
Wireless charging of moving electric vehicles overcomes major hurdle - phreeza
http://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/14/big-advance-wireless-charging-moving-electric-cars/
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abyssin
The more I read about electric autonomous vehicles, the more I feel like we
are about to re-create the train technology.

~~~
kazinator
How so? Trains are not all autonomous. Autonomous trains are greatly
simplified due to traveling on rails. All trains are inconvenient due to being
bound to the railway. They don't solve the last mile (or five) problem:
getting to and from the station.

Rail-based navigation is considerably simpler than autonomous driving. The
problem is reduced to "how far am I along the track" and "if there is
something in my way, it's trespassing on the railway, so make a best effort to
detect the obstacle and stop, and beyond that, who cares".

~~~
abyssin
Although most trains are not autonomous, there are currently many more people
being transported by autonomous trains than by autonomous cars, and it has
been so for several years
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automated_urban_metro_subway_systems)).

I see what your point is regarding the convenience of using a car. What could
be more convenient than leaving your house, getting in your car, then being
dropped at your destination? But this doesn't take into account the cost of
the entire infrastructure needed to make it work flawlessly. On the other
hand, the train goes faster, and benefits from economies of scale. A tightly
knit network of trains would beat a transport system made of autonomous cars.

~~~
kbenson
IMO, the future is likely not individuals in their autonomous cars. It's a
ubiquitous autonomous ad-hoc ride sharing network, which will features some of
the good parts of trains and buses, and some of the good parts of Taxis or
individual cars. Popular routes will likely be populated by lots of large vans
and buses of various sizes, all autonomous, and there might be interchange
points where you get dropped off for a minute or two before an autonomous car
comes to pick you up for the last few miles. Other people might already be in
that car and going the same direction, or be waiting for you. Once there's a
critical mass of ridership, you can get some really efficient usage of the
system, and route capacity as needed.

I did some napkin math on this a while back[1]. It's interesting.

1:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13177836](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13177836)

~~~
cr0sh
> IMO, the future is likely not individuals in their autonomous cars.

I think people will still want their own personal cars, because...

> some of the good parts of trains and buses, and some of the good parts of
> Taxis

...they won't want to get the car with the drunk vomit urine and heavily
graffitied and torn up interior.

I can see how you could - via the hailing app or whatnot - send the car off as
"undesired because XYZ" \- and maybe it would go somewhere to get refurbed,
but after a while, with so many refurbs, the companies will either give up, or
they will make concessions (allowing for so much damage until it is deemed
"needing repair" and cleaning it up as best as they can otherwise).

People might also want personal cars as a quicker convenience, and also as a
status symbol. There's also those who might want to ride around in a
personalized custom car, much like people do today.

~~~
icebraining
The cleanup problem really isn't, in my opinion. Riders get tracked in a way
that's hard to avoid (since your account is tied to your CC), so when cars get
sent off, the company can tag the previous passenger and identify outliers,
who can then be forced to pay a surplus fee per ride, covering the extra
costs.

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Animats
This has been proposed before. GE had an old patent for a split-transformer
system with half the transformer in the road. In the 1980s, CalTrans had an
electric bus in Berkeley which recharged at each stop using half a transformer
buried in the road. It's easier to do today, because power control
semiconductors are much better.

It needs a lot of infrastructure in roads. That's really expensive and a huge
maintenance headache.

The wireless power people need to get to a standard charging pad that Just
Works, and get it widely deployed.

~~~
civilitty
> It needs a lot of infrastructure in roads. That's really expensive and a
> huge maintenance headache.

Is it any more expensive or more of a headache than all the externalities,
costs, and dangers of the alternative? At this point in time, societies all
massively subsidize the fossil fuel industry at great cost to everyone but
it's so spread out its hidden from view. I'm curious, if there is ever a
realignment of costs from society at large to the oil companies, would the
wireless charging roads look far more viable?

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n2dasun
I wonder why I don't see more about electric hub motors. I remember seeing
Protean Electric get 937 hybrid miles to a charge in 2006 on a converted Mini
Cooper ([http://www.autoblog.com/2006/07/21/pml-s-mini-qed-
boasts-640...](http://www.autoblog.com/2006/07/21/pml-s-mini-qed-
boasts-640-in-wheel-electric-horsepower/)), and they later showed that you can
use this on a pickup truck ([http://inhabitat.com/protean-demonstrates-that-
its-electric-...](http://inhabitat.com/protean-demonstrates-that-its-electric-
motors-can-drive-an-f150-from-the-wheels/protean-in-wheel-electric-motor)),
and they were supposed to bring this technology to mass market in 2014
([https://cleantechnica.com/2013/04/17/proteans-in-wheel-
elect...](https://cleantechnica.com/2013/04/17/proteans-in-wheel-electric-
motors-coming-to-market-in-2014/)), but I haven't really heard anything from
them.

~~~
rtkwe
It moves a lot of mass out the the end of the suspension system that comes
with a lot of problems for handling. Also with the motor on the hub all of the
shocks directly hit the electric motors where they don't in a normal car setup
with motors and drive shafts and the bearings in the motor have to directly
bear the weight of the vehicle.

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ccozan
The car and the road are actually parts of a giant dynamo, I guess. Like the
car having a coil and under the road a giant magnet, thus generating current
in the coil.

Nice idea.

