Security), and offered some incentives to spur usage, then it can be done.

The issue is never a matter of cost. It's a matter of will. There are well over 100,000 gas stations in the US with nearly one at each and every exit ramp of every highway. It should be possible to put half that many embedded into the roads.

The rest of the infrastructure is already in place. Each and every building in the country can effectively charge an EV. The only frontier left is driving for range.

ga2500ev


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## mizlplix (May 1, 2011)

The very first "Micro-wave" ovens were receivers and the "Micro-wave" energy was transmitted to them. They received this power and directed it to the chamber to cook. It was a curiosity and would never amount to anything. It could never become main stream....LOL

My attitude is "watch and wait".

Miz


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

ga2500ev said:


> I'm not so quick to dismiss the idea. First off it does not need to be a situation where the entire road needs to be electified. Think of it more as a stationary charging station that's embedded into the road. They can be built in intervals such as 1 mile of station for every 25 miles of road. If one starts with federal highways, using the same arguments that got the federal highway system built in the first place (National Security), and offered some incentives to spur usage, then it can be done.


Charging for 1 mile out of 25 will not do much to maintain the charge levels in your car. Typical cars charge for 6-8 hours to drive for 30-60 min. Even a 60kW charger could only give you enough power for ~3 miles in one min, so your 1 mile out of 25 would need to be 10. Not to mention those chargers aren't wireless and you probably shouldn't even be in the car while anything near those power levels is pumping upward.

If you haven't noticed, there's been a large debate going for 10 years on the possibility of cell phones causing cancer or sterilization. That's around 3 watts or less, but you want to send 500kW?



ga2500ev said:


> The issue is never a matter of cost. It's a matter of will. There are well over 100,000 gas stations in the US with nearly one at each and every exit ramp of every highway. It should be possible to put half that many embedded into the roads.


The issue is ALWAYS a matter of cost. Those 100,000 gas stations were all built on, and run on money. What's the ROI on a high power wireless EV road?


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## powerhouse (Apr 1, 2011)

Not going to lie, I lol'd when I read the first post....

Maybe someday, but but don't hold your breath!


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

gottdi said:


> Now that is funny. It is total bull s......
> So what about all the AM and FM that has been floating around for generations. A cell phone is a portable radio, receiver/transmistter. A modern walkie talkie. Not a chance it will cause cancer or sterilize you.


The debate is about proximity. Since FM has been everywhere for so long, and that automatically makes it safe, can I shove a 92kW transmitter up your ***pants?

I'm not saying there is a risk to cell phones, but there is debate, and if cell phones put out enough to charge an EV, there wouldn't be a debate. Guaranteed you'd be cooked.


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## subcooledheatpump (Mar 5, 2012)

Wouldn't the body of the car mostly absorb the radio energy? 

Plus a microwave cavity magnetron resonates at something like 2 GHz. Just in theory couldn't we use say, 10 kHz to transmit radio energy into an EV?


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## ga2500ev (Apr 20, 2008)

Ziggythewiz said:


> Charging for 1 mile out of 25 will not do much to maintain the charge levels in your car. Typical cars charge for 6-8 hours to drive for 30-60 min. Even a 60kW charger could only give you enough power for ~3 miles in one min, so your 1 mile out of 25 would need to be 10. Not to mention those chargers aren't wireless and you probably shouldn't even be in the car while anything near those power levels is pumping upward.


It's range extension of a plug in vehicle. So it starts fully charged with a 100 mile range like the current Leaf. The supplemental charging doesn't need to fully recharge the battery. All it needs to do is facilitate range extension of the 100 miles to a reasonable range for typical highway driving. Then when one stops, a fast plug-in recharge can help top the batteries off for the next leg.

The issue with all pure EV's is when the initial charge runs out the car stops. If range extension can extend a 100 mile trip, then you have something.

Finally are there not fast chargers that can top off like 80% of the consumed energy in 20-30 minutes? Here's an example for the Leaf. The 6-8 hours is done for cost and convenience, not as as a technological hurdle.



