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Elon Musk’s Answer To Stephen Colbert’s Vision Of Wireless Charging
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- wmeredith 12y agoPro tip: Preemptively being defensive about down-voting is a sure way to bring them on.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- m0nty 12y agoDon't talk about downvotes, and don't worry about them. Some users will actively look for things which have been unfairly downvoted and try to correct. If you're angsting about one or two people who dislike what you've said, you're already over-thinking it.
- jerf 12y agoI suggest that you ballpark how many Teslas you expect to be on the road during a given time and place (say, a 1-mile stretch of highway during rush hour), and compute how much square footage of flying solar panel you're suggesting putting into the air, assuming 100%-efficient transmission of power given the current best efficiency of solar panel. (From there it's easy to compute what it would take given less than 100%-perfect transmission.) I'm not just being rhetorical... try it. It's fun.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- cube13 12y agoI don't know about you, but I don't want football field size anything flying over my head, shooting energy beams. I like... air, instead.
- Shivetya 12y agoCan the idea be combined with that tech; sorry forgot the name; being demonstrated for cell phones where many small antennae track where the target cell phone is to improve signal quality? Instead of free beaming, give each device a beacon so it can be located? (I am really not even familiar with viability of any wireless charging solution so shooting from the hip here)
- chadgeidel 12y agoI was going to do this, but it turns out someone made a great blog post already! http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/a-solar-powered-car/ http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/a-solar-powered-... (I couldn't make Wolfram Alpha decode "energy to move 4800 pound car one mile and I can't remember the physics off the top of my head)
- vanderZwan 12y agoI think there's a good reason that plants are not mobile, and animals are. Standing mostly still probably has advantages when collecting solar power.
- prawn 12y agoMy cat moves around occasionally when he's collecting solar power.
- vanderZwan 12y agoLet me guess: to stay inside the moving patch of sunlight shining through the window?
- prawn 12y agoThat is correct. The resulting energy makes him useful as a lap heater in the evenings.
- henryrocker 12y agoCanadians can watch here: http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/Shows/TheColbertReport?vid=402651 http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/Shows/TheColbertReport?vid=40...
- anteht 12y agoAnd people outside of North America can view it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUDCIfI-wRs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUDCIfI-wRs
- bsder 12y agoI really wish people who talk about wireless charging would do some math. To get any efficiency, you need to tightly constrain the EM field, at which point, you are effectively hitting a plug anyway. Or, you are accepting enormous radiative losses and losing massive amounts of power. Doubling or tripling the power draw in every device just so it's powered wirelessly is a non-starter. For cars, we're more likely to get automated charging stations that just plug themselves in. That's going to be a useful problem to solve.
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- barranger 12y agoOut of curiosity, how much does it typically cost to charge, say, an iPhone5? For some (many?) doubling this price might not be as much of a non-starter as you think.
- morsch 12y agoAt 100% efficiency, much less than a cent. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=5.45+Wh+*+%280.26+EUR%2F%281+kWh%29%29 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=5.45+Wh+*+%280.26+EUR%2... No clue how efficient typical USB charging is, the AC-DC conversion is at around 80%, then you've got the battery chemistry which cursory research seems to peg at around 80% efficiency as well. So lets say it's about 1c per charge, at EU power prices.
- mikeash 12y agoDoubling is an underestimate. It's more like a factor of 10. Still, multiplying the cost of charging an iPhone by 10 isn't bad. And in fact you can buy a lot of solutions that enable this, because you're right, it's not a big deal for a lot of people, and the convenience is worth the cost. For an electric car, increasing the charging cost by a factor of 10, or even a factor of 2, is a much tougher proposition.
- seanflyon 12y ago
- damnmachine 12y agoThe thing about Elon Musk is if he says he'll do it, he WILL do it.
- bcardarella 12y agoThere is already a startup in Boston doing this http://www.witricity.com/ http://www.witricity.com/
- iLoch 12y agoNokia has already done what this company is doing in their Windows Phones. What Colbert was talking about is something much different.
- njharman 12y ago[tangential topic] I don't like techcrunch, I expect very little to no journalism from them. But that was one of the worst written, contentless, fluff writing bordering on vapid that I have had poor fortune to read.
- micampe 12y agoYup. Elon Musk’s Answer To Stephen Colbert’s Vision Of Wireless Charging: laughing at Colbert's jokes. Did anyone who voted this article read it or watch the interview?