German Firm Says Inductive Road Charging Of Vehicles Only 2-3 Years Away

[tinrobot]

German firm Ingenieurgesellschaft Auto und Verkehr (IAV) is working on technology to fit roads with embedded induction-loops that will remotely “refuel” electric cars while they are driving or parked, without the need for connectors or cords. The technology is similar to that being developed by researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) for the Online Electric Vehicle (OLEV), and is already being used in automobile production plants and large warehouse facilities to both power and remotely direct robotic floor conveyor vehicles.

This contactless transfer of energy works by taking advantage of Maxwell's electromagnetic laws, whereby an electric current flowing through a conductor generates a magnetic field. this field can then induce a voltage in a second conductor, even though the two are not in contact with one another. Using precisely controlled frequencies of alternating current, high-efficiency energy transmission from the sending to the receiving electrical circuits is possible, and a moving vehicle can receive broadcast power from buried transmission lines.

http://www.allcarselectric.com/blog/1036051_german-firm-says-inductive-road-charging-of-vehicles-only-2-3-years-away

[imdjh]

1. IS this going to revive the "My house is too close to the powerlines!" nutbags?

[wuvuj]

8. Who's afraid of the big, bad...EMF?

...

[spinbaby]

2. This works well with the solar roads

I ran across a thread today about turning roads into giant solar panels. Imagine a solar-powered road that can power cars as they drive across it.

[rrneck]

3. And after we build all that stuff

are we going to find out that it causes ass cancer or something?

[NNadir]

4. Oh good. We'll sink a brazillion coils under the roads, and heat them continuously so a brazillion

fools can drive around in their, um, coal and gas powered electrical roadways.

That sounds great. I for one, am filled with an overweening sense of optimism and expectation!!!!

Fortunately, the number of "just two years from now" schemes like this one that have languished for decades in the imagination sort of approaches the number of people who starved to death in the last 5 years while westerners picked lint out of their navels and dreamed about how to save their cars. And no, I'm not claiming that only a few people starved to death last year while we were all talking how to save our cars.

Germany is doing just great on energy: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,2396828,00.html

We really, really, really, really, really, really need the Germans to generate more electricity for their cars, because we need a heavier atmosphere to make neon balloons float higher.

[madokie]

5. I see that coming in the future

we'll only have a need for a few mile range worth of batteries on board the vehicles.

[whyverne]

6. Add a little heat while your at it to northern roads,

so we can stop dumping all that stupid salt on 'em.
Yeah, very cool. Obviously a better idea than making a brazillion more batteries.
There's a neat video on TED where the guy demonstrates induction fields. he holds up a cell phone with no battery, moves it into the field and voila.
I'm too tired to look up the link though.
Good night.

[imdjh]

9. I always wondered why they didn't run pipes under northern roads with nuclear power plant

.... cooling water running through them. They're always complaining about no place to dump it. Personally, I think that most northern lakes could benefit from some hot water being added.

[Nihil]

7. Nice idea as long as it isn't taken over by the car dreamers ...

> But the downside, of course, will be the tremendous infrastructure expense
> of setting up embedded networks in roads.

And maintaining those embedded networks ... given the propensity (in the UK
at any rate) of utilities to dig up any newly laid piece of roadway and
turn it back into the patched nursery for potholes that it had been prior
to the long overdue resurfacing ...

> it’s probably more likely that we’ll see the system employed on limited routes
> for trams or buses before being extended to general roads and streets,

That makes much more sense as such vehicles already have planned stopping
places (usually separate from other vehicular access) so they could quite
easily be set up to charge whenever they are at a bus/tram stop.

IMO this would be by far the best way to implement such a system rather than
the fantasy-land of applying it to individual transport in a realistic
timeframe.

> IAV points out that because of high transmission efficiency only limited
> segments of road would actually need the network and thus costs will be
> much lower than some fear.

Again, I would prefer to see this done with public transport rather than
private but the obvious place to implement it for the latter would be at
traffic lights: the vehicle is in a defined location and not moving for
a defined period so just wire up small sections of urban roadway rather
than long runs where you have to manage the real problems of movement.

[tinrobot]

10. It works when cars are moving as well as stopped

I don't think it would be used in cities because of maintenance and pothole issues, but I could see it used on interstates betweeen cities. Every few dozen miles, you could have a charging lane, much like a toll lane, that cars could use to keep charged while traveling the long distances between cities. Once they're within a city, however, cars would charge normally using charging stations.

[kristopher]

11. Interesting application nt

[TheMadMonk]

12. Black top, concrete or both together. I have yet to see any significant...

...stretch of roadway (completely unmollested by utilities) remain uncracked for any significant period of time.

One of the main culprits for road damage that make this sort of thing very difficult to implement is road freight. A single eighteen wheeler causes road wear and damage at a rate that is hundreds or even thousands of times that of a 5 seat sedan. B-doubles and triples are even worse. I think it is proportional to the squares of the speed and of the axle loading.