New Proposal: Inductive Roadways for EVs with Unlimited Range? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: ozsavran
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 29, 2021, 08:49:11 am
content: Dear Dave & the Gang,I watch all your videos with great pleasure, as a never-practiced but diploma holding electronics engineer fanboy can get that is.Your Solar-Roadways analyses are hilarious to hilt. Can't get enough of that ridicule. How about this reverse-proposal that I have: instead of using roads for trying to collect energy, why not just use them to deliver energy? We can lay down cables underneath and put some inductive chargers under the cars. That way EVs have no range problem, and can go the last mile with their own small batteries. I just posted the stuff below on my Linkedin page. What do you think please? What would be the inherent losses of such a system in rough calculations? That really is the domain of high voltage transmission engineers. But lets have some analysis going please.A NEW INVENTION PROPOSAL: EV-Charging via INDUCTION from underground cables.I have supported the cable connected truck design before this video in a different place. And here is the completion of this charging idea, for small everyday passanger vehicles: just put a wire under the asphalt and have the cars charged by induction. This will make the batteries smaller and erase the range anxiety. The government will be the sole electricity seller and become even fatter to do more corrupt crony capitalism. All around win-win for everyone, even the poor hapless consumer who will get a cheaper EV with a smaller battery weighing and costing less.Putting cables under the asphalt is very small potatoes compared to paving that road and laying down all that asphalt, steel barriers, light posts, etc. etc. It's very sensible economically. It will definitely take down the cost of EVs below IC cars, when the battery gets smaller.It would be an absolute honor, to work on the economics of this iductive EV proposal I put forward independent of anybody else, with people who are into these matters.https://www.linkedin.com/posts/metin-ozsavran-71925438_the-highway-where-trucks-work-like-electric-activity-6859765969674346496-hnBThttps://lnkd.in/d4uxXr-u#electricity #design #batteries #cars #evcharging #evcharginginfrastructure #evcharger #evehicles

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 29, 2021, 08:54:41 am
content: QuoteLOL. Maybe placing some cables under the asphalt is not a big deal. However inductive charging needs a lot more than just some cables.

author: ozsavran
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 29, 2021, 09:19:54 am
content: Wow, the first customer was fast! Well, I didn't exactly say just cables were enough on themselves, and did specify that the EVs should have inductive chargers under them. But, never mind. Please expand on what specification of an inductive charger would be needed for an average 30min commute to work to move a 1ton vehicle to and back with ample capacity left in the battery. You don't need to nitpick on my writing. But how can we reduce the battery bottleneck on EVs. I am all ears for any meaningful calculations please.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2021, 10:21:31 am
content: 1.) Just calculate the price of the copper for 1KM road2.) Ask people in road construction, if they can create a road that doesn't need any maintenance.Imagine steam and sparks coming up from every one of these holes.

author: ozsavran
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 29, 2021, 11:26:14 am
content: Oh well, here you go buddy:As a 56 year old farmer who knows a little about the difference between theory and practice, I can easily add to your concerns with asphalt getting pounded under heavy vehicles, road accidents, fires, etc. But these are problems independent of any cables under them. Besides, as these cables would be a great big revenue stream for road operators, they can easily pay for their extra protection. For ecample, power cables can be buried within thick rigid plastic conduits.For copper costs, you don't have to use copper at all. When thick enough you can use aluminum, even iron. And you can increase both voltage and *frequency* to reduce wire thickness. You are not absolutely stuck with 50/60hz. Suppose you go upto 5Khz on these automotive energy lines. Aircraft use 400Hz to reduce wire weight. Its in fact easier to smooth higher frequencies to DC for battery chargers, or directly use high frequency power with a special motor speed controller called a matrix converter. Its an old idea I have been mulling over for some applications.https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/7066/high-frequency-mains-transmissionhttps://www.yaskawa.com/delegate/getAttachment?documentId=WP.AFD.22&cmd=documents&documentName=WP.AFD.22.pdfMatrix converters didn't catch on, but there still is a manufacturer doing them.The main essential idea here is, the motorized vehicles themselves were only the half the solution to jump over mobility problem 130 years ago, OK? Even today, there are no really really off-road vehicles. We just fantasize. Even palleted tanks can't go on just any terrain. All motorized vehicles need some kind of at least semi-straight surface to move. The significant half of the humanity's mobility solution was paved roads. We had to make that investment in order to have Ford Model-Ts move around. As the speeds increased so was the need for smoothness of the roads. That was a trade-off, a give & take.Looks like with the current miserable state of battery technology, which is still using the main idea of Alessandro Volta of 1700s with 2 metals and an electrolyte, we again need a tradeoff. If we want EVs to do their job easily and naturally. Looks like they need their own special infrastructure. A cable to carry their power. That's nothing insurmountable, is it?Asphalt degradation is not a technical hurdle. Its a logistical one. We are too lazy, or unfunded to fix them. But we absolutely and perfectly can.What we need to discuss here iin this engineering community is how to make sure everybody pays for what energy they induce from the cables, etc. Not maintenance. That is a solved problem.My thinking is that the same high energy cables should be used to communicate vehicle ID and consumption data back to the power company. There has to be power measurement devices every click or so to check on the freeloaders, etc. etc.We are not building these electric roads yet. We are just trying to approach solving the issues at a preliminary theoretical level. Its not productive to shot down discussion just for asphalt maintenance.Peace.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2021, 11:36:56 am
content: This is not a new idea, but it just makes no sense.e.g.https://www.autoevolution.com/news/sweden-successfully-tests-wireless-charging-road-set-to-revolutionize-mobility-155137.htmlThere are some potential use-cases for static inductive charging, but the high cost and poor efficiency just makes no sense for a moving vehicle.

