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Detroit is now home to the country’s first chunk of road that can wirelessly charge an electric vehicle (EV), whether it’s parked or moving.

Why it matters: Wireless charging on an electrified roadway could remove one of the biggest hassles of owning an EV: the need to stop and plug in regularly.

  • @anubis119English
    49•1 year ago

    Why occasionally plug in when you can lose roughly 50% efficiency and not. Such a boondoggle.

    • @[email protected]English
      23•1 year ago

      The point would not be to never plug in, but instead extend the drive time of an EV by using certain roads.

      If on a full charge you get 250miles, but if you take a slightly alternative route and get 500 miles, you’re going to have much less resistance to EVs in any community that would be likely to use these roads.

      • @[email protected]English
        13•1 year ago

        You missed the 50% loss. Wasted energy. Means you have more infrastructure delivering electricity that isn’t utilized. Means you have more production that isn’t utilized.

        And batteries already have a loss of up to 20% during charge from heating.

        • NoIWontPickaName
          6•1 year ago

          Sounds like the next step is to power it using renewables so that we reduce that inefficiency as low as possible

          • @RGB3x3English
            5•1 year ago

            It wouldn’t reduce the inefficiency though. You still have 50% of that power being lost, which means you need 50% more renewable generation. It’s wasteful.

            • NoIWontPickaName
              1•1 year ago

              That’s the good thing about renewable energy, we can waste some without it being a big deal.

              Efficiency was the wrong word, but I can’t find the right one.

              • HubertManne
                4•1 year ago

                um not really. Renewables aren’t completely free. Solar panels, turbines, etc. They have to be replaced. with 50% efficiency loss your talking about twice as much mining and manufacturing of the renewable infrastructure. That produces carbon and waste like anything else and more use of limited materials.

                  • HubertManne
                    3•1 year ago

                    um. the direction we want to go is max efficiency in those baby steps though. Not worse efficiency. Its part of reduce in reduce, reuse, recycle and its first for a very big reason.

        • dream_weaselEnglish
          0•1 year ago

          Yeah and who uses the energy that is lost? Nobody. It’s not a 50% loss to a driver, it’s all gain over the last charge stop.

          As someone who did 500 miles this last week in an EV with 2 little kids, let me tell you it would be fucking worth it not to interrupt my sleeping children even if it’s not 100% efficient.

          • @anubis119English
            8•1 year ago

            Electricity isn’t free. Convenience doesn’t make things a good idea nor economically viable. Need to charge on the go? Overhead catenary charging is a technology that’s already developed for use on vehicles and solves the efficiency issue.

        • @[email protected]English
          2•1 year ago

          I actually make a yearly pilgrimage of 500 miles and apart from gas stops I go nonstop, no breaks. I find that making numerous stops wears me out and I start to fall asleep in the last couple hours. Could easily be because I’m adding hours to my drive if that’s the case though.

          Edit: Keep in mind though, the 250 is typically ideal. You can easily have a range down to 100 miles or less with a few years of general use. A wireless charging solution would ease such wear and tear.

            • @[email protected]English
              3•1 year ago

              Truck drivers do it all the time, I’m just doing it to visit family. 😜

              The wasted energy isn’t inherently a problem. If it is 100% renewable, for instance, it would be more environmentally friendly to have no battery with 99% wasted energy.

              So moving forward as we move more and more to a green grid, the concern of wasted energy becomes less and less.

            • @ZeoicEnglish
              0•1 year ago

              Ehh, i dont really see a problem driving that long as long as you start it when you first get up for the day. I do 8 hour drives multiple times a year to go see family and only stop after 6 hours to gas up, then continue on. With how quick gasing up is with paying at the pump these days, 3 minutes of stop doesn’t sound to far fetched.

                • @ZeoicEnglish
                  1•1 year ago

                  I live in canada, and the charging infrastructure is very bad here. In fact, my usual drive probably isn’t even possible in the winter due to a lack of charging points with how little range the cars have in winter here.

    • @[email protected]English
      -1•1 year ago

      Not only that but AFAIK no current EV can do wireless charging so who do they expect to use this? I should probably read the article.