# Why use batteries, Get power directly from the road!



## cells (Mar 5, 2008)

I don’t quite understand why all the EV are battery powered. Surely it would be extremely simple and economically viable to draw power directly from the road.


Like a lot of trains draw power from the tracks, or how dodgems draw power in a fun fair.



There can be some capacitors or batteries to get the car about a mile or two. So if it looses contact it can keep going and it would mean it could go from electrified track to track as long as the distance isn’t above the small batteries capacity.



That would make the EV far lighter than any commercial one which use batteries.
It would mean their performance would be much better (ie they can draw more power, hence get better acceleration and top speed)

Energy would be generated on the fly, like the nation grid (the grid would be powering the cars). So there is no loss in chagrining and discharging a battery.


Overall it would make EV far cheaper than gas ones too.
Electric motors are far cheaper and lighter. No need to store hundreds of KG of batteries or pay for them. Cheaper MPG by far



Ideal solution?


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## ronin4sale (Jan 29, 2008)

Great in theory. Infastructure costs would be in the trillions. I would think it more realistic to set up charging stations at consumer locations and businesses and invest in "quick charge" technology. I could see your idea being realistic in about 50-100 years.


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## cells (Mar 5, 2008)

ronin4sale said:


> Great in theory. Infastructure costs would be in the trillions. I would think it more realistic to set up charging stations at consumer locations and businesses and invest in "quick charge" technology. I could see your idea being realistic in about 50-100 years.


 

it wouldnt cost trillions.

It would be a very simple addition to current roads. two strips of plate on the road.



it would definitly be cheaper to equip routinly used roads with this method than to have a battery in every car (consider the battieres are one of the most expensive part,) they also energy when chargining, they loose energy when dischargining, they add LOTS of weight to the car, they greatly reduce the distance a car can travil.



it would be far easier to equip roads used by the majority with two stips of metal than to equip millions of cars with batteries and all the downside they bring.


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## BHall (Aug 1, 2007)

I love the idea! It's like slot cars without the slot. Battery capacity requirements would only be an issue for off-road or those drivers who drive in the middle of the road. Definitely a direction for transportation in the future! Heck, it may even keep roads smoother.

Brian


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## ronin4sale (Jan 29, 2008)

Haha. Yeah 2 strips of metal and problem solved!!!!

Look up the costs associated with making a mass transit system in a metropolitan area. Extrapolate that out across every major road in the US. Cost associated with that would be in the Trillions. I'm not trying to be condescending, but realistically do you think it would only cost a few billion to implement throughout the country? Not to mention maintenance, electrical infrastructure to handle the energy load. etc... The big reason EV charging at home is good is because they charge at night when usage is lower. If we were to all draw the energy as we were using it during the day hundreds of new power plants would have to be built to support the additional load. Also if the system went down, or a particular road no one would be able to travel. Much worse than say one individuals batteries shorting out, or a motor being blown.

The other issue is who would be responsible for paying it? It would be me and you... If our cars were so much cheaper because no batteries would be needed, they would have to increase taxes to fund the program. Ideas like this area great, and may be possible sometime in the future. We need to concentrate on what can be done in the near term before we start chasing a pipe dream. In my opinion this will start with affordable Li-ion batteries and the ability to charge them quickly.


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## cells (Mar 5, 2008)

ronin4sale said:


> Haha. Yeah 2 strips of metal and problem solved!!!!
> 
> Look up the costs associated with making a mass transit system in a metropolitan area. Extrapolate that out across every major road in the US. Cost associated with that would be in the Trillions. I'm not trying to be condescending, but realistically do you think it would only cost a few billion to implement throughout the country? Not to mention maintenance, electrical infrastructure to handle the energy load. etc... The big reason EV charging at home is good is because they charge at night when usage is lower. If we were to all draw the energy as we were using it during the day hundreds of new power plants would have to be built to support the additional load. Also if the system went down, or a particular road no one would be able to travel. Much worse than say one individuals batteries shorting out, or a motor being blown.
> 
> The other issue is who would be responsible for paying it? It would be me and you... If our cars were so much cheaper because no batteries would be needed, they would have to increase taxes to fund the program. Ideas like this area great, and may be possible sometime in the future. We need to concentrate on what can be done in the near term before we start chasing a pipe dream. In my opinion this will start with affordable Li-ion batteries and the ability to charge them quickly.