~~~
parametrek
Not practical though. Every time someone has done the math for a fully scaled
up system (assuming magic technology that doesn't exist) it always has the
same answer: Unless the power transfer system is nearly 100% efficient, using
it on a typical highway results in the the highway turning into a molten
puddle in less than a day.

If you want to run the numbers yourself a Tesla uses 300 watt-hours per mile
on the highway. California route 60 sees 337000 cars per day and is 70 miles
long. And an amazing power transfer system might be 75% efficient.

~~~
Klathmon
I think it might still be useful even if it's not enough to "increase" the
charge of the car. Prolonging the driving distance by 50%+ on some highways
would still be really beneficial.

Taking the thought to the extreme, it could also be used as a kind of traffic
shaping/control system. Have some roads "energised" at specific times to
provide an incentive to go a longer way to alleviate chokes or traffic jams.

That gives many people an incentive to take a longer path (whereas current
systems/methods for this are kind of driver-hostile as the drivers going the
longer route don't get any direct benefit)

~~~
mikepurvis
The issue isn't the efficiency from the car's perspective—it's what happens to
the other 25% of the energy that doesn't go into the car. Hence the molten
puddle road comment.

~~~
organsnyder
All the more reason to only run it at certain times of the day. Enable it at
night, when electricity is cheaper, heat generation is less of an issue, and
there's less congestion.

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rihegher
This technology coupled with solar panel covered highways could mean that your
vehicule would just need enough to get to or leave the highway.

~~~
adekok
Covering roadways with glass solar panels is a terrible idea. Asphalt is
durable and _flexible_. It's OK with getting bits of gravel, glass, or steel
ground into it. Solar panels deal badly with such abuse.

Putting solar panels flat on the ground loses 30% of their potential power.

Even ignoring all of that, covering solar panels with cars is a terrible idea.

~~~
oddlyaromatic
But you would put just any old solar panels on a road: See what is happening
at [http://www.solarroadways.com/](http://www.solarroadways.com/) \- it
addresses at least some of the issues you mention.

~~~
robert_foss
The cost is just to high compared to commercial solar farms[1].

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obS6TUVSZds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obS6TUVSZds)

~~~
maneesh
That's what they said about solar energy in general 10 years ago.

~~~
pdelbarba
This isn't a technology problem though. It's a stupid problem. Compare this to
building a blender that plays MP3s. Why would you not just cheaply mount the
solar panels next to the road? You can still do all the gimmicks with the LEDs
and stuff without having to spend time and money making a high traction,
durable road surface that doubles as a solar panel. There's nothing to be
gained.

~~~
gravypod
You could also just mount the panels above the road and block the sun out of
people's eyes while they drive. Less sun hitting people also means less people
need to run the AC on the road.

If you don't mount flat you can then do tracking too.

Like you say. Mounting flat is probably the worst way to go from a utility and
return standpoint.

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martinmusio7
I don't understand why the industry is completely focusing on electrical
vehicles. It is not inherently clean energy, unless we change how we produce
it. What about the fuel cells driven cars? In my opinion it is still a valid
option. You refuel hydrogen and produce water at the end.

Writing this, I recognized that it is probably short-/middle-term money,
because electrical cars are quicker to develop (incl. infrastructure).

~~~
bluehawk
How do you think the hydrogen is produced? Currently it's either a product of
petroleum or produced by using electricity to split water. So your argument of
electricity not inherently being clean energy applies to hydrogen as well.

Assuming you use electricity to split water to power your fuel cell, you've
basically just made an even more complicated way to use electricity to power
your car. So at that point, just simplify it and just use a battery and a
motor.

~~~
thinkcontext
Small nit to pick, its produced more from steam reformation of methane:

"There are four main sources for the commercial production of hydrogen:
natural gas, oil, coal, and electrolysis; which account for 48%, 30% 18% and
4% of the world’s hydrogen production respectively."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production)

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jlebrech
we could fit mini furnaces on top of cars, and put gimballed laser towers on
the motorway.

~~~
mastermindxs
why not just have cars with rear blast shields and we'll have gimballed
grenade launchers on the road side.

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mikeash
That requires too much infrastructure. Just have the cars carry their own
grenades. If you can make them tiny nuclear bombs (Californium-251 might
enable this) then you could achieve amazing range.

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samlittlewood
So, should these lanes be painted like the recharge areas in F-Zero?

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AustinStone
looks like cool stuff. too bad I didn't read the article and don't have
anything intelligent to say

