The problem with electric cars has always been the energy density of batteries - that is a car must drag its energy source around with it in order to get anywhere. The most potent source of energy (energy per kg or lb) is gasoline - or a similar fossil fuel, perhaps diesel or methane. But one idea that is worth investigating is eliminating this altogether by delivering energy to the car from an outside source - the road. :bugeye: I am not a physicist or an engineer, but this is what I've been thinking... There was a program on NPR today in which a physicist and a civil engineer talked about the aging infrastructure in America, the power grid, roads and bridges, etc. Fact is, the infrastructure is aging, and it cannot faciliate our continued growth indefinitely. So here's my idea: deliver power to your car by way of the road you drive on. I have thought of two ways we may be able to do this. 1) Cars could run on a track like a toy train set. The voltage could be delivered via some kind of wire to the motor. Primitive, I know, but this would definitely work. Problems: it might be dangerous (electricution) and failure due to physical, moving parts would be a problem. One possible solution to the electrocution risk would be delivering the power at extremely high voltage, but very low amperage in pseudo-quantized amounts (a maximum amount of amperage would be delivered to drive, say, a large truck, but still too little to kill a person.) A computer would up the total power for each vehicle entering or leaving the roadway. 2) Energy could be delivered through the air based on the ideas of Tesla. His theories work, but have not been found to be practical for delivering power to cities. But what about cars? I know very little about this, but I thought I'd put it out there for you Physics and engineering people. If you "steal" my idea and go and design this thing which revolutionizes society, well, send me a nominal check every month or something. :shrug: You'll be a billionaire so you should be able to afford $5 or $6 thousand a week. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Iceland has been running hydrogen gas powered mass transit busses for years now and they make much more sense than your frivolous post. But, thanks for your entertainment.
Interesting idea, since it works well for electric subway trains. Subway trains seem to be clean enough, accelerate well, and can be fast. But I have seen this in action, for in some cities they have electric buses. But who would want it for their cars? I have seen the bus driver outside his bus, putting the electric pickup back onto the overhead wires. So that application only works for very predictable bus routes, as any departure would depart from the overhead wire paths. Or we could try a really long extension cord? Obviously that wouldn't work. Electricity also can be transmitted, without direct wire contact, as seen by magnetic coupling coils that can send it through a car window for an exterior antenna connection, without drilling any holes. But could magnetic couplings (similar to how transformers work) be safe, at the high energy levels that cars require? I got it. Let's use those miniature nuclear reactors, that I figure they must have on the flying The Jetsons cartoon cars. They should make it possible to tote around enough electricity with us. BTW, most electricity is consumed the very second it is made. Electricity is not particularly easy to store in sizable enough quantities.
Whatever for? How can I carry 10 bags of groceries, on some train or trolley? Will you come with me and help me carry them? Last I checked, there was no train nor trolley going by my front door. How about we drill for more oil, so that our cars will still work. Or shall we go backwards, back into the Dark Ages or something? And in the future, cars will fly, at least according to The Jetsons cartoon, using even more energy, and yet rarely needing refueling, running supposedly on "power pellets." Which of course must be a codeword for nuclear power, because chemical reactions can't yield so much energy as that. So it looks like the car is here to stay, so how about we plan to live with that? Who are these anti-freedom libtards out there, who aim to take away our cars? BTW, Al Gore is a liar with his crock-umentary about his fantasy of "global warming."
Uh, in the baggage compartment? Trains regularly carry the heaviest freight, so this is no problem. So, put down that Big Mac and walk to the train station. There isn't one? That is due to the biggest mis-investment in the history of the world known as the suburbs. So, this is the message you swallowed, Cars=Freedom. Do you see how silly that is?
It's hard to venture around this land and not feel like you are living in something like an obsolete Las Vegas hotel exquisitely rigged for implosion. The massive system that we've poured all our national wealth into, and elaborated to the last limits of refinement over half a century, is poised for failure. The prospect is so dreadful that no legitimate authority in politics, business, the news media, or even those cultural outlands of the arts and religion, can bring themselves to express a plausibly coherent view of what happens next to a living arrangement with no future and an economy of no purpose. The system I refer to, of course, is the car-crazy infrastructure for everyday life, and all the activities supporting it, that most Americans now living regard as the natural and normal medium for human existence, as salt water is the natural and normal medium for squid. The public brings no critical reflection to being in it, and so its failure will eventually come as a deadly surprise -- as a red tide surprises the denizens of a tropical sea. When it occurs, the public will not be able to escape from their investments in this way of life. Some may feel swindled, but they will not lose their sense of having been entitled to a happier destiny, so the chances for the acting-out of massive political grievance are high. It's a tragic irony that we got so good at the advertising game the past half-century, because in doing so we rigged a sub-system dedicated to reinforcing all our false entitlements. So when the dreadful moment of recognition comes that we can't possibly continue being a nation of happy motorists shuttling between the strip malls and subdivisions, the bewilderment will be monumental. Nobody will believe that it is happening, or have a clue how we got ourselves into such a fix... http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/
New Scientist had something on this sort of thing years ago. What you can do is have electric buses that are recharged off massive power grids under bus stops. So when they stop to pick up/ drop off, they can pick up energy from the current underneath them. Or it might be possible to do it whilst moving. So you could have a small bank of batteries, (albeit they need to be able to be deep cycled and also have very low memory effects) and just pick up the energy when your stopped at the traffic lights.
This is not the only problem. One of the major problems with electric cars is that it takes a few minutes to "recharge" an ordinary car (to fill its tank with gas) and it take a few hours to recharge an electric car
So just gather together a bunch of cars and replace the drive car as needed for recharging. It's called a train. Thinking outside the box about energy means rethinking the personal car.
Hydrogen would be one solution. Making hydrogen from another energy source is like recharging battery. In the future there will be hydrogen mine in space. But in the long run not hydrogen or any fuel but oxygen would need to be generated.
This is an interesting idea---kind of like how the new Corvette engines swith from eight cylinders to four cylinders on the highway. Maybe there'd be an optimum number of cars---i.e. added weight versus amount of work each car has to do.
It is interesting to see highways. A lot of cars going to one direction and there doesn't seem to be any reason for everybody to sit in different cars, and it seems driver's effort is basically wasted. The only thing is when they go out of the highway they become "individual" cars.
There are systems that use computers and gps to control traffic. You could just enter a highway and magnetically couple to a drive car, like a bus, running on overhead wires like a trolly.
