5 ms·
Article says they need 50W * 100 = 5KW. That's reasonable as that's roughly the amount of energy you need to keep a car moving at road speed. And with a quote
by adaml_623 14y ago
Article says they need 50W * 100 = 5KW. That's reasonable as that's roughly the amount of energy you need to keep a car moving at road speed.
And with a quoted ffficiency of 80-90% this is equivalent to 10-20% being lost probably as HEAT into the roadway. So that means we are turning our roads into long low power electric hotplates.
Okay perhaps it's not that extreme and possibly less waste heat than an IC engine. Maybe the idea isn't so crazy in a densely populated city.
- tocomment 14y agoThat would be great to melt snow and ice though.
- excuse-me 14y agoIf it uses inductive technology then the current doesn't flow unless the tire is 'receiving' so it loses energy - but only when a car is running over it, not 24x7
- Androsynth 14y agoBut combustion engines operate somewhere around 50% efficiency? (i dont remember exactly, but I remember it being pretty bad). So the 10-20% lost through the road and the (presumably) small amount lost through electric, battery-less cars may actually be less overall than from combustion engines. I am assuming that electric engines dont generate much heat if they dont have batteries and assuming that roads dont have the power on unless theres a car nearby.
- xxpor 14y agoBut we already have a much better solution for densely populated cities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus