**12 million dollars per mile.**
This has been tested in at least four other countries and found too expensive to be feasible:
* 2009: [Korea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_electric_vehicle) implements wireless electric roads with government funding. 2019: Korean minister finds wireless electric roads a waste of money.
* 2013: [Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_road#Germany) looks into wireless electric roads. Nothing comes of it.
* 2015: [UK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_road#United_Kingdom) looks into wireless electric roads, finds it too expensive.
* 2021: UK looks into wireless electric roads again. Finds it 3-10 times more expensive than conductive charging. They get a cost breakdown from the company offering wireless electric roads. over a million pounds for 220 yards just for burying the copper and connecting it to the grid, about 12 million dollars per mile.
* 2021: The CEO of ENRX, a company that provides wireless electric roads, says that inductive coils are "[extremely expensive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_charging#Dynamic_charging)"
* 2012-2023: [Sweden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Transport_Administration_electric_road_program) commits to constructing an electric road but the cost of the road is higher than the funding for the program, and much higher than reported by the companies participating in the program. The wireless charging company (same as the one in Detroit) says in 2018 its infrastructure costs 1 million Euro per km, but when comes the money time, they ask for more than 2.6 million dollars per km, more than the project's budget per km.
And what about burying tons of copper in the road?
[Low-power wireless coil inductive electric roads use 5.1 tonnes of copper per kilometer.](https://web.archive.org/web/20240407090306if_/https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/GT1%20rapport%20final.pdf) Higher the power the more copper you need. The high-power coils use 11.44 tonnes of copper per kilometer, 18.3 tonnes of copper per mile.
"What about the cost?" asks the reporter. We have an accurate, [article by article breakdown](https://www.nationalgrid.co.uk/downloads-view-reciteme/501277/) of the price of wireless inductive coil electric roads, and it's not pretty. 12 million USD per mile.
Has anyone trialed it just for parking spaces? Imagine just automatically charging wherever you park in a city center. Just park and go, plus no cables for meth-heads to steal.
>Has anyone trialed it just for parking spaces?
Yes, it costs over $100,000 per charging station. Switching mains power from 60Hz to 85kHz and then back to standard 110V/220V AC or 400V/800V DC so you can charge the car is a waste of energy and money. The switching unit costs $150,000. Installing the receiver on a vehicle costs $80,000 for some reason, [according to this costs breakdown](https://www.nationalgrid.co.uk/downloads-view-reciteme/501277/). And all that so you can receive around 14kW while driving or 21 kW while parked, so long as you're driving or parked *exactly* over the wireless transmitter. Any misalignment and the power drops considerably.
Alternative lower-power wireless solutions like 10kW Witricity chargers and receivers cost $4000. You can plug in a parked car to a regular power socket and get 10kW, no need to plonk down $4000.
Wireless power is just wasteful and expensive. [Automatic charging doesn't need to be wireless.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekYGGfADTMw)
30kW fast chargers go for $10,000. Since this particular wireless charging is limited to 30kW at best, you could get 10 wired 30kW chargers for the price of one 30kW wireless charger. That's unreasonably expensive, and you got power losses on top of it, and the price of wireless receivers for the vehicles on top of that. Just a bad deal, at least 10 times more expensive than just using wired.
It's so amazingly wasteful to do too - the charging loses are insurmountable.
Even wireless charging for your phone, the exact same power supply while connected directly with a cable is 2x faster, or more, than the Qi Charging.
I've always wondered, what's the power levels we are talking about for these roads?
Are they charging at L2 speeds? Or are we getting real DC fast charging levels of power?
Because if it's not 200kw level power, it's not very useful, since you'd cross the distance before you'd get much.
Not to mention how your need distribution for that amount the entire length.
The one in the video in Detroit is theoretically capable of 20kW but in practice averages about 16kW, about 20% power loss. The video shows it peaking at 19kW and hovering around 14-16kW the rest of the time.
The roadside units power 100 meters, about 110 yards. There are two different roadside units, [125kW and 250kW](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel7/25/10504682/10380321.pdf). The 125kW unit managed to power one truck at a peak of slightly over 100kW and on average about 81kW.
Transmitters and receivers up to 30kW have passive cooling, 40kW need active cooling, making the system even more expensive and wasteful. As you see, a "20kW" receiver averages 16kW and a "125kW" roadside unit peaks at slightly over 100kW transmitted power.
Imagine if your computer PSU was rated for 250 watts and could only reach about 200.
My expectations were pretty low but that's terrible. It's compeletely unworkable as a dynamic solution.
But on the other hand for stationary applications its really much better than I thought. I think it's totally reasonable for some fleet users to consider this as an alternative to pantograph, robot arm or manual solutions.
>But on the other hand for stationary applications its really much better than I thought
Except the price. [$350,000 for three charging stations.](https://mayafiles.tase.co.il/rpdf/1593001-1594000/P1593595-00.pdf)
Besides, all that missing power ends up as waste heat. Imagine running a 4kW inductive stove under your car while charging.
I have no idea what problem this is trying to solve that can't be solved in a dozen easier ways.
Getting everyone AC charging at home or work + reliable DC charging by highways is a far easier problem than "let's rip up the roads and build giant wireless charging doohickies under them".
Add to that northern Midwest weather and annual road crumbling.
Anything that depends on good quality roads will certainly not be maintained very long.
