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United Kingdom Power Transportation Technology

England To Test "Electric Motorways" 74

Posted by samzenpus from the charge-on-the-go dept.
DaneTerry88 writes: Highways England plans to test under-road wireless charging equipment that could be buried beneath motorways to top-up cars as they drive. Charge-as-you-drive technologies have already been used in the South Korean town of Gumi. The town has a 12km (7.5 miles) route that allows buses to be charged as they drive over it. In a press release the agency says: "The trials are expected to begin later this year following the completion of an ongoing procurement process. The trials will involve fitting vehicles with wireless technology and testing the equipment, installed underneath the road, to replicate motorway conditions. Full details of the trials will be publicised when a successful contractor has been appointed."
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England To Test "Electric Motorways" More

England To Test "Electric Motorways"

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  • Privacy Issues? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Friday August 14, 2015 @03:20AM (#50314557) Homepage Journal

    Think of the Big Brother scenarios . Presumably cars will have to be fitted with some sort of identifier so that drivers / owners can pay for the charging in some way.

    So while its a great idea - Id want to know whats happening to the data about my driving habits!

    • Re:Privacy Issues? (Score:4, Informative)

      by wilfie ( 622159 ) <willm.avery@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Friday August 14, 2015 @03:32AM (#50314595) Homepage
      I'm afraid it's a bit late to worry about that in the UK. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
      • What a marvelous and original way to promote cycling and physical exercise in the UK!

        • What a marvelous and original way to promote cycling and physical exercise in the UK!

          You can recognize people by their gait when on foot, and I wouldn't be surprised if you could recognize cyclists based on what they look like while pedaling. Cycling won't save you, it'll just make you easier to catch.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      There are Automatic Numberplate Recognition cameras stationed on roads all over the UK. Cars are tracked across the country, except in the most remote locations. Even tax discs are not necessary anymore, because systems attached to the cameras check that your tax+insurance is up to date as you drive past.

      To clarify, every road user in the UK has their movements monitored with a fairly fine level of detail by government.

      When people ask me why I do not drive or fly anymore, I explain the above, and I'm looked

      • And you'll be the first to bitch when an unisured driver totals your car. It was reported in Manchester 1 in 4 cars is uninsured, and often the driver has no licence, is disqualified etc. etc. The cameras are there for good reason.
        • If 1 in 4 drivers are currently uninsured it appears the cameras are not there to prevent uninsured motorists. Or they are failing miserably at it.
          • The trouble is the courts do nothing when the police catch them. If you don't lock them up, these lawless characters just carry on as before. I suspect the situation would be worse if the cameras wre not there. They are more efficient that a beat bobby checking tax discs.

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by TWX ( 665546 )
              I've suggested a fairly straightforward approach before, as we have a lot of problems with insurance here too... When conditions prompt an officer to confirm the paperwork for an automobile and driver, if two forms of paperwork are not in-order then the car is impounded. So, if the driver cannot produce both current proof of insurance and cannot produce a driver's license, or if the insurance and the vehicle registration are both expired, or if the driver's license is suspended and the registration is exp

        • They're easy to spot without any high-tech at all - at the left of the licence plate there's a little blue rectangle with "PL" or "RO" in white.

  • Half the advantage of electric cars is efficiency (the other half being moving the pollution out of the city to a place where less people live). Can anyone comment on the theoretical or actual efficiency of this process? And is it simple induction, or does "Shaped Magnetic Field" mean more than activate a coil?

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Efficiency is not a big advantage of electric cars. All things considered, electric cars are not much more efficient than cars with internal combustion engines. The big advantage of electric cars is that they don't need fossil fuel. Electricity can be created from renewable resources. The big disadvantage is that storing electricity in batteries in the car is expensive and also makes the cars very heavy. "Electric motorways" don't remove the advantage of not needing fossil fuel, but do reduce the disadvanta

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )

      Well I can tell you straight up that it pales in comparison of putting the electric wires up in the air above the busses.

      • The electric wires are unsightly though, and require maintenance, and limit the height of vehicle that may operate on that stretch of road.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by gl4ss ( 559668 )

          that's why they're so popular in eastern europe. some cities in russia anyways.