 

I’m a physicist, also have an engineering degree



It would be a simple system. You could literally do with with a mesh with 3 layers. Mesh wire, plastic, mesh wire.


Cost per M?
Less than $50


So to do this for a road 100km long. $2Mil


I don’t know how many miles of road there are in the USA (im form the UK BTW)


In London there are about 10,000 miles of road. Or 16 million meters


That’s $800M


Guess what?
Where spending some $40billion on the Olympics, electrifying the city for less than $1B isn’t gona break the bank!


Same applies for the nation!



Would cost this country about $50B to do the whole country.
Then you can run electric cars without batteries, with very good performance and quite efficiently!


Just to make the point a bit more clear, to buy batteries for 20million cars in the uk would cost $40B (assuming $2000 per car, and its probably more!)

Not to mention all the other benefits like less weight, better performance ect ect



and your question, who would pay for them?
slap on a $2000 tax onto new cars. which people should be happy to pay since the car now costs $2000 less becuase it has no batteries!


for power, the free market will take care of that.
meters on the cars. electricty companies supply power to them and charge for it (like they charge you for the power you use on your comp)


also as you say, electricity is cheaper at night.
so that will encourage people to drive at cheaper times. when the roads are quiter

it should be a positive thing!!!




BTW, this idea is FARRRRRRRRRr more viable and possible than ANY electric idea currently!



and one more thing, i think we will see self drive petrol cars before any real adoption of electric cars. the reason i mention this is. with self drive cars the can be programed for max efficiency. Average MPG in countries will probably go up by 20% just from the way people drive.


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## ronin4sale (Jan 29, 2008)

cells said:


> I’m a physicist, also have an engineering degree
> 
> It would be a simple system. You could literally do with with a mesh with 3 layers. Mesh wire, plastic, mesh wire.
> Cost per M?
> ...


Lets use your numbers...

United States total area: 3,537,441 square miles.
United Kingdom total area: 93,788 square miles. 

Your rough estimate: $50,000,000,000 / 93,788 sq mi = $533,117 / sq mi

Applied to the USA: 3,537,411 sq mi * $533,117 / sq mi = $1,885,870,793,705 Thats almost 2 trillion. 

I don't want to get into a pissing match here I think it would be a great advancement for human kind to have something like this implemented. I just don't think its realistic right now for a huge number of reasons: logistical, politcal, industry, etc... 

First step in my opinion is getting people into plug in hybrids, then pure electric, then grid electric would possibly be a the next step after that. LETS HOPE!


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## theboy16 (Feb 28, 2008)

sorry, but ronin4sale is right.

lets start at your electrified plate scenario:

two plates in the road, running at what voltage? subways and rail cars run at 600 volts in order to minimize transmission losses and keep the currents low-enough

ever see the signs that say "mind the electrified rail" in tube stations?

a pedistrian crossing the street would be killed instantly if they came into contact with your 600 volt rail and the ground/other rail

skin becomes conductive at around the 30 volt range, so to make this road plate system safe, we'd have to run 30 volts, and an incredible amount of amperes through it.

subway rails don't have salt/snow/rain/mud on them, above ground roads do. what happens when water makes contact with both rails?

another thing to think about: an accelerating vehicle can draw anywhere from 50-150 KW of electricity. the supply to an average north american house is 200amps, at 240 volts (two 120v lines with phases 180 degrees apart) which is a total of 48 kw, maximum. when the light turns green, and 20 cars accelerate, the power grid would blow up unless they were heavily improved. add that to your cost of "two little strips" in the road.

lets talk power generation now.

i know that here, in ontario, power plants just meet the demands of the public. sometimes power is bought from the US during peak times. having everyone drive to work, and drive home, would draw an enormous amount of power, enough to make the whole distribution network crash. many, many more power plants would have to be built to satisfy the "peak" usage, then they would sit idly by for most of the day and night; not very "efficient" , i'd say.

if you wanted to make your electric rail business work, we would have to drive rail cars, on rails, so that we are always aligned with the over head power cable. we would need a much larger distribution network all over the country, and we would need twice as many power plants built to deal with rush hours.

sorry to say it, but 'on the fly' electric cars don't make sense


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## Greenflight (Sep 13, 2007)

Here's my opinion (well everybody has one right?): I think that currently, plug in electrics are the best option because the supporting infrastructure is already in place. 