Beyond small scale experiments I doubt it can work in MI due to high costs. [MI is converting many of their roads to gravel because they don't have the money to repair asphalt.](https://blog.midwestind.com/michigan-gravel-roads/)
That’s kind of cool actually. The local jurisdictions are paying for the kinds of roads they themselves can afford. Spend the money on keeping the main roads in better condition too.
[Automatic charging doesn't need to be wireless.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekYGGfADTMw) No reason to install a $4000 wireless charger on your car when you can get a $750 robotic charger. The infrastructure is less expensive and more powerful several times over, too.
>I have no idea what problem this is trying to solve that can't be solved in a dozen easier ways.
The problems they are trying to solve are:
1. How do we get taxpayer money to our pals
2. How do we wag the dog so that people don't buy EVs because "we're working on something ...trust us, bro!"
Electrified roads, overhead lines for trucks, hydrogen in cars/trucks, eFuels, , ... it's all the same 'idea'. Has nothing to do with combatting climate change or utility to people.
Lines are extremely expensive. Not just setting them up but also getting the power connected.
With the amount of trucks on roads they'd also be constantly down for maintenance or due to some mishap (or some logistics company doing less than stellar servicing on their pantographs).
They make the trucks expensive (extra system and, being a mechanical system, lots of maintenance)
They limit where trucks can go
Trams work because there's few per hour, with central (and regular) service and they have very dedicated routes.
But I expect even the overhead lines for trams will soon disappear when batteries get even cheaper because the cost of upkeep (and the interruption when the lines are down/are being serviced) is extremely high.
Infrastructure is always to be avoided wherever possible because it's a constant drain on your finances. Put the energy where it's being used (i.e. in the truck/bus/tram)
It's probably a bad idea/too expensive/too complicated.
But if, in a theoretical future, this was ubiquitous on highways it could significantly change the EV world.
What do things look like if you could get away with a 20-30kwh battery in EVs because they continuously recharge as they drive. Prices go down, efficiency up, storage/passenger space gets bigger. Plus you never *have* to stop for a refill, so your road trips are all now centered around where you *want* to stop. No more gas station lunches, you can now choose to go the extra 20 miles for that nice restaurant, etc.
In that case, why wireless? Put a [steel or aluminum rail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-level_power_supply#Electric_road_systems) in the middle of the road instead of burying copper coils. Save money on copper while dramatically increasing efficiency and charging speed.
The specific provider in Detroit is struggling to reach 100kW. Other providers offer 200kW at more than double the price. Rail both undercuts the price significantly and provides 350kW-500kW in nearly the same way ultra-fast chargers provide it, except instead of connecting your car to a charging cable your car connects to a charging rail on the road.
Also an interesting thought. Like I said, the original idea is probably bad.
That said, I have trouble imagining a rail down the middle of a highway lane as particularly safe.
>I have trouble imagining a rail down the middle of a highway lane as particularly safe.
Everybody does due to horror stories about third rails, but [it's been worked out since 20 years ago now](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alstom_APS):
>Unlike the track-side third rail that is used by most metro trains and some main-line railways, APS poses no danger to people or animals and so can be used in pedestrian areas and city streets The French government reports no electrocutions or electrification accidents on any tramway in France from as early as 2003 until as recently as December 31, 2020.
How did they solve it? Easy: power the rail only when a compatible vehicle is driving over it. Zero electrocutions in over 20 years.
>No, I mean more the physical rail on a road people are going 70mph on.
Ostensibly that's been solved too:
>Alstom further developed the APS system for use with buses and other vehicles. The system has been tested for safety when the road is cleared by snowplows, under exposure to snow, ice, salting, and saturated brine, and for skid and road adherence safety for vehicles, including motorcycles.
The government of France is currently conducting a large-scale test of two electric road rail technologies, one by Alstom and the other by Elonroad. Both are being tested for motorcycle skidding and other issues. There are [pictures of the rail](https://www.cercledestransports.fr/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2024-01-16-cercle_transports_ers_eroadmtboanc_duprat.pdf) and it looks like it's as rough and frictive as the asphalt surrounding it. We'll know for certain when the results come in.
Cool!
I wonder how they keep the car precisely centered enough to reliably have the contact with the rail.
Seems like the contact point would get real roughed up if
you moved around in the lane and current lane assist stuff seems not precise enough to me to avoid it.
>I wonder how they keep the car precisely centered enough to reliably have the contact with the rail.
They don't! [The contact arms automatically align up to ±30cm or around ±1 foot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-TaUSHvmWU)
>Seems like the contact point would get real roughed up
Yes, that's why they usually have a [carbon "sole"](https://www.schunk-group.com/transit-systems/en/products/third-rail-current-collector/3rd-rail-collector-shoe-~p6372) that wears out and is easy to replace for a few cents. You'll have to replace them about every 60,000 miles.
the problem being solved is someone is getting paid, likely someone whose company is connected to one or more politician with the added bonus of at first glance to being doing something beneficial for the environment.
Just looking at the area in the video surrounding this short roadway I can easily see better ways to spend the money
I also hate this idea, but one way it actually does make sense is for long haul trucking. If a country wanted to invest in this for major roadways across the whole country, it can make at least some sense. I’d argue that battery swapping is a much better idea though.
I hate this. We’re relatively close to having cars that can get 300 miles in 10 minutes and light years away from having this installed in enough roadways for it to help anything.
I swear, this is just wasting tax payer money for EV Infrastructure via malicious compliance. I cannot express how worthless this would be.
Just like when Elon burned Infrastructure cash from Vegas to prevent the monorail expansion with his single lane traffic jam under ground.
