Detroit's newest road can charge electric cars as they drive on it
stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to 
axios.com
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.
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Why occasionally plug in when you can lose roughly 50% efficiency and not. Such a boondoggle.
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.
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.
Sounds like the next step is to power it using renewables so that we reduce that inefficiency as low as possible
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.
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.
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.
Baby steps friend. We try things incrementally
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.
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.
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.
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.