I obviously did not describe the 7SSS [tm] idea sufficiently.
<<The idea of heavy electric cars with a 10 mile range powered by 7- second rechargeable stations each 150 yards from the other is absurd.
My statement is a bit hyperbolic, but the idea is frankly outrageous
Why should there be heavy cars when light, safe cars can be built? Re-charged every 15-20 miles? Huh? If you wish to escape long charging lines, the infrastructure cost would be outrageous.>>
Let's start with city cars designed for tootling around town on commuter, taxi and delivery business.
With Mq's patent pending 7SSS system the battery would weigh only 100 kg, the car about 1000 kg = 1 tonne. For comparison, the Tesla S is 2 tonnes. The soon to be ready Tesla 3 will be about 1.5 tonnes I guess.
The Chevy Bolt is 1.6T with a round town range of about 400 km on the 450 kg battery. Mq's Town Tootler would go about 130 km with the 100 kg battery. It would be a much cheaper car because with less battery weight, the structure of the car could also be much lighter. Cheaper to buy, cheaper to run, better quality and performance, faster to recharge [7 seconds instead of half an hour].
To recharge:
Mq's Town Tootler would pull into a pit stop 7SSS lane, stop, a robot would pull out the little battery and another robot would push in the charged replacement. Time elapsed = 7 seconds, just as in Formula 1 pit stops. The discharged battery would go in the recharge stack with recharging done with cheap off-peak electricity such as from photovoltaics when the sun's out.
For comparison, the Model 3 would need to stop for half an hour at a supercharger, paying whatever the electricity price is at the time [maybe peak!]. The parking space and recharge equipment would need paying for. The Mq Town Tootler would incur no land cost or equipment cost because with 6 batteries per minute being swapped = 180 per half hour, the land cost and equipment cost would be near zero.
The Tesla 3 driver will NOT want to sit around for half an hour, or 2 hours if there's a queue. And pay lots more for their charge.
Space age materials are expensive and unnecessary: <<Light, strong and safe cars with space-age materials full of self- driving software will be fine. For long hauls, they can be driven onboard electric or maglev trains, then dropped off at destination. No costly charging stations every 20 miles or so littering vast deserts. Or cities. >> Train tracks don't go from where people are, or to where they want to be. So that idea is a dud.
Even if they DID go from the right place to the right place, there would be no advantage in loading up a train with cars and people. The cars can form their own on-road train, driving half a metre apart [meaning no drag and minimal road space taken up], then zooming along roads which already exist to the individual destinations. No big expensive train needed. You have probably heard of platoons of cars. They are like trains but without the individual vehicles having to be physically connected together as with a train, and the motive power in each vehicle can do the work instead of having to also have a huge motor at the front of the train.
If somebody wants to do a long trip, they'll just hop in their car, tell it the destination, then sit back and relax as it heads for the freeway and joins a platoon. Or they can call an uberized car which would be there in 3 seconds as they'll be parked everywhere waiting for another job.
Mqurice |