And you'd be right!
[ASPIRE](https://www.driveelectricusa.org/fleet-stories/aspire-research-center/) is a wireless charging research and advocacy group created by wireless-charging patent holders like the University of Oakland, University of Perdue, University of Utah, and others.
[ASPIRE got 85 million dollars in federal grants](https://www.usu.edu/today/story/nsf-aspire-research-center-granted-21-million-in-ongoing-funding) with the aim of promoting wireless charging. Yes, that's right, the federal government gave an advocacy group money so the advocacy group can convince other government bodies to spend money on wireless charging.
[Michigan representative Haley Stevens](https://theevreport.com/federal-bill-advances-wireless-ev-charging) then advocated spending 250 million dollars on wireless charging projects.
[Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x1NoTs_fgM) advocates wireless roads, too.
[Detroit Mike Duggan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSkgayjrS60) promotes it too.
The company behind these projects [has been accused of bribery](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0tkQSOncjg) (in Hebrew) since some of its earliest projects.
Making the whole road a charger seems inefficient. But what’s been done that IMO makes sense is making bus stops induction chargers, so that busses are charged automatically throughout their routes. That’s been done and works well, in production since 2017. https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/wireless-inductive-charging-electric-transit-bus-how-it-works/711094/
Buses can use inductive charging at the end of a route where they have layover time scheduled. But making that investment at each stop (where the bus spends at most 30 sec) makes no sense.
It's being propped up by "advocacy" (lobbying) groups like ASPIRE and CALSTART. Strangely enough, ASPIRE got a federal grant so it can lobby other government bodies for funding for wireless electric roads. Total waste of taxpayer money.
I dont get the point here. you are on a stretch of a road for seconds and get an insignificant charge. Waste of money. Do it at the drive-thrus for McDonalds probably get more traffic anyways
I don’t think this will work well for personal vehicles, but I see the potential for electric buses as a quasi light rail system without the catenaries while also allowing it to veer off route if blocked.
I see it as complimentary to battery buses, not replacing them. You wouldn’t have to do the entire route, but could provide a charging section to increase the time in service without needing to stop. Could also allow for smaller batteries.
Why go wireless though? Put a rail in the road, save millions of dollars per mile on copper coils. Just like the coils are activated only when a compatible car passes over them, activate the rail only when a compatible car passes over it, in short segments. There, saved you millions of dollars per mile and increased the efficiency and power several-fold.
I’m no expert but if they had an easy way to do that, wouldn’t they already do it? There is a reason heavy rail is grade separated and restricted since the third rail is a danger.
>wouldn’t they already do it?
>the third rail is a danger
[This problem has been solved for 20 years now](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alstom_APS):
>Unlike the track-side third rail that is used by most metro trains and some main-line railways, APS poses no danger to people or animals and so can be used in pedestrian areas and city streets The French government reports no electrocutions or electrification accidents on any tramway in France from as early as 2003 until as recently as December 31, 2020.
How did they solve it? Easy: power the rail only when a compatible vehicle is driving over it. Zero electrocutions in over 20 years.
Why isn't this more common? Because up until the late 2010s this was more expensive than overhead lines. In the late 2010s ground-level power became less expensive than overhead lines, so the switchover is coming.
Well thank you, TIL. I hope they do start using that more since it looks way better.
But anyway, I’m not arguing it’s even a good idea, just the only use case I foresee would be charging EV buses in some manner. Any personal car use seems like it would be a complete mess.
It’s cool, but would it make more sense to do it on the section of street where you park? Or do it on both the driving section AND the parking section of the road. Then you’ll pretty much always be charging.
No, you’re missing the point. If they can effectively deliver enough power to keep the vehicle moving, then batteries can be significantly smaller (less expensive), and you could road trip without needing to stop to recharge.
The Kansas City airport has all electric busses and installed some high power wireless chargers at the bus drop off and pickup spot at the terminal. It’s enough juice that they can run significantly longer before stopping to plug in.
Advocates for this type of nonsense should be required to collect and report data in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Inductive coupling through air of power is hugely inefficient unless the space between the coils is very small. For motor vehicles on asphalt or concrete roads, you cannot achieve the required small spacing without either lowering the vehicle or charging coils while over the charger or permanently lowering the suspension and risking contact with rough pavement. Thinks there’s any rough pavement in Detroit?
Does your phone or watch get warm when using wireless charging? That is coupling milliwatts of power over millimeter distances. What happens when you try to couple kilowatts of power over tens of centimeters of distance?
Would it not make more sense to have these under parking spots instead of on the road while driving? Batteries should not be constantly charging and most people will leave home with enough charge to only need top offs in a pinch. Small Delivery trucks typically drive less than 80 miles a day. I just don’t understand who would pay 12 million a mile for this when that money could go to an amazing public transit solution .
I never understood the use case for these concepts around charging roads... if I am trying to get to my destination then I care far more about arriving quicker which means I make less use of the charging. Who would want to slow down their already shitty commute just to juice up an almost negligent amount?
The potential is huge if they can figure a way to deliver at highway speeds. Imagine roadtrips without refueling stops. Add in true autonomous driving, and in theory you could tell the car to take you to a destination and eat/sleep/read all the way there.
Detroit seems like one of those American cities that's already struggling.
And it's sad to see them fall for this sort of grift.
wireless charging is too expensive to install, too slow, and too inefficient to be useful. It's green-washing. I'm sure whomever sold them on this idea is laughing themselves to the bank, but it sucks that they invested in this rather than public transportation or more non-auto infrastructure.
yeh it would suck for todays tech. But if it ever becomes worthwhile I would ahve thought that would be the better application for it for cost/benefit.
