Electric Trucks

http://www.gizmag.com/sweden-electric-highway/44028/

I was trying to post that picture, but could not. Such a vehicle would run off single phase power. I don't think 3 phase would be practical unless they used an onboard MG set to convert single to 3 phase. I suspect maintenance would be an issue with overhead wires. Trucks would have to be equipped with sensors that would detect low overpasses and automatically drop the pickups. The truck would either "coast" through the overpass, or switch to battery backup. At any rate, the idea is sound.

650V DC supply with inverters running AC motors is the system all modern UK tram systems use.

Sounds ridiculously expensive....who will pay?

It is a go ahead project in several countries in Europe. As usual, we will drag our heels with endless studies and federal regulations. By the time we adopt it, the cost will be 10x more. Look at China and their high speed rail. We are still conducting studies while China will be way ahead of us; that we will never be able to catch up.

Like SE says, infrastructure is very expensive. And in this case, it's very ugly too. Overhead wires and guys and posts all over the place. Yuck.

We drag our heels on bad ideas, thank goodness.

Pretty ugly....

They had streetcars like that in Milwaukee when I was a kid.

Electric trucks in Russia:

http://englishrussia.com/2007/03/05/electic-powered-trucks-in-russia/

Electrification of highways doesn't seem to be a good idea:

1- Very expensive per user in most areas

2-Highways are where the trucks are the most efficient => less fuel saving than in the cities

It would give a better return to do it in cities but people don't want to see the infrastructure.

Actually, we could save cost by only electrifying the roads near intersections where traffic starts and stop. This way we collect the breaking energy and supply it to the starting vehicles. A simple hybrid vehicle would allow the use of relatively small diesel engines and batteries to supply the constant speed power needed between intersections.

With this concept, the wireless infrastructure becomes more feasible.

As everything electrifies, I have pondered why NOPSI dispensed with the electric (overhead wire) bus system in New Orleans. Other than no detours allowed, occasional power outages and the guide slipping of the wire during thunder storms, it was a cool system.

I have been in several cities with electric buses. While I believe/d that the system was a solution looking for a problem, I suppose that it did somewhat reduce the smog and fumes in the urban areas; and, I have to admit, it looked pretty "cool"! On the other hand, though, someone was burning a lot of coal in -- and dirtying up -- some cleaner place, somewhere, to generate the electricity for the buses.

Let's not forget the conversion inefficiencies; fuel to electricity at seventy percent times electricity to motion at seventy percent equals fifty-one percent of the original fuel's energy being wasted as heat. Add transmission losses and so on, and ten kilowatt-hour's worth of coal yields about 3.8 kilowatt-hour's worth of moving buses -- or trucks -- around.

Put the fuel into the trucks, and you just about double the efficiency of the system -- all while saving the costs and hassles of installing, testing, and maintaining a fragile, complex system which is spread out over many thousands of square miles and subject to wear, accidents, and vandalism. Furthermore, if we run those wires down America's Interstate Highways, people will learn to sing and to talk with one another again because it's a sure bet that car radios will be adversely affected by the constant static of the arcs between the overhead catenaries and the pantographs on the trucks.

Trams are making a big comeback in the UK, maybe trolley buses will come next. A lot less disruption caused by groundworks.

Ronseto,

I grew up in San Francisco where there were at least 4 different forms of public transit in use simultaneously (and are still there today)--cable cars, electric trolley buses, electric street cars, and motor coaches. The hybrid or battery-backed system you discuss has been in use in Seattle for a number of years. The buses run on their trolleys when near the center or core of the Seattle area and on their other power source when away.

The power source for all this has been ~600VDC, which was quite expensive to construct decades ago because of the cost of centralized motor/generator plants with festoons of up to 40 heavy cables all running from them down the length of the trolley lines. Now, this is much easier to do with a distributed grid of transformers and rectifiers, also with a much lower cost to install and run.

I see no problem with taking this type of approach and extending it into a centralized power system for electric delivery trucks to use--they could have on-board smart meters that can be read any time required, and then be billed for the electricity used. Their backup power could be hybrid or battery. Once the infrastructure exists the vehicles could be built by any company wishing to follow a specified design for the electric pickup.

--JMM