Dedicated Charging Lanes for Electric Vehicles
Nissan says wireless charging could make it easier to keep EVs topped off.
Kevin Bullis 07/22/2009
- 3 Comments
Most potential owners of electric vehicles (EVs) worry about the convenience of charging, so Nissan is developing ways to charge EVs without plugging them in, the Guardian reports.
The idea is to make special charging bays that use the same inductive-charging mechanisms used to charge electric toothbrushes or the new Palm Pre phone. Drivers won't have to remember to plug the car in when they get out. Eventually, a series of these chargers embedded in roadways could charge cars as they drive along, according to the article. But though that may be technically feasible, it would waste energy because it's less efficient than plugging in a car. It's also not clear that it would be worth the cost.
Inductive charging works only at very close range (with the Pre, the phone is in physical contact with the charger). Researchers at MIT are developing wireless charging that works at the range of a couple of meters. You could charge up a phone merely by being in the same room as the charger.
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Gurthang
52 Comments
Another wheel
Why not design two smaller floating wheels on either side of the car that are essentily the coils in some durable urethane matrix. You could even put some field sensor in the car so that it only "drops" the wheels when a strong enough oscilating field is detected thus keeping wear to a minimum. Then put the powerlines near the dividing lines of the road. So long as you can draw enough power to operate the car with a small surplus it would make for a great way to extend the range of an electric car. And if you could find a way to charge for the power consumed even better. Heck modulate the power to transmit information and determine the average speed of cars running over the powerlines and maybe you could turn it into a travel information network.
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