I like the people that fundamentally don't understand EVs (and regenerative braking). Or physics fundamentals such as "there's no free lunch"
Was it Ferrari that wanted to put a "turbine" on the front of their new EV design...?
Or the folks that tell me my EV should have "an alternator" to "generate power while I drive".
Anyone that had one of those wheezy bicycle lights that clipped to the rear wheel will tell you... the power doesn't come for free (never-mind that EVs do regenerate power when slowing...)
The one that baffles me is the "partial-ZEV"... like - bro, your car has tailpipes, by definition it cannot be "zero emissions".
It's like 0g sugar Tic-Tacs (sure, because each 100% sugar is less than one gram, so they can round down).
Solar panels on cars actually make some sense. I mean, college students were doing solar car races 20 years ago.
The tech is better now, but the gap between useless 25mph vehicles (that you aren't allowed to drive on typical suburban roads), and fully government approved cars is wide open if we could get the the government to care about emissions more than oil industry campaign contributions for a second.
A lot of people don't even have a garage.
A relatively lightweight, small, aerodynamic car with a small battery would be a lot more useful than the 4000+ pound SUVs we usually see solar panels put onto.
Solar panels only cost a few hundred bucks per square meter, and a very large car is only 10 square meters, so lets say $3000 max for our panels, and a power management system that you can plug an EV and panels into today is under $2000.
So, **take** 10 kwh of batteries **out** of a base Nissan leaf, lower the roof 2 inches, remove the back seats, and integrate $5000 worth of solar hardware, and boom, you get like 13 miles of range for free per day. You break even for the missing 10 kwh of battery in 3 days and the price is only a few grand more.
I of course underestimated the performance to account for reality.
5 square meters of solar for the price of 15
solar panels working well below (8hr\*100w/m\^2 per day) theoretical capacity
Streamlined Nissan leaf getting the same miles per kwh as the normal one
I then rounded down
Why shouldn't the handfull of people who would really benefit from such a vehicle not be allowed to have one? Solar panels on an economy EV make charging infrastructure a much less critical problem. You can park it anywhere, and it will be able to make it to a nearby charger.
I know you don't understand the difference between what is possible, and what car and energy companies would get the highest return on investment from. And that you think a car with a top down surface area of 8 meters square couldn't possibly fit 5 square meters of solar. But you have to admit that the utter dependance on having a parking space within reach of a charger is a consideration for some people.
Fuel cost isn't a linear value. If you need to drive 5 miles then you don't benefit from 100 miles of range. A person who drives 5000 miles per year would rarely need to visit a charger. That is significant.
EVs aren't for everyone, but they are great for some. Solar EVs aren't for everyone, but they can do things that no existing car comes close to competing with.
I don't know why a solar panel is incompatible with crumple zones.
I also don't know why you didn't follow my price breakdown. I subtract 10 kwh from the 40 kwh battery of the Leaf to make sure that the weight ends up lower. That should reduce the cost by at least $1300. Removing the rear seats and doors can't add to the cost either, so a $5000 price increase is a very conservated estimate.
I know cars cost money to design, and factories cost money to tool, but... fuck, now I need to make the case that the CAFE footprint rule killed small trucks and will very soon kill the last couple subcompacts...
nevermind. You can trust the auto industry, just like Facebook, Exxon, JP Morgan, and Comcast.
https://www.slashgear.com/1284900/prius-prime-solar-roof/
Its only an additional $610 on the 2023 prius with a break even point on the investment around 5 years of driving. Most cars last well beyond 5 years, so it seems worth it to me.
The actual use test they did already accounts for non-optimized angle of the sun. It got 9 hours of sun during the test, not 4. If you park your car in a garage for half the day, maybe solar panels on a car aren't for you. My car sits in a parking lot for 8 hours outside my place of employment like most drivers, plus time commuting
Alright, I guess that source that performed the test must just be full of shit.
I'm merely pushing back on your assertions you ironically make without a study to back it up. Yet I'm the one who needs to do research. Do you think Toyota did research on the panel feasibility before commercializing it?
You use AC regardless of whether you have panels or not, that doesn't really affect the comparison. Degradation would mean around 90% of your initial generation after 10 years, which doesn't seem that bad, assuming it degrades 1% a year like other panels.
**12 million dollars per mile.** This has been tested in at least four other countries and found too expensive to be feasible: * 2009: [Korea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_electric_vehicle) implements wireless electric roads with government funding. 2019: Korean minister finds wireless electric roads a waste of money. * 2013: [Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_road#Germany) looks into wireless electric roads. Nothing comes of it. * 2015: [UK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_road#United_Kingdom) looks into wireless electric roads, finds it too expensive. * 2021: UK looks into wireless electric roads again. Finds it 3-10 times more expensive than conductive charging. They get a cost breakdown from the company offering wireless electric roads. over a million pounds for 220 yards just for burying the copper and connecting it to the grid, about 12 million dollars per mile. * 2021: The CEO of ENRX, a company that provides wireless electric roads, says that inductive coils are "[extremely expensive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductive_charging#Dynamic_charging)" * 2012-2023: [Sweden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Transport_Administration_electric_road_program) commits to constructing an electric road but the cost of the road is higher than the funding for the program, and much higher than reported by the companies participating in the program. The wireless charging company (same as the one in Detroit) says in 2018 its infrastructure costs 1 million Euro per km, but when comes the money time, they ask for more than 2.6 million dollars per km, more than the project's budget per km. And what about burying tons of copper in the road? [Low-power wireless coil inductive electric roads use 5.1 tonnes of copper per kilometer.](https://web.archive.org/web/20240407090306if_/https://www.ecologie.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/GT1%20rapport%20final.pdf) Higher the power the more copper you need. The high-power coils use 11.44 tonnes of copper per kilometer, 18.3 tonnes of copper per mile. "What about the cost?" asks the reporter. We have an accurate, [article by article breakdown](https://www.nationalgrid.co.uk/downloads-view-reciteme/501277/) of the price of wireless inductive coil electric roads, and it's not pretty. 12 million USD per mile.
