Koreans May Have New Type of Electric Car But Questions Remain

What do you think about this electric transportation idea?




A different type of electric car may be gaining some ground in Korea.

According to an article in CIO by Moon Ihlwan, titled “Korea's On-the-Go Electric-Car Experiment,” 55 scientists and engineers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST), a top technology university, are working on designs for a shuttle service at a Seoul amusement park where vehicles will be driven with power transferred by magnetic induction from cables buried underground.

Ihlwan writes that auto companies around the world are touting plug-in hybrid and all-electric vehicles but in South Korea, researchers are working on an experimental alternative they say could revolutionize the way vehicles will be powered.

“The shuttle service will be the first time the technology will be used for public transportation,” Ihlwan wrote. “Under the university's plan, electricity-powered cars don't need to be equipped with heavy and bulky batteries that are too expensive for most consumers. That's because electric cars will be continuously charged while running on roads embedded with power strips.”


Link: http://www.energyboom.com/transportation/koreans-may-have-new-type-electric-car-questions-remain

trolley or cable car system.

No doubt the magnetic induction idea is new, but the basic strategy seems the same.

It's really just a transformer with a moving secondary...

out of a parking space?

but I don't see that as too much of an improvement from the existing technology.

We have available right now electric mass transit that could be cheap and effective that doesn't require any new innovation. I applaud their efforts, but I just don't see this improvement as particularly necessary for realistic public transportation using electrical power.

Infrastructure is socialist.

Any system that depends on continuous power transfer to the cars isn't
likely to be feasible; the cost of the power distribution network is likely
to be 'way too high. It only works for things like trolley busses because
there are relatively few vehicles traveling using the power from the trolley
and the distribution voltage is reasonably high (~600 VDC, usually) so
the trolley can be made of relatively light-weight conductors.

(And the fact that the Korean's are proposing some sort of inductive
coupling doesn't change the underlying basics of the power-distribution
network.)

Tesha