author: ozsavran
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 29, 2021, 11:48:17 am
content: Well Mike, I am super glad that somebody is trying that out in Israel with ElectReon company:https://www.electreon.com/However, the article you kindly provided only talks about how well it works. Not why it flopped. If consumers are given the choice of paying for a $15.000,- battery which will be scrapped every 10 years, vs. paying for a cable that will work forever as they use it. Its not that complicated. With these monstrous batteries EVs will never be cheap enough, reliable enough. Cables are just EV charging stations that you elongate across the road so that you don't have to stop and wait.I know its looks clunky and too big to comprehend at first, but lets really analyze this. I am happy to consider your negatives as a super contributor in EEVBlog, as long as you explain why, unambigiously in clear terms. Thanks for taking this up.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2021, 12:16:04 pm
content: Quote from: ozsavran on October 29, 2021, 11:48:17 amFor anyone doing significant mileage, it is already cheaper to buy & run a new EV than a new ICE vehicle once all costs are included.EVs are more reliable then ICE cars.The costs of installing and maintaining road charging are prohibitive.You need to equip enough cars to make it useful - not going to happen.Nobody will trade the cost of a larger battery with the cost of an inductive charger that only works on some roads.Inductive transfer efficiency drops with distance and misalignment - this can be managed in static applications, not so much on a moving vehicle.

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2021, 12:25:43 pm
content: This is indeed possible to do, but it also needs to make sense economically.This sort of thing makes sense on long trips. For all the shorter trips like work, shopping etc... all the EVs have plenty of battery range and can be charged overnight at home. So this means you have to use this technology on the highways, but there you have a low car density (large safety distance due to high speeds) so only a small part of the road is actually covered in cars that can take the energy. At the same time even at a charging power of say 10kW that gives you 10kWh per hour (or about 10 to 20% of charge in a typical EV battery) and in that time you would cover >100km on a highway. So very large areas of the road would actually need to be fitted with this to be useful.But what if we use aluminium or iron to reduce the cost? Well you need the excellent conductivity of copper to get good efficiency and there are other components required such as resonant capacitors and drive electronics, along with wiring to those electronics and housings for those electronics next to the road, the cost of it all quickly adding up. While right now highways don't even have public lighting.Then there is the cost of the power. The users need to somehow pay for the power for this to be usable, so you need some extra communication to authenticate your car with the road to let it give you power, and then charge you for the used power. Since all this expensive infrastructure was used to deliver said power the cost of it will be higher than just plugging in at home, so people will rather plug it in at home where there is no extra infrastructure required to deliver the power.Then the cars actually have to be fitted with receivers to make use of this. A fair bit of weight, material and extra electronics are needed for it, so it won't be a standard feature on a production EV, and the costumer will not want to pay for the option when there are no roads that he can use it on. Also drawing from the previews point, if they do pay extra for the wireless charging option they also have to pay for the more expensive power to use it.Economics is also the reason why most people don't have a EV in the first place. I am perfectly happy with my old diesel drinking Volvo. I bought it used for way less than what even the cheapest EVs cost, i can use the extra money to buy the diesel to fill it up while having >1000km range and <5 minute charging times (from 0% to 100%) with "charging stations" pretty much every 5km. It simply wouldn't save me any money if i bought a EV here. So i don't buy one. I do kinda want an electric car, but i am not prepared to pay this much extra for the privilege.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2021, 01:25:52 pm
content: There's already a solution with significantly less copper:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/the-highway-where-trucks-work-like-electric-trains-can-this-actually-work/Much higher efficiency, actually meaningful dwell time, and, I guess, somewhat more secure against non-subscribers. (Most of all, you don't have a million random steel cars sucking energy out of the system as raw heat!)Tim

author: ahbushnell
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2021, 03:44:16 pm
content: The cost would be huge. They have done things like this in China with busses. There are chargers at each stop. They used ultracapacitors. But a bus that always goes on the same route is different then a car that goes on random trips and does not stop.Maglev trains do this but they are expensive. And it's a dedicated path.

