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'“When you can charge while driving, range anxiety and frequent charging stops will be a thing of the past,” says ENRX CEO Bjørn Eldar Petersen. “Our unparalle
by thesuperbigfrog 3y ago
'“When you can charge while driving, range anxiety and frequent charging stops will be a thing of the past,” says ENRX CEO Bjørn Eldar Petersen.
“Our unparalleled expertise in induction technology allows us to deliver charging at 200 kW even at high speeds. No one else has the technology to offer anything similar.”
Further, he explains how this would change requirements for electric vehicle construction: “Dynamic charging can reduce the need for large battery capacities, allowing cars to be equipped with lighter and more affordable battery packs.”'
If this technology is as good as stated, it could be a game changer for EVs.
How much energy would a section of inductive-charging road require?
What kind of capacity limits does it have? If one EV is following another EV, it the second EV's charging decreased?
- p1mrx 3y agoA typical car needs 20 kW to maintain highway speed, so 200 kW charging gives you perpetual motion using 10% of the road length. Similarly, that's 400kW for 5% of the road, or 2MW for 1% of the road.
- Panzer04 3y agoI would think the biggest limitations would be: - Cost of placing under the highway (mitigated by only doing so on full reconstruction/maintenance works) - Cost of materials (massive induction coils, over a very large distance to get meaningfull charging.... - Cost of electricity (Induction would be much less efficient than direct charging - rather than 100%, you'll get a fraction of that (heavily dependent on the distance from the body to the roadway - good luck Electric F150s..) Roads are designed to be as cheap as possible while fulfilling their purpose. It's difficult to imagine you could cost-effectively spread that charging infrastructure out. It would be more expensive than pantograph electric lines, which would be much more efficient at actually transferring energy. EVs are still only a few percent of all cars, so this infrastructure would be unused most of the time. Cars with inductive chargers underneath will be even less common, and people willing to pay the premium to use them less common again. This seems like a pipe dream like solar roadways, sounds good but beaten out by the normal, sensible solution of just charging at stationary car park where cars spend 95% of their time. Batteries are only getting cheaper as well, which hurts the business case too.
- bobthepanda 3y agoAlso cost of maintenance. In much of the US they can barely keep the paint lines clear and the pavement un-potholed, and now we want to put electric infrastructure into the mix?
- AlexandrB 3y agoIndeed. This idea seems ridiculous on its face when you consider the state of existing road infrastructure. The only way it could work is if it made maintenance cheaper or was a driver of significant revenue.
- imtringued 3y agoSpeaking of revenue, this type of infrastructure would require tolls to pay for the energy consumption.
- vuln 3y agoSounds like you’ve never driven in Florida. Florida has some of the best roads, markings and reflectors that would rival any southern state. The lack of snow does wonders.
- bobthepanda 3y agoI would imagine that subjecting a bunch of electrical equipment to saltwater storm surge would also be pretty bad.
- vuln 3y agoIf you look at a map of Florida you’ll see that Orlando is pretty much near the center of the state rendering a _saltwater storm surge_ a very very very very rare event. But hey keep assuming things about Florida. Your imagination is wild.
- CyberDildonics 3y agoIf this technology is as good as stated, it could be a game changer for EVs. That's basically saying "big if true". Inductive charging is barely fast enough to charge a phone laying directly on top of the charger in a reasonable amount of time, do you honestly think electric roads that inductively charge fleets of EVs are going to be ubiquitous?
- Dylan16807 3y ago> Inductive charging is barely fast enough to charge a phone laying directly on top of the charger in a reasonable amount of time A phone uses 1-2 watts under active use, and models designed for fast wireless charging can receive more than 10 watts. It's fine. Even slow wireless charging can fill up a phone pretty well and can easily keep a phone running indefinitely. And the underside of a car is about five thousand times as big as the charging coil on a phone.
- AlexandrB 3y ago> And the underside of a car is about five thousand times as big as the charging coil on a phone. Now compare the distance between a phone and charging pad to the distance between the bottom of a car and the wires that are going to be buried under concrete. And forget about listening to Spotify while driving on these roads, the massive EMI those electromagnets will produce is going to take your reception to 0 bars.
- Dylan16807 3y agoIs it the distance that matters, or the ratio between distance and coil width? Because the latter comes across pretty favorably.
- imtringued 3y agoAccording to the napkin math of other commenters, you would need a charging strip every 15 miles. This is not sustainable at all. Build rail instead.