I like this idea, and I think it may very well be used in the future. Personally, I think an inductive non-contact system mounted an inch or so below the pavement would be the best option. No wear and tear, no maintenance costs. It would also make it easier to transmit the power because it would use AC, which is easier to transmit.

I also think it would be more practical, at least initially, to install such a system in major freeways instead of locally. That would be a very useful "range booster" that would allow EVs to take long trips.

Just my $0.02...


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## theboy16 (Feb 28, 2008)

greenflight, your inductive charging idea is great. i've seen electric transit buses charge via this system. the coils were placed at the bus station, and at popular bus stops. when the bus is sitting around waiting, its charging up!

i forget where this system was used... maybe vancouver? i'm not sure:S


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## SirisC (Feb 8, 2008)

There are 46,837 miles of Federal Interstate Highways in the USA. And the best I could find for total miles of roads in the US was ~5.7 million miles. So using the simple two metal meshes and 1 plastic mesh would cost ~460 billion dollars for all roads, and ~3.7 billion just to do the interstates. (Ignoring costs involved with shutting down roads, union labor, safety systems, etc.)


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## KiwiEV (Jul 26, 2007)

*Main reason why I think the idea sounds good:* 
No more pollution from cars which means better general health and a reduction in climate change effect.

*Main reason why I think the idea sounds bad:* 
You'll end up paying a very high electricity cost per mile - whatever the road company decides and you can't do anything about it. 

Thood for Fought.


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## TheSGC (Nov 15, 2007)

Something I just have to add about the cost. Think "Big Dig". If your from Boston you will know EXACTLY what I mean.
Original cost = $4 Billion. Final Cost = $14.7 Billion. 

And that was a "small" modification of the road system, placing metal mesh in the ground would be at least 100x more expensive, painful, and who knows what all of that energy flowing in the road would do to people or animals for that matter. And then of course, cells phones and radios would cease to function with all of the RF interference.


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## theboy16 (Feb 28, 2008)

ever hear the term tailpipe pollution displacement? it's what this system is proposing.

coal and nuclear plants generate heat to boil water. in order to be hot enough to boil enough water to meet the peak demand times, they must shovel alot of coal into the burner, or make alot of uranium react. these reactions take time to "build up" - kinda like making a campfire - you can't just throttle these back like a lawnmower (try "turning down" your campfire when you're not cooking marshmallows, and then firing it back up quickly once you need to boil water)

these plants have to be run at a somewhat steady pace, since they take so long to "heat up" and "cool down"; both the fuel and the water which it boils.

battery EVs help the cause since they charge mostly at night, then the plants are still roaring away, but not generating steam (since there is a light load on the utility grid) night charging is just making use of the otherwise wasted energy, since they must keep the fire burning hot so that it'll be ready for the morning's rush.

i know this sounds like a terribly inefficient method, and it is.

the only power plants that can be "turned down" during periods of low consumption, are hydro electric, and natural gas turbines; and those make up a small percentage of the generated electricity.


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## Greenflight (Sep 13, 2007)

Yeah, it definitely needs to be researched and refined, but it's definitely something I can see coming into common use eventually.


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## cells (Mar 5, 2008)

theboy16 said:


> sorry, but ronin4sale is right.
> 
> lets start at your electrified plate scenario:
> 
> ...


 

 your forgetting a few things. 



firstly: I didnt say ZERO batteries or capacitors. But instead of having 500KG of Batteries for 100miles you would have 25KG of batteries for 5miles.

that would solve your peak problem, also you could jump 5miles from un-electrified road to electrified road. so you wouldnt need even meter electrified.


your also forgetting all those people breaking, use regenerative breaking to put the power right back to the car grid.

for ever person accelerating there is one person breaking!
if the KE from breaking can be put back in at 80% efficency you only need 20% of the peak required to accelerate.

so if a car needs 100kw to accelerate, and there is another car out there somehwere on the grid decellerating and putting 80KW back in. so you only need 20KW net.



 inefficent 

if your a haulage company, would you not haul at night when its cheaper??
less congestion for everyone else too
if your gonaing to do a long 500miles trip to another city im sure youd consider traviling at night if its half the price. again less conggestion plus efficent

could you not program the cars to drain down their batteries during the day and fill them up at night (ie at night the batteries are charged to 100%, during the day they use the grid + batteries and keep the batteries low during the end of the program)




voltgage


have 1000 volts 3 phase if you want, it doesnt really matter.

