OK Great!
However for our nation to benefit we will a huge infrastructure investment.
All the interstate roads will need to be modified. Increase electricity product be needed too.
Where will the money come from? Taxes. ROFL
Nah Turn on the money printing press.
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I hate being the big skeptic around here, but having read the article (and similar for other tests overseas) I’m gonna call: nope, not soon
First, the test was for 1/4 mile. At 65 miles per hour. Which means the truck covered that section in, um, [calculates] 13.8 seconds. The story does not mention “how much” charge the truck received, but even if it was at the 100 amps or more level (it wasn’t, I’ll bet) it would take an hour to recharge a truck, even at a DC fast charge rate. That implies [calculates again] a mile a minute, or 60 miles worth of “charging lane”.
Now I’m just gonna guess that copper costs more than concrete, and concrete costs more than asphalt, which is why about half the interstates are asphalt which is cheaper. (The concrete parts tend to be exits and such where frequent maintenance is a traffic headache. Not all, some places have asphalt frost heave issues, but overall: not concrete on straightaways.,)
Asphalt, of course has to be plowed up and renewed every few years. And BTW, copper ain’t cheap, and it isn’t just “60 miles of copper” it’s many times that because the copper has to be installed in loops, and fed from multiple access points; you can’t do it in just one continuous wire.
Oh, and somebody has to pay for the electricity, which is burned all the time through resistance, even when nobody is charging on it. And, using wireless induction, the farther you are from the copper loops, the smaller the transfer of power - by the SQUARE of the distance. So 6 inches away is gigantically less efficient than 3 inches away, and I’m a guess the truck sits at least a foot off the pavement. Or more.
So. I’m sure there will be technological improvements, and maybe gizmos that lower the receiver plate to within inches from the road. And somehow overcome the cost of electricity that nobody uses. And figure out how to make the road last long enough to be practical. But for the moment, charging my car for 13.8 seconds isn’t gonna move the needle; it would be like adding gas to the car with an eyedropper. Even a five mile stretch would be a joke (not to mention that I can’t move to another lane if I want.)
(PS: I’ve looked all over for the kinds of technical spec that would answer some of these questions. I see really cool headlines, and virtually no numbers associated. Can’t help but wonder why.)
To me it’s like “home wind turbines” or “fusion power”. Cool idea. Not happening, although someday, maybe, ever, in the unknowable future it might.
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Any highway with freight volume so high as to make paying the formidable construction AND maintenance costs for “charge while drivng” to make sense, is almost certainly a route screaming for first (re-)building a modern electrified automated freight track with tight connection to largely automated transshipment operations — you know, help Amazon build a private railway between manufacturing centers, ports, and its own warehouse centers.
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How about toll roads!
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Electrified rails and overhead wires work well but there is no reason for wireless charging to mimic the technology. Just like charging at home is not mimicking gas stations. Wireless charging might be more cost effective in parking lots.
The Captain
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