5 ms·

This is a ~400 meters segment; the method is quite lossy due to wireless power transmission and also encumbered with a pending patent. I also suspect that road

by krasin 3y ago

This is a ~400 meters segment; the method is quite lossy due to wireless power transmission and also encumbered with a pending patent. I also suspect that road maintenance will be much more expensive, once there are smarts inside. A time-proven alternative is to install trolleys on such trucks and put overhead wires, similar to trolleybuses ([1]) or electric trains. It's known to scale to thousand kilometers, easy to service and cheap to install. And the road would remain just dumb asphalt / concrete. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus

mlinhares 3y ago
That doesn't get VC money and crazy people screaming about it. Boston/Cambridge is full of those and it's a pleasure to be on them but there's no crazy CEO trying to sell it so no one bothers to pay attention to them.
- codesnik 3y ago
  Moscow was a trolleybus capital of the world just recently. I'm still salty that they destroyed it in just a couple of years, replacing with regular buses and a handful of electric ones (which still require a small ICE engine in winter to stay warm, ridiculously enough)
  - xattt 3y ago
    Was there ever a reason given?
    - TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
      I guess same like in Prague when they purged their Trolley buses in 1950s - Gas was cheaper back then. MUCH cheaper.
    - codesnik 3y ago
      "electric buses are the future", and "wires are ugly and expensive to maintain". Also trolleybus depots are taking some valuable commercial space at the end of the lines, it's easier to have a bus depot on city outskirts. For most of those trolleybuses with a small battery (semi-autonomous) could be a much, much cheaper and reasonable answer, but I guess someone made a good buck on depot real estate or electric buses or whatever.
- viciousvoxel 3y ago
  Especially with all of the problems they've been having over the last couple of years, I had to double-take when I saw you describe riding the MBTA as "a pleasure"
  - Jakesben10 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - olesya1979 3y ago
      [dead]
  - mlinhares 3y ago
    I understand as someone that must have lived their whole life being served by the MBTA it might not be amazing (its also not amazing by european standards, i definitely rode better stuff in Spain, Portugal, England and other places) but by AMERICAN standards the MBTA is definitely one of the best public transportation systems there are. I'd recommend you take SEPTA in PHL or use the shitty stuff we have here in Miami and Orlando and you'll be praying to go back to riding the Red Line or even, god forbid, the green line.
    - viciousvoxel 3y ago
      I meant it mostly jokingly, and I actually agree with you for the most part, though I do think literally catching on fire multiple times is not so amazing. I grew up riding the MBTA and mostly just lament how it's been mismanaged and saddled with debts, resulting in most of their current problems.
    - reaperman 3y ago
      USA’s 4th largest city (Houston) has essentially zero usable public transport. Anything remotely usable a few times per week by more than 5% of the city’s population is amazing by USA standards. Houston population is 2.2M in the city, 7.2M metro area (most of whom at least regularly spend time in or commute to Houston proper).
Retric 3y ago
Overhead wires on freeways have hight issues when trying to power both cars and allow room for oversized loads. It works for trolleys because you have a full sized buss’s height plus the hight of the pickup bar which allows a lot of room below. Wireless also has quite a lot going for it from a safety, noise, and maintenance perspectives. If they’re deep enough you could theoretically have a 50+ year lifespan while the road surface above gets replaced multiple times. There’s no metal on metal contact so their quiet, and it’s not like the wires can fall up through the road surface.
- nick238 3y ago
  Germany installed "eHighways" in 2019 which can let heavy trucks charge from overhead lines. Heavy trucks can't really afford much of a weight penalty for batteries (look up "tesla semi load factor" for a bunch of debunks), but cars for general transport have tons of weight to spare. Skip the cars, just go for the heavy trucks. https://www.businessinsider.com/germany-opens-first-e-highway-trucks-overhead-cables-2019-5?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/germany-opens-first-e-highwa...
  - Retric 3y ago
    Giving up on cars is also giving up on a lot of potential revenue which increases payback periods etc. Considering how much of a chicken and egg problem such a system would face you’d want to maximize the number of vehicles that could use it.
- DemocracyFTW2 3y ago
  @#1 no reason you can't put a raised collector on the roof of a truck @#2 yeah nice dream. Ever seen a highway under refurbishment? "Deep enough" to survive those machines means you waste even more energy. Total fantasy this.
  - Retric 3y ago
    #1 is about cars not trucks. You could stick something physically tall enough but you’d run into serious aerodynamic issues. #2 There’s wireless charging systems more efficient when using power directly than plugging in and charging an EV’s batteries. (edit with a 9 inch air gap) That’s quite a bit of wiggle room if the goal is indefinite range rather than actually charging cars on the freeway. So yes there’s definitely a trade off of efficiency vs maintenance, but it’s not that big a gap.