> If you haven't noticed, there's been a large debate going for 10 years on the possibility of cell phones causing cancer or sterilization. That's around 3 watts or less, but you want to send 500kW?


It's not radio waves. It's resonant magnetic coupling. The coupling distance is going to be about 4-6 inches off the surface of the road at about 70% efficiency. The rest actually turns into heat.





> The issue is ALWAYS a matter of cost. Those 100,000 gas stations were all built on, and run on money. What's the ROI on a high power wireless EV road?


It's the chicken/egg problem. The ROI now is small. So the investment is small. So the growth is small.

But some are looking to the future. Here's where South Korea is looking to electrify their roads. The potential savings is 35 billion gallons of oil a year.

The will part of it is creating the critical mass to make the investment work. No one is going to dip their toe into uncertain waters. The market has to be created, then the investors will follow. That's why initiatives such as 10% ZEV by year X are important.

But as the NYTimes article points out, there will soon be 8500 Leaf owners, who are already premium paying advanced enthusiasts. Hopefully they will create markets that the rest of us will be able to utilize...

ga2500ev


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## Semper Vivus (Apr 13, 2011)

Hello,

the technology you are discussing is under developement already. There are also some working prototypes on the road:
http://primovecity.bombardier.com/en/home/index.html

Regards
Tom


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## ga2500ev (Apr 20, 2008)

subcooledheatpump said:


> Wouldn't the body of the car mostly absorb the radio energy?
> 
> Plus a microwave cavity magnetron resonates at something like 2 GHz. Just in theory couldn't we use say, 10 kHz to transmit radio energy into an EV?


It's magnetic resonance inductive coupling, not radio waves. 

Did some quick research. A paper on the effects of MRI points out the biggest issue is embedded metal.

Shielding is possible too.

Looks like it's possible to keep the field down below the floorboards...



ga2500ev


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

ga2500ev said:


> All it needs to do is facilitate range extension of the 100 miles to a reasonable range for typical highway driving.


What's a reasonable range? Make the battery that big, done.



ga2500ev said:


> Finally are there not fast chargers that can top off like 80% of the consumed energy in 20-30 minutes? Here's an example for the Leaf. The 6-8 hours is done for cost and convenience, not as as a technological hurdle.


Yes there are, so why bother with a charging road that costs a fortune?



ga2500ev said:


> It's not radio waves. It's resonant magnetic coupling. The coupling distance is going to be about 4-6 inches off the surface of the road at about 70% efficiency. The rest actually turns into heat.


Ok, so my car is now a 15kW heater.



ga2500ev said:


> Here's where South Korea is looking to electrify their roads. The potential savings is 35 billion gallons of oil a year.


If they'd quit wasting time on silly roads and focus more on making illicit batteries we could get off oil that much faster.


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## subcooledheatpump (Mar 5, 2012)

isn't that the goal of all radio? resonant magnetic coupling? 

That is true though, alot would be lost to heat. Basic principle behind an induction heater. 

Still, I don't see why not. Say an induction charging system was installed at a stop light, though it may not be much, you'd still be getting a charge, better than nothing. Probably cost prohibitive though


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## Semper Vivus (Apr 13, 2011)

I also think there is no benefit with this technology for the individual traffic. 
But for a bus/trolley this technology would be an advantage (see Primove project).

I also see the application of inductive charging for normal EVs. The average user of future EVs just doesn't want to connect a cable to his car. Maybe that sounds crazy. But the average user also doesn't think as technicaly as the members of this forum .


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## mizlplix (May 1, 2011)

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/cartech/wireless-electric-car-charging-coming-to-london-50006023/


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## DJBecker (Nov 3, 2010)

mizlplix said:


> http://crave.cnet.co.uk/cartech/wireless-electric-car-charging-coming-to-london-50006023/


Stationary inductive charging is far from "wireless electricity and no batteries".

And I don't think people will be willing to accept the inefficiencies after the novelty wears off.

As for "The average user of future EVs just doesn't want to connect a cable...", it's far less effort, mess and risk than pumping gas. The vast majority of people will pump their own gas to save a few cents a gallon.