          (the road buried will require maintenance too I'll bet though)

  • This technology is so old it's in my attiic collecting cobwebs. Literally.

  • I'm disappointed (Score:4, Funny)

    by hackertourist ( 2202674 ) on Friday August 14, 2015 @04:34AM (#50314735)

    that this won't take the shape of 2 metal strips along the centerline of each lane.

  • I thought wireless charging was inefficient. A quick search over the internet shows me claims of between 50 and 70% efficiency on power delivery for the mobile charging standard Qi. As for automobiles, I like the following graph, but I cannot tell how true it is: ecoupled-infographic.png [hooniverse.com]
    Please note that charging may behave differently while in motion.
    • It seems reasonably accurate - perhaps conservative these days. But 20% of losses is not a big a deal if you have a potential oversupply of cheap electricity and you're taking battery wear into consideration. For example, if a car battery cost $10k and lasted 1000 cycles with 200 miles per cycle, and you were to drive 100 miles on a roadway, you could either pay $0.5-1 for extra electricity...or you could wear out $5 worth of battery life.
      • We're talking about energy losses here. Energy which is either polluting or which is clean but we can't make enough of it to supply the demand. How is energy loss even acceptable in this day and age?
        • You don't think that extra manufacturing to compensate for the inability to consume electricity directly is cheaper in environmental impact, do you? There's a reason why money generally works - it does roughly correspond to expenses of all sorts. If you think ten times greater industrial expenses mean a better alternative in any environmental aspect, then I'm not going to agree with that. The extra PV panels will have a lower impact than the extra batteries, unless automotive batteries somehow increase thei
        • Plus, there's research into wireless transfer that has already demonstrated better efficiencies than 80% at the kinds of distances we're talking about here, so that point is moot.

  • Ob (Score:4, Funny)

    by Hognoxious ( 631665 ) on Friday August 14, 2015 @05:35AM (#50314853) Homepage Journal

    Artist's impression [scalextric.fr]

  • It will never happen (Score:3)

    by Chrisq ( 894406 ) on Friday August 14, 2015 @05:47AM (#50314895)
    Badly needed road widening schemes taking decades, very few new roads being built and pot-holes are left for years in smaller roads. It is obvious that we don't spend enough on our current road system - sop what's the chance of this getting funding?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by thrig ( 36791 )

      Road widening? While I suppose collecting yet more data on the phenomena known as induced demand might be fun and all, there's probably more sensible transportation investments to be made than laying down yet more expensive tarmac everywhere.

  • How do you prevent any other party stealing electricity from one system like this?

  • Shame that driving on motorways in England has become tedious as hell now that they're installing average speed cameras everywhere. Slip over the the paltry 70mph limit a few times and you get banned from driving for a year. I try to avoid the motorways when driving nowadays.

    *prepares to be cuckolded by speed limit Nazis who think even 70mph is "too dangerous"*

    • Except that the average speed camera sections are set to catch people driving above 85MPH, so you have a lot of leeway there to "slip" over the speed limit.

    • *prepares to be cuckolded by speed limit Nazis

      You think that your wife will screw speed limit Nazis? I suppose that's possible...

      On the other hand, you might have meant cold-cocked instead....

    • In Canada our highways have a high speed limit of 62.1371 miles per hour. We even have a low speed limit of 37.2823 miles per hour. The roads are icy? Too bad, motherfucker! Drive at 60 km/h or you get arrested!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      The idea with speed limits is not only to make people go slower, it is also to make most people go at the same speed.
      This has several benefits, including :
      - safety, by reducing the relative speed between two vehicles
      - lower congestion, by limiting the need for overtaking and speed changes that can cause waves of traffic jams.
      The 70mph limit was probably selected because it is close to the speed most people would drive naturally and serve as a baseline for road design. The speed itself is not that important,

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jez9999 ( 618189 )

        As for average speed limit cameras, how about just following the law?

        Because 70 is too goddamn slow. Have you ever driven on a British motorway? 70mph definitely isn't the speed people naturally drive at in good conditions; it's frequently more like 90-100mph and yet motorways have the lowest accident rates of any roads.

