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by yholio 1594 days ago
Charging rails alongside major roads is the obvious solution to this problem. It will enable much more than vacationing in urban EVs, also things like electric semis, long range buses etc.

Since it is a fixed capital expenditure, you need suficient EVs on the road for it to make economic sense, but from that point forwards it's a no-brainer compared to stuffing every vehicle chock-full of rare minerals for the unlikely case of a ski trip to Austria.
2 comments
elihu 1594 days ago
That's the approach I've been advocating. Electrified roads (even if it's only short, regularly spaced intervals on major highways) make so much more sense than expecting everyone who wants to drive more than an hour or two from home to haul 800 pounds of batteries with them. No having to stop to charge. Less wear on the roads (from reduced vehicle weight). No need for diesel long-haul trucks. EVs can be cheaper, with more cargo room. Less dependence on cobalt or nickel (or you could use LFP batteries to get away from that entirely). Energy usage is shifted to the daytime (when solar power is available) when most people drive rather than charging overnight.

I think the thing that's lacking right now (despite political will) is standards for electrified roads. I like the general approach that Sweden is using, with rails embedded in the road surface: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZNHZnyxCm8

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bmicraft 1594 days ago
At that point you should probably make use of the preexisting "charging rails" and take the train (in central europe)
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rad_gruchalski 1594 days ago
Recent headline from Handelsblatt: 1 in 4 trains does not arrive on time. No, thanks.
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yholio 1594 days ago
Because trains are known to split into family sized units that continue the journey on roads using battery power?

The public transport trope is tiresome and unlikely to prevent the warming of the planet with a single fraction of a degree.

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Ourgon 1594 days ago
Car trains (or "Motorails") do. Park your car on the train at the head station, drive it off the train at the destination after having spent the night in a sleeper cabin and drive on to where you want to go. Since trains are electric it would be easy to retrofit the car carriers with charging infrastructure to make sure EVs are topped up for the "fan-out". Everything but the charging infrastructure is already in place and in use, at least in Europe - from the Netherlands [1] you can take such trains to Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Austria, Finland, Croatia, Slovakia and Turkey (via Austria).

[1] https://www.treinreiswinkel.nl/reizen/autotrein

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