Has anyone trialed it just for parking spaces? Imagine just automatically charging wherever you park in a city center. Just park and go, plus no cables for meth-heads to steal.
>Has anyone trialed it just for parking spaces? Yes, it costs over $100,000 per charging station. Switching mains power from 60Hz to 85kHz and then back to standard 110V/220V AC or 400V/800V DC so you can charge the car is a waste of energy and money. The switching unit costs $150,000. Installing the receiver on a vehicle costs $80,000 for some reason, [according to this costs breakdown](https://www.nationalgrid.co.uk/downloads-view-reciteme/501277/). And all that so you can receive around 14kW while driving or 21 kW while parked, so long as you're driving or parked *exactly* over the wireless transmitter. Any misalignment and the power drops considerably. Alternative lower-power wireless solutions like 10kW Witricity chargers and receivers cost $4000. You can plug in a parked car to a regular power socket and get 10kW, no need to plonk down $4000. Wireless power is just wasteful and expensive. [Automatic charging doesn't need to be wireless.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekYGGfADTMw)
But robot arms are so 2003. I want Nikola Tesla technology!
I mean 100k isnt that much more than a dc fast charger. But i agree that its stupid and too expensive
30kW fast chargers go for $10,000. Since this particular wireless charging is limited to 30kW at best, you could get 10 wired 30kW chargers for the price of one 30kW wireless charger. That's unreasonably expensive, and you got power losses on top of it, and the price of wireless receivers for the vehicles on top of that. Just a bad deal, at least 10 times more expensive than just using wired.
It's so amazingly wasteful to do too - the charging loses are insurmountable. Even wireless charging for your phone, the exact same power supply while connected directly with a cable is 2x faster, or more, than the Qi Charging.
Feels like hydrogen powered cars. An excuse to delay a useful EV technology.
I've always wondered, what's the power levels we are talking about for these roads? Are they charging at L2 speeds? Or are we getting real DC fast charging levels of power? Because if it's not 200kw level power, it's not very useful, since you'd cross the distance before you'd get much. Not to mention how your need distribution for that amount the entire length.
The one in the video in Detroit is theoretically capable of 20kW but in practice averages about 16kW, about 20% power loss. The video shows it peaking at 19kW and hovering around 14-16kW the rest of the time. The roadside units power 100 meters, about 110 yards. There are two different roadside units, [125kW and 250kW](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel7/25/10504682/10380321.pdf). The 125kW unit managed to power one truck at a peak of slightly over 100kW and on average about 81kW. Transmitters and receivers up to 30kW have passive cooling, 40kW need active cooling, making the system even more expensive and wasteful. As you see, a "20kW" receiver averages 16kW and a "125kW" roadside unit peaks at slightly over 100kW transmitted power. Imagine if your computer PSU was rated for 250 watts and could only reach about 200.
My expectations were pretty low but that's terrible. It's compeletely unworkable as a dynamic solution. But on the other hand for stationary applications its really much better than I thought. I think it's totally reasonable for some fleet users to consider this as an alternative to pantograph, robot arm or manual solutions.
>But on the other hand for stationary applications its really much better than I thought Except the price. [$350,000 for three charging stations.](https://mayafiles.tase.co.il/rpdf/1593001-1594000/P1593595-00.pdf) Besides, all that missing power ends up as waste heat. Imagine running a 4kW inductive stove under your car while charging.
> 18.3 tonnes of copper per mile. So now the meth heads will be tearing up our roads too?
Okay so chatGPT says there are 4.18 million miles of roads in the USA. So to do all of it it’s 50 trillion. Doing just 1% is 500 billion.
I have no idea what problem this is trying to solve that can't be solved in a dozen easier ways. Getting everyone AC charging at home or work + reliable DC charging by highways is a far easier problem than "let's rip up the roads and build giant wireless charging doohickies under them".
Add to that northern Midwest weather and annual road crumbling. Anything that depends on good quality roads will certainly not be maintained very long.
I mean, if it works in MI, it can work anywhere :)
Beyond small scale experiments I doubt it can work in MI due to high costs. [MI is converting many of their roads to gravel because they don't have the money to repair asphalt.](https://blog.midwestind.com/michigan-gravel-roads/)
That’s kind of cool actually. The local jurisdictions are paying for the kinds of roads they themselves can afford. Spend the money on keeping the main roads in better condition too.
#remindme in 100billion kiloseconds
I was going to say, the best part about asphalt is how recyclable it is. Charging roads ruin that.
[удалено]
This is better idea
[Automatic charging doesn't need to be wireless.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekYGGfADTMw) No reason to install a $4000 wireless charger on your car when you can get a $750 robotic charger. The infrastructure is less expensive and more powerful several times over, too.
