# Electrified roads could power cars from the ground up



## qubit (Sep 15, 2011)

> THE cars of the future could be powered by electrified roadways. Such technology would allow electric cars to forgo their heavy batteries, which not only add to a vehicle's weight, increasing the energy needed to move it, but also force it to sit idle while recharging.
> 
> The idea has been around for decades. Previous attempts used an electrified coil in the road to create an electromagnetic field that interacts with a coil attached to the car. "Since the coils must be exactly aligned face-to-face to achieve a high energy efficiency, such schemes may be useful for [charging] vehicles in a parking lot, but never very effective for cars while running," says Masahiro Hanazawa at Toyota Central R&D Labs in Nagakute, Aichi, Japan.
> 
> ...



If this ever came to pass, it would totally remove the enjoyment of driving. It would sound the death knell for any kind of performance cars. They'd all be bog standard and very boring. However, I believe it would be too big a job to change the infrastructure of the whole country, so it will never happen. 


New Scientist


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## Easy Rhino (Sep 15, 2011)

qubit said:


> If this ever came to pass, it would totally remove the enjoyment of driving. It would sound the death knell for any kind of performance cars. They'd all be bog standard and very boring. However, I believe it would be too big a job to change the infrastructure of the whole country, so it will never happen.



when we only had horses and carriages there were people just like you saying cars will ruin our travel experience! they will be too loud and they will never build a big enough infrastructure for it!11111


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## erocker (Sep 15, 2011)

qubit said:


> They'd all be bog standard and very boring



That's where modding comes in my friend.


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## qubit (Sep 15, 2011)

erocker said:


> That's where modding comes in my friend.



Ha! I like it.  You can just picture a section made just for this on TPU.


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## erocker (Sep 15, 2011)

As an auto mechanic, I find this a bit exciting. I yearn for the days when I don't come home black with grease and chemicals. Overclocking you car has a good ring to it. Man you should see some of the electric motors out there that put their gasoline conterparts to shame. The one big hurdle is storing the energy efficiently.


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## qubit (Sep 15, 2011)

erocker said:


> As an auto mechanic, I find this a bit exciting. I yearn for the days when I don't come home black with grease and chemicals. Overclocking you car has a good ring to it. Man you should see some of the electric motors out there that put their gasoline conterparts to shame. The one big hurdle is storing the energy efficiently.



Yeah, there's that Tesla Roadster for example.

Now, if the electric cars were to be self powered, then it would be a totally different story and pretty much continue the current market for cars in terms of performance, price, practicality etc. But if the power is centrally controlled, you can just see how the government would want to restrict any deviation from the norm in order to control load on the power network and other factors I can't think of. Cars would then be differentiated on "plushness", build quality etc, but not performance, which would suck royally.

I've worked a little bit on cars and I have to agree that the oiliness and dirt you get from them isn't pleasant.


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## Easy Rhino (Sep 15, 2011)

hydrogen cars are the future, not electric poop.


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## erocker (Sep 15, 2011)

Draw power from the road, store power within the car, unleash that power with a beefy/midified electric motor!


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## qubit (Sep 15, 2011)

Easy Rhino said:


> hydrogen cars are the future, not electric poop.



Well, neither of those storage problems have been solved, really. 



erocker said:


> Draw power from the road, store power within the car, unleash that power with a beefy/midified electric motor!



So it could work as a continuous charging system? Interesting.

Personally, I'd just stick a small nuclear reactor in the boot and be done with it - almost limitless power!

Incredibly, very small ones for personal use are actually being made: www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_22/b4180020375312.htm

And yes, I'm kidding about sticking it in the car. While it would actually work very well and solve the power problem, you can just see the problems with car crashes and also radiation poisoning in normal use, lol.


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