Crazy idea

I wonder why noone is contemplating the use of existing technology - trolleys for electric cars?
Why not install a cable alongside lets say left side of the freeway and equip electric cars with side, top or even under-body trolley pole?
Why electric cars HAVE TO BE exactly as gazoline cars and charge at gaz(electric) stations?
A trolleys on a freeways will solve 2 big pain points for EVs - reduced range at freeway speeds, and charge time...
With trolleys you won't need to worry about charging at all!
I know the accounting would be hard for electricity, but I don't think it is an unsolvable problem... Someone pays for highway maintenance and lighting already, right? and why it is not possible to add a meter to you car?

Sounds like bumper cars !!

:ugeek:

I see you're local, so I imagine you're thinking of our dual-mode system here in Seattle.

For those who aren't from the Seattle area, we actually have a dual-mode trolleybus system; when the bus is in an area with trolley power lines, the bus runs fully electric. If the poles come off the trolley wires (or the bus has to be re-routed), it runs on a diesel biofuel engine. We're one of only four or five cities in the US that still runs trolleybus type transit.

While it's a neat idea, I think this would become a problem quickly with cars on the same lines; a car would get hung up behind the bus and someone would have to disengage their wires for the one behind to get around. And disengaging/re-engaging the wires requires the bus to stop, pull over, and manually extend or retract the poles; I can't imagine a car would function much differently. Add to that the fact that we don't have the power system on the freeways; if the bus route goes onto any interstate or state route, it has to decouple from the trolley lines.

Unfortunately, the freeway is really where EVs would benefit from the ability to pull power from the grid while driving. But given the above problems (things on the same trolley power line can't pass each other) and the fact that you'd be pretty much limited to one lane, I don't think that laying out such a system would be feasible on the freeway. And you can't really redesign the system, because the way you'd gain governmental support for it would be to make it still a trolleybus system for the existing public transit stuff so they didn't have to go diesel to cross the lake or take I-5.

Technical challenges aside, this will *never* happen in this country. We can barely maintain our roads and bridges anymore, let alone pay for a massive infrastructure upgrade. Can you imagine the cost? Probably about $10k per foot minimum to add catenary or side wiring to all roads.

-Phil

Most of these ideas seem to center around an inductive grid on or under the roadway. This solves the passing and connection issues.

Myself, I'd be happy just to see the auto train concept spread. Why drive long distance at all? Just pull the car onto the train, relax till you get to the destination city, then drive your EV around.

Just use existing public transportation.... now that is a crazy idea

I totally agree that it would be a big capital expense, but I don't think that technologically it would be really hard to come up with some connector (either on the ground, which will allow multi-lane use or on the side) that can be connected/disconnected without stopping (hey, military are doing that with planes and highly combustible fuel)
In such case passing will not be a problem, and you can change lanes at will. Subways have a siderail that can be connected/disconnected at intersection/splits without stopping of the train, so similar technology can be adopted, and I can't imaging it will cost more per mile then the light rail or subway line, so it could really transform the transportation in highly urbanized areas.
Another choice would be inductive charging, it is much safer so it could be even used on city streets, but will be much more expensive per mile to install, and you'll have a considerable loss of power...
So I don't think that feasibility is really an issue here...
I'm just surprised that no one is actually thinking about it... My point was that we should start thinking outside of the box and use whatever technological advances that we have made in the past to move away from tavern infrastructure that will provide hay for the horses and rest for the traveler

davewill said:

Most of these ideas seem to center around an inductive grid on or under the roadway. This solves the passing and connection issues.

Myself, I'd be happy just to see the auto train concept spread. Why drive long distance at all? Just pull the car onto the train, relax till you get to the destination city, then drive your EV around.

Click to expand...

I've used auto train in France once, but it is not as convenient as the freedom of driving and still kind of expensive.
I think for long distances rental makes much more sense, why haul 1.5+ tonnes as you luggage if you can get pretty much the same at your destination?

smkettner said:

Just use existing public transportation.... now that is a crazy idea

Click to expand...

Hey man, here in America car IS a public transportation
buses and trains are by far not that "public"...
And with my leaf... It costs me 4 times less in money and 5 times less in time to drive to work than to take a bus.

When closer to half the vehicles are EVs it may start to make sense. But not with only 100,000 of them running around the entire US. Real plus might be the heavy duty market if class 8 trucks go electric. Or even electrify the rail system first. Someone should ask Warren Buffett if he would prefer his toy train to be electric

smkettner said:

When closer to half the vehicles are EVs it may start to make sense. But not with only 100,000 of them running around the entire US. Real plus might be the heavy duty market if class 8 trucks go electric. Or even electrify the rail system first. Someone should ask Warren Buffett if he would prefer his toy train to be electric

Click to expand...

