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Wireless EV Charging for Germany’s Autobahn

2 points by imartin2k 4y ago

DemocracyFTW2 4y ago
To me this sounds a lot like the Solar Freaking Roadways rage / scam (?) of years ago. Yes, we have a huge amount of land occupied by road cover. Yes, it would be great to put that land into better use (elevated trains on top of highways anyone?). No, embedding solar panels into roads is not going to work for many reasons. And I can't see wireless charging to ever work, either. Wireless charging has to compete with alternative solutions: classical trains, overhead wires for trucks, stationary charging, and stationary battery swapping (and fossil fuels as long as they're not more heavily taxed or banned, and whatever else people might come up in the future with). As such, wireless, i.e. inductive charging is always going to be somewhat less effective than charging with a galvanic contact (prove me wrong). It could be competitive in situations where the alignment between primary (charger) and secondary (car) can be made precisely; conceivably, this could happen for busses at bus stops and trucks when being loaded, unloaded, or parked for the night. But then these heavy vehicle are on the brink of being viable use cases for battery-driven EV technology because their heavy weight necessitates heavy batteries, thus they suffer from an analogue of the 'tyranny of the rocket equation' ([Thunderf00t] debunks Tesla's Semi arguing this way). Further, when parked overnight, wireless charging is maybe somewhat more convenient, but hardly much worse than just plugging and pulling a cable. But this is different from dynamic wireless charging where you drive your car while charging. Not only do you need an absolutely massive upgrade to the road on a scale that looks like it's going to be orders of magnitude more expensive to install than, say, an overhead wire, your precious technology also will be beaten like 24/7 by the vehicles above. Road surfaces as we're building them are being completely ripped out and redone in a matter of decades. Yes, it's madness already. Imagine doing that with all the precious technology basically sealed within the road's material. Do you just want to rip it all up and throw it away? A very car-friendly article by euronews.com about an experimental continuous power-delivering sub-surface technology trialled by [Stellantis] concludes: Is it a feasible alternative? Absolutely not for the typical driver - and Stellantis knows. The cost of installing coils is quite significant, and would not work for massive road projects. Stellantis is aiming to install the system in places such as harbours or airports, where vehicles drive on established routes for consistent distances. So once more, a gadgetbahn solution using cars for a problem that is already, and has been for a long time, solved by trains. [Thunderf00t](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U07ZxBE6iY8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U07ZxBE6iY8) [Stellantis](https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/06/24/wireless-charging-roads-for-electric-cars-ev-technology-is-here-fiat-stellantis https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/06/24/wireless-charging-r...)

2 points by imartin2k 4y ago

To me this sounds a lot like the Solar Freaking Roadways rage / scam (?) of years ago. Yes, we have a huge amount of land occupied by road cover. Yes, it would be great to put that land into better use (elevated trains on top of highways anyone?). No, embedding solar panels into roads is not going to work for many reasons. And I can't see wireless charging to ever work, either. Wireless charging has to compete with alternative solutions: classical trains, overhead wires for trucks, stationary charging, and stationary battery swapping (and fossil fuels as long as they're not more heavily taxed or banned, and whatever else people might come up in the future with). As such, wireless, i.e. inductive charging is always going to be somewhat less effective than charging with a galvanic contact (prove me wrong). It could be competitive in situations where the alignment between primary (charger) and secondary (car) can be made precisely; conceivably, this could happen for busses at bus stops and trucks when being loaded, unloaded, or parked for the night. But then these heavy vehicle are on the brink of being viable use cases for battery-driven EV technology because their heavy weight necessitates heavy batteries, thus they suffer from an analogue of the 'tyranny of the rocket equation' ([Thunderf00t] debunks Tesla's Semi arguing this way). Further, when parked overnight, wireless charging is maybe somewhat more convenient, but hardly much worse than just plugging and pulling a cable. But this is different from dynamic wireless charging where you drive your car while charging. Not only do you need an absolutely massive upgrade to the road on a scale that looks like it's going to be orders of magnitude more expensive to install than, say, an overhead wire, your precious technology also will be beaten like 24/7 by the vehicles above. Road surfaces as we're building them are being completely ripped out and redone in a matter of decades. Yes, it's madness already. Imagine doing that with all the precious technology basically sealed within the road's material. Do you just want to rip it all up and throw it away? A very car-friendly article by euronews.com about an experimental continuous power-delivering sub-surface technology trialled by [Stellantis] concludes: Is it a feasible alternative? Absolutely not for the typical driver - and Stellantis knows. The cost of installing coils is quite significant, and would not work for massive road projects. Stellantis is aiming to install the system in places such as harbours or airports, where vehicles drive on established routes for consistent distances. So once more, a gadgetbahn solution using cars for a problem that is already, and has been for a long time, solved by trains. [Thunderf00t](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U07ZxBE6iY8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U07ZxBE6iY8) [Stellantis](https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/06/24/wireless-charging-roads-for-electric-cars-ev-technology-is-here-fiat-stellantis https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/06/24/wireless-charging-r...)