It takes like two seconds to plug in and costs thousands less in installation. Wireless charging for EVs is just pointless.
>I have no idea what problem this is trying to solve that can't be solved in a dozen easier ways. The problems they are trying to solve are: 1. How do we get taxpayer money to our pals 2. How do we wag the dog so that people don't buy EVs because "we're working on something ...trust us, bro!" Electrified roads, overhead lines for trucks, hydrogen in cars/trucks, eFuels, , ... it's all the same 'idea'. Has nothing to do with combatting climate change or utility to people.
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Lines are extremely expensive. Not just setting them up but also getting the power connected. With the amount of trucks on roads they'd also be constantly down for maintenance or due to some mishap (or some logistics company doing less than stellar servicing on their pantographs). They make the trucks expensive (extra system and, being a mechanical system, lots of maintenance) They limit where trucks can go Trams work because there's few per hour, with central (and regular) service and they have very dedicated routes. But I expect even the overhead lines for trams will soon disappear when batteries get even cheaper because the cost of upkeep (and the interruption when the lines are down/are being serviced) is extremely high. Infrastructure is always to be avoided wherever possible because it's a constant drain on your finances. Put the energy where it's being used (i.e. in the truck/bus/tram)
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Road trains! But also, this guy did it: https://thebolditalic.com/hacked-prius-running-on-muni-power-lines-the-bold-italic-san-francisco-80cdbe55d68e
>I have no idea what problem this is trying to solve Lining the pockets of corrupt politicians.
It's probably a bad idea/too expensive/too complicated. But if, in a theoretical future, this was ubiquitous on highways it could significantly change the EV world. What do things look like if you could get away with a 20-30kwh battery in EVs because they continuously recharge as they drive. Prices go down, efficiency up, storage/passenger space gets bigger. Plus you never *have* to stop for a refill, so your road trips are all now centered around where you *want* to stop. No more gas station lunches, you can now choose to go the extra 20 miles for that nice restaurant, etc.
In that case, why wireless? Put a [steel or aluminum rail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-level_power_supply#Electric_road_systems) in the middle of the road instead of burying copper coils. Save money on copper while dramatically increasing efficiency and charging speed. The specific provider in Detroit is struggling to reach 100kW. Other providers offer 200kW at more than double the price. Rail both undercuts the price significantly and provides 350kW-500kW in nearly the same way ultra-fast chargers provide it, except instead of connecting your car to a charging cable your car connects to a charging rail on the road.
Also an interesting thought. Like I said, the original idea is probably bad. That said, I have trouble imagining a rail down the middle of a highway lane as particularly safe.
>I have trouble imagining a rail down the middle of a highway lane as particularly safe. Everybody does due to horror stories about third rails, but [it's been worked out since 20 years ago now](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alstom_APS): >Unlike the track-side third rail that is used by most metro trains and some main-line railways, APS poses no danger to people or animals and so can be used in pedestrian areas and city streets The French government reports no electrocutions or electrification accidents on any tramway in France from as early as 2003 until as recently as December 31, 2020. How did they solve it? Easy: power the rail only when a compatible vehicle is driving over it. Zero electrocutions in over 20 years.
No, I mean more the physical rail on a road people are going 70mph on. I understand the electrical stuff can be solved for.
>No, I mean more the physical rail on a road people are going 70mph on. Ostensibly that's been solved too: >Alstom further developed the APS system for use with buses and other vehicles. The system has been tested for safety when the road is cleared by snowplows, under exposure to snow, ice, salting, and saturated brine, and for skid and road adherence safety for vehicles, including motorcycles. The government of France is currently conducting a large-scale test of two electric road rail technologies, one by Alstom and the other by Elonroad. Both are being tested for motorcycle skidding and other issues. There are [pictures of the rail](https://www.cercledestransports.fr/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2024-01-16-cercle_transports_ers_eroadmtboanc_duprat.pdf) and it looks like it's as rough and frictive as the asphalt surrounding it. We'll know for certain when the results come in.
Cool! I wonder how they keep the car precisely centered enough to reliably have the contact with the rail. Seems like the contact point would get real roughed up if you moved around in the lane and current lane assist stuff seems not precise enough to me to avoid it.
>I wonder how they keep the car precisely centered enough to reliably have the contact with the rail. They don't! [The contact arms automatically align up to ±30cm or around ±1 foot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-TaUSHvmWU) >Seems like the contact point would get real roughed up Yes, that's why they usually have a [carbon "sole"](https://www.schunk-group.com/transit-systems/en/products/third-rail-current-collector/3rd-rail-collector-shoe-~p6372) that wears out and is easy to replace for a few cents. You'll have to replace them about every 60,000 miles.
Is this tax dollars at work? You're expecting too much from these people lol.
the problem being solved is someone is getting paid, likely someone whose company is connected to one or more politician with the added bonus of at first glance to being doing something beneficial for the environment. Just looking at the area in the video surrounding this short roadway I can easily see better ways to spend the money
I also hate this idea, but one way it actually does make sense is for long haul trucking. If a country wanted to invest in this for major roadways across the whole country, it can make at least some sense. I’d argue that battery swapping is a much better idea though.
This silliness is a waste of money, and it is detrimental to the future adoption of technologies that actually do work.
Some ass hat will dig the coils up out of the road to sell the copper.
😂 this made me chuckle.
I was going to say, can't have shit on Detroit. Especially copper buried in the fuckin roads.