Trucks are already done deal... I've seen freight trolleys in Soviet Union that were in regular use, and I just found that trolley trucks was a reality as far back as 50 years ago!!!



http://www.treehugger.com/trolley-truck.jpg

Ingineer said:

Technical challenges aside, this will *never* happen in this country. We can barely maintain our roads and bridges anymore, let alone pay for a massive infrastructure upgrade. Can you imagine the cost? Probably about $10k per foot minimum to add catenary or side wiring to all roads.

Click to expand...

We will have the money if we stop funding useless wars ... but that will never happen, either

evnow said:

Ingineer said:

Technical challenges aside, this will *never* happen in this country. We can barely maintain our roads and bridges anymore, let alone pay for a massive infrastructure upgrade. Can you imagine the cost? Probably about $10k per foot minimum to add catenary or side wiring to all roads.

Click to expand...

We will have the money if we stop funding useless wars ... but that will never happen, either

Click to expand...

We have 4 million miles of road in our highway system. Using my optimistic estimate, that's only a paltry $211,200,000,000,000.

-Phil

we could just electrify interstates...
~2.5 trillion dollars

Parts of San Francisco have electric buses too...

Ingineer said:

We have 4 million miles of road in our highway system. Using my optimistic estimate, that's only a paltry $211,200,000,000,000.

Click to expand...

I think maybe there might be a metric/imperial units clash here.
I believe there are actually under 50k miles of highway in the usa. So, even at $10,000 per foot (are you making these wires out of solid gold Phil? lol) that would put the cost at about two and a half trillion dollars. Granted, that's still more than the cost of the recent American wars, but not by orders of magnitude (usa has spent just over a trillion dollars so far, I think... not counting human lives).

no units clash - just a definition of highway. I ran the ~50k interstate number to get ~$2.5e12. there are TONS of other non-interstate highways.

earther said:

Ingineer said:

We have 4 million miles of road in our highway system. Using my optimistic estimate, that's only a paltry $211,200,000,000,000.

Click to expand...

I think maybe there might be a metric/imperial units clash here.
I believe there are actually under 50k miles of highway in the usa. So, even at $10,000 per foot (are you making these wires out of solid gold Phil? lol) that would put the cost at about two and a half trillion dollars. Granted, that's still more than the cost of the recent American wars, but not by orders of magnitude (usa has spent just over a trillion dollars so far, I think... not counting human lives).

Click to expand...

essaunders said:

no units clash - just a definition of highway. I ran the ~50k interstate number to get ~$2.5e12. there are TONS of other non-interstate highways.

Click to expand...

The whole estimate is wonky, anyway. We would never do every single mile, and if we did commit to doing a large percentage, it would create big economies of scale. Who knows, maybe we'll figure a way to PAINT them onto the roadway...we can certainly invent something that costs less than overhead cables, which seem impractical for aesthetic reasons if nothing else.

Ingineer said:

evnow said:

Ingineer said:

Technical challenges aside, this will *never* happen in this country. We can barely maintain our roads and bridges anymore, let alone pay for a massive infrastructure upgrade. Can you imagine the cost? Probably about $10k per foot minimum to add catenary or side wiring to all roads.

Click to expand...

We will have the money if we stop funding useless wars ... but that will never happen, either

Click to expand...

We have 4 million miles of road in our highway system. Using my optimistic estimate, that's only a paltry $211,200,000,000,000.

-Phil

Click to expand...

I just wonder from where this $10K/foot MINIMUM comes from?

Light rail systems in Sacramento and Boston had a less then 20M/mile completed cost, which translates into $3788/foot, and that include new land acquisition if needed, rail tracks, wires, tunneling and grading. I would be really surprised if the cost for a simple track alongside existing highway would cost even close to 1K/foot, and we don't need electricity on ALL roads. That's why we have EVs... and even if half of the distance would be covered with electricity that would be a dream come true... another thing if you think about it... you really can install wires only in places like climbs, to help save the battery in EVs, in such case the cost won't even be more then adding a separate truck climb lane.

UkrainianKozak said:

I just wonder from where this $10K/foot MINIMUM comes from?

Click to expand...

I figured $10k because this involves much more than light rail. In order to make a road driving car connect to a conductive (or inductive) power source while moving, and stay connected there is going to have to be some as yet invented technology which will involve something more than a rail and some catenary wires strung.

In addition, we are talking about adding this to existing (in-use) roads, which always cost more to work on. For example, I just read that a three-mile extension of Highway 509 in Washington state, which is supposed to create a trucking corridor from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to Interstate 5 is now expected to cost $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion, up from an earlier estimate of $900 million. That's over $82k a foot for just standard road technology! No gold plating needed!

Almost every highway project anywhere in this country is over budget and behind schedule. I can't even imagine the boondoggle if we try to implement powered roads.

I think the closest we may come is electrified rail, which has drive-on railcars that have charge stations. They approved building electric high-speed rail from SF to LA, which would be ideal for something like this, but I doubt it will be finished before the world ends (again ;-)), and even if they get it done, it'll be too expensive to use compared to the cost of using your (then) new LEAF generation 9 with the 600 mile range Lithium-Nano-Titanel pack. =)

-Phil