author: Berni
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2021, 04:43:55 pm
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on October 29, 2021, 01:25:52 pmYep this is the better way to do it. It is more cost effective and its a solution that is tried and tested for >100 years and is used to deliver up to many hundreds of kW of power to a single consumer. Some cities already have buses running off this for decades now.

author: f4eru
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2021, 10:24:04 pm
content: whether contactless of with catenaries, it's just pointless for car and truck use.Economically and technically pointless.Cost of batteries drop every year, and now cot parity of new cars is in favor of EVs, most segments just flipping, so every year, catenaries and inductive moving projects just get more and more pointless, as if they made sense at some point.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 29, 2021, 10:28:54 pm
content: In the real world people have to drive anywhere, not just on special roads, so they're going to need to have the battery anyway. Given the amount of power involved, inductive transfer that is not tightly coupled like a transformer is going to be a complete non starter. It's just too much power and too much waste for a questionable gain. The battery problem is already mostly solved, EVs with reasonable range have been practical for years and the tech keeps getting cheaper.

author: ozsavran
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: October 31, 2021, 04:32:25 am
content: Think about it this way: you drive anywhere, but whether you drive an EV or ICE car, you have to be close to some special places called stations where you charge or refuel your car. Therefore not all roads have to have charging capability, do they? We don't have gas stations on every road for ICE vehicles either.I fully respect the real engineering concerns about charging proximity issues between buried cables and car bottoms. I am not sure cost and weight of a never expiring charge receptor would necessarily have to exceed the cost of a huge expiring lump of a battery. You need to spend charge to lug that around too. The charging receptacle can be lowered when the car is sucking energy from the road.A paradigm shift in battery design is obviously needed, some new main idea to store energy. Not just endless little efficiency improvements over the first main idea that was presented to Alessandro Volta by people's practical experience with metals in potatoes and stuff. Maybe the car chassis could somehow be turned into a composite capacitor per Lamborghini's idea, maybe standing EM waves in tubes of the chassis, I dunno. Batteries are cumbersome,and over-expensive. We are NOT at a point where we can readily dismiss that as guaranteed to be solved anyway. Inductive underground, or connected overhead charging are solutions to decrease dependency on batteries and are valid lines of thought.I am not against criticism at all. But wish we were having a little more analytical meat on them.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 31, 2021, 04:35:17 am
content: Not that close. I need to be within about 100 miles of a filling station to be in my comfort zone, I could pretty comfortably cross a 300 mile span provided I could fill up on the opposite end. Proper EVs already exist that can go hundreds of miles on a charge, I'm not sure where the balance point would be where something like this even begins to make sense if you ignore the power transfer efficiency. Transformers get REALLY inefficient as the gap gets larger.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 31, 2021, 04:37:54 pm
content: It's also a likelihood thing. Most traffic is around big cities, funneled along highways. Put the overhead wires there, so EVs can not only run on it directly, but also recharge. Again, no idea if this works for commuter cars, but as long as your routes involve a modest fraction of travel on such routes, it's that much less battery you need to utilize for your total trip.Tim

author: JohnG
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 11, 2021, 04:55:03 pm
content: Quote from: ozsavran on October 31, 2021, 04:32:25 amIf you fully respected these challenges, you would not dismiss them so quickly, nor would you be expecting people to provide you with the answers for free.Inductive power transfer is actually well studied for over 100 years now. There is no magic, and what you suggest can be and has been analyzed. If you are a farmer and value hard work, then you should understand that such analysis is also hard work. You will need to pay someone a fair wage for their expertise and learning, and it will be expensive if you want good quality answers that you can take action on.Your idea is old, and there is a lot of research on it, including actual test data. I suggest that you do some research on it yourself, and pay particular attention to papers with measured results, as these will provide clues about what can be expected in practice. Beware the hype of those who have not built and tested anything, because there is huge hype about wireless power transfer.John