human skin might be conductive at 30v
but air breaks down at 30KV per cm. so as long as the person isnt touching both places directly its safe.


water/salt ect.
again simple solutions. just put a small hump in the middle of the road perhaps only a couple cm high to stop liquids moving onto either side






its a viable idea if the original capatial isnt too high


its DEFINITLY feasable in small dense cities.
not to mention zero smog


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## cells (Mar 5, 2008)

ronin4sale said:


> Lets use your numbers...
> 
> United States total area: 3,537,441 square miles.
> United Kingdom total area: 93,788 square miles.
> ...


 
your being silly.
there are large areas of the USA which dont have many roads at all.

also you could just do it in large dense cities.

if you want to then travil from a city to city you would rent a 250kg-500kg battery pack to get you there.


im sure if we did it with the top 10 dense cities in the uk that would only cost 10% of what it would cost to do the whole country but will mean half of car users would benifit.


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## cells (Mar 5, 2008)

TheSGC said:


> Something I just have to add about the cost. Think "Big Dig". If your from Boston you will know EXACTLY what I mean.
> Original cost = $4 Billion. Final Cost = $14.7 Billion.
> 
> And that was a "small" modification of the road system, placing metal mesh in the ground would be at least 100x more expensive, painful, and who knows what all of that energy flowing in the road would do to people or animals for that matter. And then of course, cells phones and radios would cease to function with all of the RF interference.


 
yeh goverment always fooks up.

it wouldnt hurt animals (birds purch on 50KV lines). as long as they dont touch both plates at the same time (you can seperate the plates to insure that.


also RF wouldnt be a problem, no cell phones or such use 50HZ spectrum


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## cells (Mar 5, 2008)

theboy16 said:


> the only power plants that can be "turned down" during periods of low consumption, are hydro electric, and natural gas turbines; and those make up a small percentage of the generated electricity.


 

gas makes up a huge portion of the uks electricity!


coal can be turned down but not stoped!

nuclear can also be turned down but its not efficent to do that




a lot of haulage which is usually done both at day and night would all switch to night for the savings.

lond trips would also switch to night if it costs you half the price


there are also methods to help peak problems.

a few power plants pump water up hills at night and use that as a hydro electric source in the day when the price is higher.



either way, these problems the market will sort out easily


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## cells (Mar 5, 2008)

KiwiEV said:


> *Main reason why I think the idea sounds good:*
> No more pollution from cars which means better general health and a reduction in climate change effect.
> 
> *Main reason why I think the idea sounds bad:*
> ...


 
are most roads in the US private or public?

if they are public you will pay whatever electricity cost at that moment


if they are private, you will use alternative routes that charge less.
that will create competition and the price will go down


it will however be cheaper than running your car in its current form.


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## KiwiEV (Jul 26, 2007)

One thing I was wondering about is that if there were, say, 14 billion spent on upgrading a city to have these cool new inductive lines installed, how much might it cost for the million or so cars to have inductive coils installed too?


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## Bugzuki (Jan 15, 2008)

Don't get me wrong I think that this is a neat idea, but at the same time I do not think that it is feasible.

You do not get 80% back out of regenerative braking. It takes more power to start out then it does to stop. For one thing while starting aerodynamic drag is fitting you the entire time, but helps in stopping. Same thing with rolling resistance, Then you create heat in both situations. 80% would pretty much just be taking into acount the conversion losses. There is also friction from the brake pads - that I doubt the government would allow to be removed.

The power would have to be on all of the time to every road. If you turned off the power on a road then someone tried to use it they would get stuck halfway down. So, some complex system would have to be in place to help people navigate with there limited range especially if different roads turned off at different times.

If you had to drive your 5 miles off grid then 1 mile on the another mile off you would get stuck because you car probably would not be able to charge that fast. 

The cars would have to stay fully charged all day in order to have the necessary miles incase you go off grid. This would mean that it would be very hard to draw the voltage down during daily use to charge up at night.

A very complex system or lay out would have to be engineered to keep from generating dead spots from crossing roads. It would probably cost the government a trillion dollars just to do that.

How would the cars connect to the pads? If they used brushes that would cause a lot of wear on both the cars brushes and the road plates. 

Second question, How would they stop people from steeling the plates out of the road to sell for cash. We already have a problem with people stealing the man hole covers and guard rails.

Almost every road here in the US is public. Private roads usually just go to someones house or in a small neighborhood.

I could probably keep going but better stop.


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