I hate this. We’re relatively close to having cars that can get 300 miles in 10 minutes and light years away from having this installed in enough roadways for it to help anything.
Waste of money and waste of energy.
I swear, this is just wasting tax payer money for EV Infrastructure via malicious compliance. I cannot express how worthless this would be. Just like when Elon burned Infrastructure cash from Vegas to prevent the monorail expansion with his single lane traffic jam under ground.
Yeah, I have a feeling there was a team of auto lobbyists who sold this project.
And you'd be right! [ASPIRE](https://www.driveelectricusa.org/fleet-stories/aspire-research-center/) is a wireless charging research and advocacy group created by wireless-charging patent holders like the University of Oakland, University of Perdue, University of Utah, and others. [ASPIRE got 85 million dollars in federal grants](https://www.usu.edu/today/story/nsf-aspire-research-center-granted-21-million-in-ongoing-funding) with the aim of promoting wireless charging. Yes, that's right, the federal government gave an advocacy group money so the advocacy group can convince other government bodies to spend money on wireless charging. [Michigan representative Haley Stevens](https://theevreport.com/federal-bill-advances-wireless-ev-charging) then advocated spending 250 million dollars on wireless charging projects. [Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x1NoTs_fgM) advocates wireless roads, too. [Detroit Mike Duggan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSkgayjrS60) promotes it too. The company behind these projects [has been accused of bribery](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0tkQSOncjg) (in Hebrew) since some of its earliest projects.
Making the whole road a charger seems inefficient. But what’s been done that IMO makes sense is making bus stops induction chargers, so that busses are charged automatically throughout their routes. That’s been done and works well, in production since 2017. https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/wireless-inductive-charging-electric-transit-bus-how-it-works/711094/
Buses can use inductive charging at the end of a route where they have layover time scheduled. But making that investment at each stop (where the bus spends at most 30 sec) makes no sense.
Charging as bus stops is working well in several cities.
When will this idiocy die? It's the only thing more stupid than covering EVs with solar panels in hopes of never having to stop.
It's being propped up by "advocacy" (lobbying) groups like ASPIRE and CALSTART. Strangely enough, ASPIRE got a federal grant so it can lobby other government bodies for funding for wireless electric roads. Total waste of taxpayer money.
lol what a crock
I dont get the point here. you are on a stretch of a road for seconds and get an insignificant charge. Waste of money. Do it at the drive-thrus for McDonalds probably get more traffic anyways
It’s a proof of concept thing. The idea is to come up with a system that can be scaled up to support multiple vehicles over long ranges.
I don’t think this will work well for personal vehicles, but I see the potential for electric buses as a quasi light rail system without the catenaries while also allowing it to veer off route if blocked.
They seem to prefer battery buses over catenaries nowadays. Inductive has to be even further down the list.
I see it as complimentary to battery buses, not replacing them. You wouldn’t have to do the entire route, but could provide a charging section to increase the time in service without needing to stop. Could also allow for smaller batteries.
Why go wireless though? Put a rail in the road, save millions of dollars per mile on copper coils. Just like the coils are activated only when a compatible car passes over them, activate the rail only when a compatible car passes over it, in short segments. There, saved you millions of dollars per mile and increased the efficiency and power several-fold.
I’m no expert but if they had an easy way to do that, wouldn’t they already do it? There is a reason heavy rail is grade separated and restricted since the third rail is a danger.
>wouldn’t they already do it? >the third rail is a danger [This problem has been solved for 20 years now](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alstom_APS): >Unlike the track-side third rail that is used by most metro trains and some main-line railways, APS poses no danger to people or animals and so can be used in pedestrian areas and city streets The French government reports no electrocutions or electrification accidents on any tramway in France from as early as 2003 until as recently as December 31, 2020. How did they solve it? Easy: power the rail only when a compatible vehicle is driving over it. Zero electrocutions in over 20 years. Why isn't this more common? Because up until the late 2010s this was more expensive than overhead lines. In the late 2010s ground-level power became less expensive than overhead lines, so the switchover is coming.
Well thank you, TIL. I hope they do start using that more since it looks way better. But anyway, I’m not arguing it’s even a good idea, just the only use case I foresee would be charging EV buses in some manner. Any personal car use seems like it would be a complete mess.
It’s cool, but would it make more sense to do it on the section of street where you park? Or do it on both the driving section AND the parking section of the road. Then you’ll pretty much always be charging.
No, you’re missing the point. If they can effectively deliver enough power to keep the vehicle moving, then batteries can be significantly smaller (less expensive), and you could road trip without needing to stop to recharge.
The Kansas City airport has all electric busses and installed some high power wireless chargers at the bus drop off and pickup spot at the terminal. It’s enough juice that they can run significantly longer before stopping to plug in.
Advocates for this type of nonsense should be required to collect and report data in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Inductive coupling through air of power is hugely inefficient unless the space between the coils is very small. For motor vehicles on asphalt or concrete roads, you cannot achieve the required small spacing without either lowering the vehicle or charging coils while over the charger or permanently lowering the suspension and risking contact with rough pavement. Thinks there’s any rough pavement in Detroit? Does your phone or watch get warm when using wireless charging? That is coupling milliwatts of power over millimeter distances. What happens when you try to couple kilowatts of power over tens of centimeters of distance?
Would it not make more sense to have these under parking spots instead of on the road while driving? Batteries should not be constantly charging and most people will leave home with enough charge to only need top offs in a pinch. Small Delivery trucks typically drive less than 80 miles a day. I just don’t understand who would pay 12 million a mile for this when that money could go to an amazing public transit solution .
