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This is pretty cool. I wonder what the effort would have been to instead have a battery charging / swapping process on one end. It would still be clean energy,
by todd3834 4y ago
This is pretty cool. I wonder what the effort would have been to instead have a battery charging / swapping process on one end. It would still be clean energy, charged on shore. I'm sure the batteries wouldn't be super light but you could have them in modules and you could engineer solutions for moving them.
Perhaps for situations where it isn't already cable guided this is still a practical approach. I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to the weight of the batteries and how much energy they can provide + etc… but if my Tesla is any indicator it doesn't seem too hard vs managing that cable back and forth
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- todd3834 4y agoThe batteries could even be attached cars themselves so moving them on and off would be really simple
- hawski 4y agoOr with a thicker cable they could charge cars while they cross the channel.
- chowells 4y agoRechargeable batteries are not 100% efficient. I'd put good odds on this system being cheaper.
- bentcorner 4y agoThe captain said they use 150-200kwh a day, which would be around 2-3 EV batteries' worth (Model S has a 100kwh battery). That's split up between 88 trips, so there's plenty of opportunity to swap batteries. So they could probably have some kind of battery system but I'm guessing since it's already "tethered" with a line just to cross, stringing an electrical cable was already easy to do and has simpler logistics than managing batteries.
- Thlom 4y agoAround a quarter of the ferry crossings in Norway are electrified. Usually there's one or two electric ferries and one diesel ferry. They charge while unloading and loading and during the night when there's fewer crossings. Before they had to take breaks during the day to charge, but now days I think they run all day.