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

Yeah, stationary chargers are much more reasonable. How big are they, 1-2'? So you'd only need 2500 of them to cover a mile of highway.

The furthest I could see this tech going is sticking a stationary inductive charger in rest stops every 100 miles, but even then wouldn't you just prefer to plug in and charge much faster?


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## mizlplix (May 1, 2011)

If I remember correctly, we (USA) already tried the induction route and let it die a lonesome death. Also a bevy of other charging schemes. 


We seem to have finally wound up with the j1772 plug with it,s thumb button to latch/unlatch it also to break the charge current.

Now all we need is to stop calling these pretenders "charging stations" and call them what they are....a simple power outlet. 

The real-deal EV charging station would be 80amp DC and variable voltage according to what pack was in the car.

But to charge two to three times the rate for regular 220Vdc current is robbery.

Miz


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## mizlplix (May 1, 2011)

Ok, laugh if you want.....

In cities, an overhead grid of electrified nets and a whip antenna on the car. We still have our regular traction packs to provide power in the turns and when going straight, it runs the car motor as well as charges the pack.

Open highways can have an EV lane with overhead rails. It gets you from one city to another. All done as a toll road. 


Investor, investment, lessors to provide investment returns... All Sound business and do able.

Miz


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## ga2500ev (Apr 20, 2008)

Ziggythewiz said:


> What's a reasonable range? Make the battery that big, done.


Definitely not done. With current battery technology, the capacity required for long distances are cost prohibitive. If that's the case, then why did Nissan build the Leaf specifically as a city car? Why not give it enough size and batteries to go 350 miles on a charge?




> (Re: fast charging) Yes there are, so why bother with a charging road that costs a fortune?


Because that still only gets one 80 miles at a pop for a small vehicle. We need an infrastructure that can support the types of vehicles, and the types of ranges that are typical on today's roads.

As for costing a fortune, It doesn't have to be the case. As I stated before, the whole road doesn't have to be done at once. Also the cost is amortized over usage of the life of the station. You do it for the same reason that everyone here virtually to a person says to buy Lithium even though it's more expensive: A better result that cost less over the life of the product.






> (efficiency) Ok, so my car is now a 15kW heater.


It's in the charger, not the receiver. So there will need to be some cooling there.





> If they'd quit wasting time on silly roads and focus more on making illicit batteries we could get off oil that much faster.


Batteries are not the sole solution. It's like saying that "we could solve the gas problem if we just had bigger engines!"

ga2500ev


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## ga2500ev (Apr 20, 2008)

Semper Vivus said:


> I also think there is no benefit with this technology for the individual traffic.
> But for a bus/trolley this technology would be an advantage (see Primove project).


Why not for individual traffic. Install stations at stop lights. Use RFID for the car to ID itself to the station. Get some juice, get charged some money. Of course the buses can use it too.



> I also see the application of inductive charging for normal EVs. The average user of future EVs just doesn't want to connect a cable to his car. Maybe that sounds crazy. But the average user also doesn't think as technicaly as the members of this forum .


Bingo. Of course it would need to be clearly explained that they are paying a surcharge for the convenience because the efficiency isn't as high as direct cable charging. But I'm sure anyone can see the advantage of simply driving over the parking space and being able to get a charge. Logically installing parking stalls with inductive charges would have some utility too.

ga2500ev


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## ga2500ev (Apr 20, 2008)

Ziggythewiz said:


> Yeah, stationary chargers are much more reasonable. How big are they, 1-2'? So you'd only need 2500 of them to cover a mile of highway.
> 
> The furthest I could see this tech going is sticking a stationary inductive charger in rest stops every 100 miles, but even then wouldn't you just prefer to plug in and charge much faster?


Often on the highway, 100 miles is out in the middle of nowhere. 45 minutes to an hour charging is a much different experience than spending 5 minutes filling up.

The objective is to have intermediate charging while moving between large population centers and stationary charging in the large pop centers where a traveler would stop, eat, visit, while their vehicle gets a full charge.

