Stanford University researchers believe they've found a better way to build a long-range electric car. Amazingly, their solution has nothing to do with batteries.
By using resonating metal coils to wirelessly transmit large amounts of current between roadways and vehicles, the researchers say it's now possible for an electric car to have virtually limitless range.
Using magnetic resonance coupling, coils in the roadway could wirelessly transmit power to electric cars cruising down the highway. (Source: Stanford University)
"The idea is that the energy transfer would take care of the base load that you would need to propel the car," Sven Beiker, executive director of the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford (CARS), told us. "If you do the math, you see that it would provide enough energy for the car to cruise down the road at about 65mph."
CARS's idea is to use a concept called magnetic resonance coupling to transfer the energy. A resonating coil in the roadway would be connected to an electric current, which would generate a magnetic field, causing a coil on board a passing vehicle to resonate at the same frequency. With the two coils coupled by this magnetic resonance, electrical energy could be transferred between them.
The technology is new, but not unique. Researchers at MIT have developed a similar technology, and a spin-off company called WiTricity is aimed at wireless transfer of power to stationary devices.
Stanford, however, suggests that it can be employed with moving vehicles. Researchers say they can wirelessly transfer 10kW of power to a moving car across a distance of 6.5ft. It's not known yet how many of the coils would be needed or how far apart they would be spaced in order to power a car driving down the highway.
"It could be 10ft or 20ft or 50ft," Beiker said. "More research will tell us what the exact number is."
It strikes me that with school boards starting to ban WiFi in classrooms because of their percption of the dangers of microwatt electromagnetic fields, I don't understand how 10KW fields could ever be approved or accepted by the general population.
There is no mention of the resonant frequency of this system but, as Eddycurrent implies, it seems that any magnetic material in range (resonant or not) could get pretty warm. My induction cooktop works really well.
Just deploying such a system across the US interstate highway system would be one of the largest single infrastructure undertakings I can imagine. If deployed within cities, I wonder about unintended effects of high flux fields. If only we had the national will to do MagLev passenger trains. That would be a much more limited undertaking and meets the definition of "mass transit." My choice would also be to build more light rail for commuters first.
This whole idea just strikes me as something that is just so impractical it will never get past third base. Plus it is certainly not new. Add all the other reasons that the other commentators have pointed out:
#1) where in the heck are you going to get the infrastructure to provide the 'power distribution' points along a highway (every 50 ft!).
#2) the efficiency problem
#3) the huge fields involved
I could go on and on. This idea is, at this point, really half-baked. Somebody had to be desperate to even publicize this. Silly and stupid both.
I'm not too sure how wide spread this system is supposed to be. If the coils are to be made of copper, that's a lot of copper. It's hard enough to keep the roads in good enough shape that motorists don't loose tires from chuck holes. Keeping an electrical system going with the freezing, thawing, truck traffic, and corrosive chemicals being dumped on the road, would be a monumental challenge. Access to the buried coils would be a problem. As I always say, you go first.
On a bright note, someone is working on the problem. Pete O.
People steal everything. Some moron will dig up these lines in the middle of nowhere and steal them. True a few will get fried, but it hasn't stoped them from trying it in substations. These are NOT rational people. You will also have the indoor grower of less than legal substances stealing the power as it goes by the grow room simply by parking a car on the side of the road. True a BIT more complicated than that but not a lot. Most of these people aren't to bright, but in mass they have some very innovative people and theft will be wide spread!
Read the link to Witricity for more information on the energy transfer method. It is not typical transformer coupling. It accomplishes energy transfers over much larger distances than transformer coupling, apparently up to several meters, and apparently without the forces that would be associated with typical transformer coupling. Perhaps without the interference from steel as well.
That doesn't mean that this idea is feasible, but it has been thought through a little farther than transformer coupling.
I can think of a lot of ways that this type of idea could be incrementally implemented in ways that might make sense. When you are taling about battery costs in the range of 10's of thousands per vehicle, there is quite a revenue stream if battery powered cars really are the future. The resources required to make batteries on a scale required to replace millions of gas powered vehicles may prove to be a daunting task that gets more and more expensive over time.
I think it would make more sense to redesign cars and roadways so they work together like the steel ball and bumpers in a pinball machine. You'd crash your car into a convenient bumper, and it would fling you back into the roadway with a high-g pulse of acceleration. Municipalities could even install "flippers" which would allow them to "gunch" vehicles into different roadways -- or even off the road all together!
My math indicates that this is an altogether feasible approach, in both energy and economic terms.
Given the large number of people with implanted medical devices with wireless interfaces, I can imagine the dangers posed by ubiquitous high EM fields capable of frying the sensitive electronic circuits used in such devices.
Given the large number of people with implanted medical devices with wireless interfaces, I can imagine the dangers posed by ubiquitous high EM fields capable of frying the sensitive electronic circuits used in such devices.
I posted a comment to a Design News article several months ago outlining inductive power for vehicles!
Set that aside. Not important (well, not to the rest of you at least). I'm going to take issue with the "not dangerous portion". We're talking about a coil running at high frequencies. Wouldn't any metal coming within this range have currents induced in it? And heat up? I've given practical demonstrations of inductive heating to salesmen. I have them hold a 1" washer tightly in their fist, holding their fist over the inductive coil of a 350W system. Non-contact heating surprised them, as well as how fast it worked.
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