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Electrified rails on trains have been around much longer than parking stations. Plus batteries are the biggest problem (and most expensive) part of ecars, so th

by rb808 9y ago

Electrified rails on trains have been around much longer than parking stations. Plus batteries are the biggest problem (and most expensive) part of ecars, so this is a good idea to try out.

jacquesm 9y ago
But those rails are on otherwise off-limit tracks and 'third rail' solutions are notoriously dangerous. This system has the two rails closely spaced side-by-side so it may be a bit safer but in the presence of moisture it could be dangerous too. It's basically a scaled up version of a slot car track.
- rsynnott 9y ago
  > This system has the two rails closely spaced side-by-side so it may be a bit safer but in the presence of moisture it could be dangerous too. Did you read the article? This is addressed.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    Yes, I did read the article, otherwise I would not have been able to write what I did, note that the title says nothing about how the electrodes from the car connect to the road. So you could have known that I had read the article. Yes, the article addresses it, no, the article does not address it in a way that gives me a good feeling about the safety of this system in the presence of moisture. It really doesn't take a lot of power to kill a person and even though you can ground-fault-protect the crap out of a setup like this the fact is that such measures can fail and if you start deploying it en-masse in a hostile environment they will fail in large enough numbers that it will not longer be safe. Note how industrial power is hardly ever ground fault protected because the leakage currents in the standard setup are too high already to reliably detect a ground fault. In other words: if the system delivers enough power to electrical cars to meaningfully affect their state of charge there is inherent danger.
    - TheForumTroll 9y ago
      > the article does not address it in a way that gives me a good feeling about the safety of this system in the presence of moisture It clearly states that salt water in the rail only gives off 1 volt at road level and that you can walk on it barefoot.
- vilhelm_s 9y ago
  Highways are already off-limit and notoriously dangerous.
  - apotheothesomai 9y ago
    Unfortunately, we need to accommodate the future Darwin Award winners. Besides, there's dangerous, and then there's 'the government caused the death of someone who stepped on the highway'. Getting zapped, even mildly, would distract someone and decrease a person's chances of getting out of the way quickly.

by rb808 9y ago

Electrified rails on trains have been around much longer than parking stations. Plus batteries are the biggest problem (and most expensive) part of ecars, so this is a good idea to try out.

jacquesm 9y ago

But those rails are on otherwise off-limit tracks and 'third rail' solutions are notoriously dangerous. This system has the two rails closely spaced side-by-side so it may be a bit safer but in the presence of moisture it could be dangerous too. It's basically a scaled up version of a slot car track.

rsynnott 9y ago
> This system has the two rails closely spaced side-by-side so it may be a bit safer but in the presence of moisture it could be dangerous too. Did you read the article? This is addressed.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Yes, I did read the article, otherwise I would not have been able to write what I did, note that the title says nothing about how the electrodes from the car connect to the road. So you could have known that I had read the article. Yes, the article addresses it, no, the article does not address it in a way that gives me a good feeling about the safety of this system in the presence of moisture. It really doesn't take a lot of power to kill a person and even though you can ground-fault-protect the crap out of a setup like this the fact is that such measures can fail and if you start deploying it en-masse in a hostile environment they will fail in large enough numbers that it will not longer be safe. Note how industrial power is hardly ever ground fault protected because the leakage currents in the standard setup are too high already to reliably detect a ground fault. In other words: if the system delivers enough power to electrical cars to meaningfully affect their state of charge there is inherent danger.
  - TheForumTroll 9y ago
    > the article does not address it in a way that gives me a good feeling about the safety of this system in the presence of moisture It clearly states that salt water in the rail only gives off 1 volt at road level and that you can walk on it barefoot.
vilhelm_s 9y ago
Highways are already off-limit and notoriously dangerous.
- apotheothesomai 9y ago
  Unfortunately, we need to accommodate the future Darwin Award winners. Besides, there's dangerous, and then there's 'the government caused the death of someone who stepped on the highway'. Getting zapped, even mildly, would distract someone and decrease a person's chances of getting out of the way quickly.