        It's all to do with screwing the driver over, as usual, and using safety as a pathetic excuse.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

          I didn't drive on British motorways but I did in French motorways that are good quality and with a 130 km/h (about 80 mph) speed limit and yet I drive at... 70 mph.
          The reason is that with my car, the small time gain doesn't make up for the lower fuel economy.
          So yeah, some busy people with nice cars may be comfortable driving at 90-100 mph but it is not a majority. The road is also shared with trucks, trailers, not too powerful cars and drivers who value their fuel economy.

    • ...you get banned from driving for a year...

      ...speed limit Nazis...

      We have ways of making you walk!

  • And which vehicles will support this method of charging? How about currently? Why waste the money on a road for a feature that nothing supports.

  • Wrong Concept (Score:4, Insightful)

    by prefec2 ( 875483 ) on Friday August 14, 2015 @08:54AM (#50315523)

    First, powering wireless while driving is extremely expensive, as large portions of the road must be equipped with coils. This approach is also very resource hungry and therefore not applicable. Second, installing such coils for parking or on traffic lights is also expensive and complicated, as they have to be switched on and off 100s of times every day. Third, cars are by concept very inefficient, as normals cars weight 1-2 t and are used to carry around 1.3 persons weighting 80-120 kg. 1:10 to 1:20 ratio. In addition, they require a lot of space. While this is not a problem in large areas of North America, it is a problem in densely populated areas, like Central and Western Europe, and even more in India, China, Japan, etc.

    The solution to present day transportation issues in metropolitan areas, where most people live, are public transport. Well implemented, it is faster than cars in traffic, they require less space than cars, and they require less energy. In addition we should promote bicycles, as they are more flexible and a good short range people mover. They also come with the bonus of better health. The individual traffic (with cars) is dead, as there is no individuality in traffic jams and when thousands of people all drive in the same direction every morning and back in the evening.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bigpat ( 158134 )

      First, powering wireless while driving is extremely expensive, as large portions of the road must be equipped with coils. This approach is also very resource hungry and therefore not applicable. Second, installing such coils for parking or on traffic lights is also expensive and complicated, as they have to be switched on and off 100s of times every day.

      Yes, embedding cables in the roadway is not going to be viable for a variety of reasons and I don't need any pilot program to tell me that.

      Third, cars are by concept very inefficient, as normals cars weight 1-2 t and are used to carry around 1.3 persons weighting 80-120 kg. 1:10 to 1:20 ratio. In addition, they require a lot of space. While this is not a problem in large areas of North America, it is a problem in densely populated areas, like Central and Western Europe, and even more in India, China, Japan, etc.

      Inefficient in terms of what? Cost, energy, time? In terms of time cars are often twice or 2.5 times as time efficient as public transport for most people, even during peak commuting times. Just do some comparisons using Google Maps and you will get a good idea of the differences. Sure in dense metropolitan downtown areas, cars are going to be less time efficient beca

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by prefec2 ( 875483 )

        In the US, most suburban areas are dominated by houses surrounded by (potential) gardens. In such areas mass transit by tram or even by bus is not easy to realize because you need a specific amount of people to make the system work. However, when the population is denser which is in fact the case in poorer communities in the US and applies in (Western) Europe to most bigger cities.

        It is also a chicken and the egg problem. The mass transit sucks because no one is using it. And no one is using it because it s

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by bigpat ( 158134 )

          Good discussion. Although, I think that often overlooked in discussion of settlement patterns is the affects of the sexual revolution and more recently the Internet revolution. When you had a primary "bread winner" you could more easily cluster around that person's employment. But transportation that provides for faster travel times to more jobs enables better job options for everyone in the household.

          Alternatively, with jobs that can be done remotely, then it does provide some flexibility and people

  • Seems like that system would need to deliver a lot of current. Are there potential safety issues here, for example a piece of metal falling on the road over the inductors ?
  • Qi compatible? Just think of all the poor saps standing the middle of the roadway trying to charge their phones!
  • Wouldn’t it be cheaper to install chains of synchronized declutchable treadmills on motorways? With today’s electronic controls wouldn’t it be worth studying? BTW it might make charging easier since the car does not move relative to the treadmill (until it is passed on to the next one).

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