Electric cars as bumper cars

Interesting article over at low-tech magazine. They go over the history of the electric car and suggest that the solution may not involve so many batteries, but may be taken from the overhead wires that power trolleys and bumper cars:







For some reason, this low-tech idea is intriguing. While wiring every street in a city with overhead wires is ugly and very complicated, wiring major freeways could be done without too much effort. This would allow cars to use batteries in the city and overhead wires for long distance travel between cities (as well as the possibility to recharge onboard batteries during the long distance trip)

My mom calls them that!

gives me the heeby jeebys. Plus no one would want a car that could only go where the wires were. We're too used to our freedom... Such as it is.

wanted to sell buses and more cars .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy


The Great American Streetcar Scandal<1> was the sequence of events in which General Motors, Firestone Tire, Standard Oil of California and Phillips Petroleum formed the National City Lines (NCL) holding company, which acquired most streetcar systems throughout the United States, dismantled them, and replaced them with buses in the mid 20th century. It is alleged by some historians that NCL's companies had an ulterior motive in their purchase of streetcar systems of forcing mass use of the automobile among the U.S. population.

Convicted of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act, GM was fined $5,000 and each executive was ordered to pay a fine of $1 for a conspiracy to force the streetcar systems to buy GM buses instead of other buses (but not for dismantling the streetcar systems, which were also being dismantled by non-NCL owned systems).

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-06-01-mass-transit_N.htm

More people are riding the nation's buses and trains, breaking records for the first quarter of the year. Transit operators expect the increase to be greater in the second quarter as gasoline prices soar.

How much additional CO2 savings are possible if incremental public transportation passenger ridership is increased?

Answer: A solo commuter switching his or her commute to existing public
transportation in a single day can reduce their CO2 emissions by 20 pounds or more
than 4,800 pounds in a year.

An average private vehicle emission rate is about 1.0 pound of CO2 per mile. An
automobile driven by a single person 20 miles round trip to work will emit 20 pounds of
CO2. Thus, the savings by using existing service would be about 20.0 pounds of CO2 per
daily trip. As passenger loads increase on public transportation, there may be only a
slight increase in CO2, much less than driving to work in single occupancy vehicles
(SOV). Over the course of a year, an individual could potentially reduce their CO2
emissions by more than 4,800 pounds (assuming 240 days of transit travel per year).
This represents slightly more than two metric tonnes of CO2 or about ten percent of a
two-car family household’s carbon footprint of 22 metric tonnes per year. In contrast, if
one were to weatherize their home and adjust their thermostat the carbon savings would
be approximately 2,800 pounds of CO2. Other comparisons include replacing five
incandescent bulbs to lower wattage compact fluorescent lamps (445 pounds of CO2 per
year), or replacing an older refrigerator freezer (335 pounds of CO2 per year.

How much net CO2 is public transportation saving in the U.S. from the current
level of services being offered?

Answer: Public Transportation is a net CO2 reducer; saving 6.9 million metric tonnes
in 2005.

In 2005, public transportation reduced CO2 emissions by 6.9 million metric tonnes. If
current public transportation riders were to use personal vehicles instead of transit they
would generate 16.2 million metric tonnes of CO2. Actual operation of public transit
vehicles, however, resulted in only 12.3 million metric tonnes of these emissions. In
addition, 340 million gallons of gasoline were saved through transit’s contribution to
decreased congestion, which reduced CO2 emissions by another 3.0 million metric
tonnes. An additional 400,000 metric tonnes of greenhouse gases (GHG) were also
avoided, including sulfur hexafluoride,hydrofluorocarbons (HFC), perfluorocarbons, and
chlorofluorocarbons (CFC).

This study estimated the following benefits of public transportation in 2005 in reducing
congestion and this nation’s transportation CO2 emissions:

The above referenced 6.9 million metric tonnes of CO2 exceeds the transportation CO2
emissions that exist in the sparsely populated states like North Dakota (6.3 million metric
tonnes) and a more densely populated state like Delaware (5.0 million metric tonnes),1
(Environmental Protection Agency 2007).

You have enough batteries for 50-100 miles (i.e. around town) When you travel farther than that, you take the highway and get your power from there. The overhead power also recharges the batteries.

I could see something similar to a carpool lane for electric cars with overhead power in that lane.

Sorry it cant work. Not in the face of improving battery technology.