It's not an either/or discussion. It's an also/too discussion. The point still is that a charging infrastructure has to be put in place for EV's to really get on the general public's radar. And it needs to be cost competitive too. This is why the 20K Leaf is working and the 40K Volt is failing.

ga2500ev


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

bjfreeman said:


> have you investigated those that steal power, that live under the High powered transmission lines.
> while your at it research the effect of High magnetic fields effect on the human body.
> those that built the Imaging Gear came up with some interesting data.
> 
> ...


Actually it's worse - power diminishes with the cube of distance, not just the square.

In the 70's they talked about having solar cells in orbit and giant microwave transmitters beaming the power to earth. Sounds real cool until you realize that in order to get any useful level of power you have to either a) have a receiving antenna cover hundreds of miles or else b) cook everything under the beam.


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## Roy Von Rogers (Mar 21, 2009)

gottdi said:


> Now that is funny. It is total bull s......
> So what about all the AM and FM that has been floating around for generations. A cell phone is a portable radio, receiver/transmistter. A modern walkie talkie. Not a chance it will cause cancer or sterilize you.


 
Am/FM dont run on 2.45 gig, and I predict that years from now the people who hold a cell phone up to their ears for hours, will have problems.

Also there are schools now who are getting rid of Wifi, for the same reasons.

Roy


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## Duncan (Dec 8, 2008)

PhantomPholly said:


> Actually it's worse - power diminishes with the cube of distance, not just the square.
> 
> In the 70's they talked about having solar cells in orbit and giant microwave transmitters beaming the power to earth. Sounds real cool until you realize that in order to get any useful level of power you have to either a) have a receiving antenna cover hundreds of miles or else b) cook everything under the beam.


Hi Phantom
These were MASERS - microwave lasers - so the cube law is NA

1kw/m2 - is about the same as sunlight and a 1 GW receiver (rectenna) requires 1 square Km of area = about the same as a power plant

But you can still farm the area under the rectenna - you would split it into sectors and do the farmer work when that sector was switched off

Nothing wrong with the technology (the earthside bit at least) and very low risk

It won't happen because some idiots who don't understand the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation got their knickers in a twist


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## Ziggythewiz (May 16, 2010)

They're still talking about it, but last I heard Obama had given a contract to some startup to do it in CA.


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

Duncan said:


> Hi Phantom
> These were MASERS - microwave lasers - so the cube law is NA


Yes, I know - I was trying to impart that it took really expensive, complicated equipment to beam power over those distances. I focused on the receiving end - you just can't receive high power levels without frying people - but the transmitting end was also very complicated.



> 1kw/m2 - is about the same as sunlight and a 1 GW receiver (rectenna) requires 1 square Km of area = about the same as a power plant
> 
> But you can still farm the area under the rectenna - you would split it into sectors and do the farmer work when that sector was switched off
> 
> ...


You are correct that it won't happen - but it's because it is crazy-complicated and expensive, not to mention unknowns regarding long-term exposure to unnatural levels of microwaves. It's one of those things where the "Artist's Rendering" makes a great cover for Popular Science or for a science fiction magazine, but no one in their right minds would ever actually try to build it...


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## Roy Von Rogers (Mar 21, 2009)

gottdi said:


> Then you best get rid of your wireless routers and wireless phones in your home too. The power level is not great enough to do damage. It is non ionizing and very very weak power transmissions. Total BULL. Sure, there will be those that believe and there will also be those that believe that the world will end this year too. It is bull.
> 
> 
> Pete


I dont care to argue about this subject exept to say I'm an rf technician and Ham operator, and know a little about the subject. I dont have wifi, if I needed it, the antenna would be up on my tower. I have a cellphone but seldom have a need to use it.

I dont care what others opinion is about this subject, for its not my hide. I just gave some professional advice for those who care, since we all have computers, just do a search on it.


Roy


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## Roy Von Rogers (Mar 21, 2009)

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/05/31/who.cell.phones/




Roy


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## Efiero (Feb 7, 2009)

*Re: EV with no batteries and wireless electricity*

Well i am glad i started this thread i learned allot even after taking a bit of abuse at first but it seems it turned into a good discussion


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