by krasin 3y ago

mlinhares 3y ago

That doesn't get VC money and crazy people screaming about it. Boston/Cambridge is full of those and it's a pleasure to be on them but there's no crazy CEO trying to sell it so no one bothers to pay attention to them.

codesnik 3y ago
Moscow was a trolleybus capital of the world just recently. I'm still salty that they destroyed it in just a couple of years, replacing with regular buses and a handful of electric ones (which still require a small ICE engine in winter to stay warm, ridiculously enough)
- xattt 3y ago
  Was there ever a reason given?
  - TheLoafOfBread 3y ago
    I guess same like in Prague when they purged their Trolley buses in 1950s - Gas was cheaper back then. MUCH cheaper.
  - codesnik 3y ago
    "electric buses are the future", and "wires are ugly and expensive to maintain". Also trolleybus depots are taking some valuable commercial space at the end of the lines, it's easier to have a bus depot on city outskirts. For most of those trolleybuses with a small battery (semi-autonomous) could be a much, much cheaper and reasonable answer, but I guess someone made a good buck on depot real estate or electric buses or whatever.
viciousvoxel 3y ago
Especially with all of the problems they've been having over the last couple of years, I had to double-take when I saw you describe riding the MBTA as "a pleasure"
- Jakesben10 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - olesya1979 3y ago
    [dead]
- mlinhares 3y ago
  I understand as someone that must have lived their whole life being served by the MBTA it might not be amazing (its also not amazing by european standards, i definitely rode better stuff in Spain, Portugal, England and other places) but by AMERICAN standards the MBTA is definitely one of the best public transportation systems there are. I'd recommend you take SEPTA in PHL or use the shitty stuff we have here in Miami and Orlando and you'll be praying to go back to riding the Red Line or even, god forbid, the green line.
  - viciousvoxel 3y ago
    I meant it mostly jokingly, and I actually agree with you for the most part, though I do think literally catching on fire multiple times is not so amazing. I grew up riding the MBTA and mostly just lament how it's been mismanaged and saddled with debts, resulting in most of their current problems.
  - reaperman 3y ago
    USA’s 4th largest city (Houston) has essentially zero usable public transport. Anything remotely usable a few times per week by more than 5% of the city’s population is amazing by USA standards. Houston population is 2.2M in the city, 7.2M metro area (most of whom at least regularly spend time in or commute to Houston proper).

Retric 3y ago

Overhead wires on freeways have hight issues when trying to power both cars and allow room for oversized loads. It works for trolleys because you have a full sized buss’s height plus the hight of the pickup bar which allows a lot of room below. Wireless also has quite a lot going for it from a safety, noise, and maintenance perspectives. If they’re deep enough you could theoretically have a 50+ year lifespan while the road surface above gets replaced multiple times. There’s no metal on metal contact so their quiet, and it’s not like the wires can fall up through the road surface.

nick238 3y ago
Germany installed "eHighways" in 2019 which can let heavy trucks charge from overhead lines. Heavy trucks can't really afford much of a weight penalty for batteries (look up "tesla semi load factor" for a bunch of debunks), but cars for general transport have tons of weight to spare. Skip the cars, just go for the heavy trucks. https://www.businessinsider.com/germany-opens-first-e-highway-trucks-overhead-cables-2019-5?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/germany-opens-first-e-highwa...
- Retric 3y ago
  Giving up on cars is also giving up on a lot of potential revenue which increases payback periods etc. Considering how much of a chicken and egg problem such a system would face you’d want to maximize the number of vehicles that could use it.
DemocracyFTW2 3y ago
@#1 no reason you can't put a raised collector on the roof of a truck @#2 yeah nice dream. Ever seen a highway under refurbishment? "Deep enough" to survive those machines means you waste even more energy. Total fantasy this.
- Retric 3y ago
  #1 is about cars not trucks. You could stick something physically tall enough but you’d run into serious aerodynamic issues. #2 There’s wireless charging systems more efficient when using power directly than plugging in and charging an EV’s batteries. (edit with a 9 inch air gap) That’s quite a bit of wiggle room if the goal is indefinite range rather than actually charging cars on the freeway. So yes there’s definitely a trade off of efficiency vs maintenance, but it’s not that big a gap.