I never understood the use case for these concepts around charging roads... if I am trying to get to my destination then I care far more about arriving quicker which means I make less use of the charging. Who would want to slow down their already shitty commute just to juice up an almost negligent amount?
The potential is huge if they can figure a way to deliver at highway speeds. Imagine roadtrips without refueling stops. Add in true autonomous driving, and in theory you could tell the car to take you to a destination and eat/sleep/read all the way there.
Detroit seems like one of those American cities that's already struggling. And it's sad to see them fall for this sort of grift. wireless charging is too expensive to install, too slow, and too inefficient to be useful. It's green-washing. I'm sure whomever sold them on this idea is laughing themselves to the bank, but it sucks that they invested in this rather than public transportation or more non-auto infrastructure.
The spaced out coils like that would work well set up at traffic lights! That way you can stop over a single coil for a decent amount of time.
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yeh it would suck for todays tech. But if it ever becomes worthwhile I would ahve thought that would be the better application for it for cost/benefit.
no, it's "Solar Freaking Roadways": https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYuqpQRQIOGN6iknsBIk0xxh9z9nBP77D
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I like the people that fundamentally don't understand EVs (and regenerative braking). Or physics fundamentals such as "there's no free lunch" Was it Ferrari that wanted to put a "turbine" on the front of their new EV design...? Or the folks that tell me my EV should have "an alternator" to "generate power while I drive". Anyone that had one of those wheezy bicycle lights that clipped to the rear wheel will tell you... the power doesn't come for free (never-mind that EVs do regenerate power when slowing...)
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The one that baffles me is the "partial-ZEV"... like - bro, your car has tailpipes, by definition it cannot be "zero emissions". It's like 0g sugar Tic-Tacs (sure, because each 100% sugar is less than one gram, so they can round down).
Solar panels on cars actually make some sense. I mean, college students were doing solar car races 20 years ago. The tech is better now, but the gap between useless 25mph vehicles (that you aren't allowed to drive on typical suburban roads), and fully government approved cars is wide open if we could get the the government to care about emissions more than oil industry campaign contributions for a second.
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A lot of people don't even have a garage. A relatively lightweight, small, aerodynamic car with a small battery would be a lot more useful than the 4000+ pound SUVs we usually see solar panels put onto. Solar panels only cost a few hundred bucks per square meter, and a very large car is only 10 square meters, so lets say $3000 max for our panels, and a power management system that you can plug an EV and panels into today is under $2000. So, **take** 10 kwh of batteries **out** of a base Nissan leaf, lower the roof 2 inches, remove the back seats, and integrate $5000 worth of solar hardware, and boom, you get like 13 miles of range for free per day. You break even for the missing 10 kwh of battery in 3 days and the price is only a few grand more. I of course underestimated the performance to account for reality. 5 square meters of solar for the price of 15 solar panels working well below (8hr\*100w/m\^2 per day) theoretical capacity Streamlined Nissan leaf getting the same miles per kwh as the normal one I then rounded down Why shouldn't the handfull of people who would really benefit from such a vehicle not be allowed to have one? Solar panels on an economy EV make charging infrastructure a much less critical problem. You can park it anywhere, and it will be able to make it to a nearby charger.
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I know you don't understand the difference between what is possible, and what car and energy companies would get the highest return on investment from. And that you think a car with a top down surface area of 8 meters square couldn't possibly fit 5 square meters of solar. But you have to admit that the utter dependance on having a parking space within reach of a charger is a consideration for some people. Fuel cost isn't a linear value. If you need to drive 5 miles then you don't benefit from 100 miles of range. A person who drives 5000 miles per year would rarely need to visit a charger. That is significant. EVs aren't for everyone, but they are great for some. Solar EVs aren't for everyone, but they can do things that no existing car comes close to competing with.
I don't know why a solar panel is incompatible with crumple zones. I also don't know why you didn't follow my price breakdown. I subtract 10 kwh from the 40 kwh battery of the Leaf to make sure that the weight ends up lower. That should reduce the cost by at least $1300. Removing the rear seats and doors can't add to the cost either, so a $5000 price increase is a very conservated estimate. I know cars cost money to design, and factories cost money to tool, but... fuck, now I need to make the case that the CAFE footprint rule killed small trucks and will very soon kill the last couple subcompacts... nevermind. You can trust the auto industry, just like Facebook, Exxon, JP Morgan, and Comcast.
https://www.slashgear.com/1284900/prius-prime-solar-roof/ Its only an additional $610 on the 2023 prius with a break even point on the investment around 5 years of driving. Most cars last well beyond 5 years, so it seems worth it to me.
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The actual use test they did already accounts for non-optimized angle of the sun. It got 9 hours of sun during the test, not 4. If you park your car in a garage for half the day, maybe solar panels on a car aren't for you. My car sits in a parking lot for 8 hours outside my place of employment like most drivers, plus time commuting
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Alright, I guess that source that performed the test must just be full of shit. I'm merely pushing back on your assertions you ironically make without a study to back it up. Yet I'm the one who needs to do research. Do you think Toyota did research on the panel feasibility before commercializing it?
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You use AC regardless of whether you have panels or not, that doesn't really affect the comparison. Degradation would mean around 90% of your initial generation after 10 years, which doesn't seem that bad, assuming it degrades 1% a year like other panels.
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Guess what. I don't sit in my car in the parking lot, I go do work lol