How is this Low-Tech? I guess bumper cars are old, but to adapt this to normal cars would be a massive overhaul to the current system, where only very high-tech elements would prove to be a solution.

I say, run the power through the ground and have vehicles line up with the charger track for 90 percent of the time, feeding off the power, but still have a back-up battery suitable for passing and maybe even low speed driving. Tracks on highways keep you fully charged and up to speed, exit and you're on back-up until you hit the next main road. Each road can even carry current strong enough for that speed limit, ensuring safer driving speeds and possibly fewer accidents...
...

To follow-up on the previous comment and mention why this would be a great idea but would never work, is the fact of exposed tracks on the ground. Though cars would be lighter from lack of a larger battery, drag induced from friction either on the track or wire would eventually affect the power requirement for forward propulsion.

The other problem with a track based implementation, is the fact that except for highways where pedestrians aren't supposed to be in the first place it could work, but remember that no amount of warning signs will stop someone from electrocuting themselves on those. Let's just take that "No playing on the train tracks" example...

This is clever, and yet, almost obvious. If you took a reasonably capable battery powered car, and let it run off overhead electric, even if only on interstates, that would be outstanding. That would certainly solve my commuting problems.

Too much infrastructure cost. Better to transmit the power wirelessly, as demonstrated at MIT... then you just need towers.

[url=http://www.gizmag.com/go/7418/]MIT demonstrates wireless power[/url]

oh, you mean TRAINS!

So they're proposing something like one of those newfangled train machines?

I hate the whole "at best an electric car can go 100 to 200 miles." I'm pretty happy with that, sure I'd like it to be more for longer trips but I rarely ever take long trips that require me to drive over 200 miles.
Most Americans drive less than 40 miles a day and an electric that gets AT LEAST 100 miles per charge can meet the needs of thsoe Americans.
I wouldn't be opposed to having to stop and charge my car after 100, 150, or 200 miles. It can give me time to rest. I'm sure the place I stop at wouldn't be opposed to letting me charge it up and even if they wanted compensation, I'd much rather pay for that than $50 to fill up my gas powered car that gets me close to 300 miles on about 11 gallons of gas.

Also, what would happen during a power outage, especially during an emergency? You could at least have a backup generator at home with a battery-powered car, but connected to the grid you are at the mercy of the power companies.

LOL! Ok, sorry, I guess I shouldn't laugh, but this is one of those ideas that only sounds good until to apply reality to it. Anybody thinking this is a good idea needs to read up on electrified railroading to see what the horrors of such a system applied to a large number of cars would generate. Wires sag under temperature changes caused by both weather and use. Downed branches, rain, snow, wind-blown debris, birds, you name it all these things add up to issues with the wires. General wear and tear of the shoes on the exposed wiring, multiplied by thousands of passings (where a train might only pass a couple dozen times a day)... it all adds up to something that is impractical to support or use for cars. It would also be hidious to visually behold. Those wires don't just hover in space, they need to be attached to poles and buildings, the poles usually requiring guy-wires themselves to keep the catenary (the power wires) in tension (so they don't sag).

Just image some angry person with road rage mounting a long board with a hook on it and driving sideway across traffic bringing down the entrie highway, stranding everybody because there is no back up.

The only good thing about a system like this would be that a car going downhill could regenerate power in to the grid to help cars up hill.

-Lego

There are a lot of clever ideas here. Let me try to piece them together. Electric cars that get 100 miles per charge are good enough for 90% of daily drives. But if I need to go farther I can drive onto a road with an electric infrastructure. Then I can go as far as I like and my car will recharge as I go like my laptop. But those silly kids might get electrocuted when they touch the conductors. I seem to remember that I have an electric toothbrush that uses induction charging, why not do that on interstates and other main roads. This would make electric cars extremely useful, and have ranges far exceeding those of liquid fueled models. Oh wait, This might require politicians to act. Forget it, this can never happen.

This isn't a good idea at all. If the so-called problem with electric cars is that you have to recharge batteries after traveling 200 miles, the solution is not to build a costly, complicated, open current wiring system on our highways and biways, but to make it possible to easily swap batteries.
If manufacturers could come together on a common battery format and design cars where these batteries can easily be swapped out in the time it might otherwise take to fill up your tank, we could utilize the existing fueling infrastructure called gas stations and also have them offer battery swapping. After driving for 3.5 hours you pull over at the nearest SHELL or TEXACO and trade your spent batteries for fully charged batteries, paying a small charge for the KwH and the convenience of not having to wait around. Swap batteries and you're back on the road in five minutes.

This is not a good answer since it adds to the already huge challenge of maintaining roads and there are plenty of subway hobo's who have been fried by touching the third rail.

We went to the moon using computers of no more powerful than a $4 calculator of today; we can figure out how to get 500 miles out of a self contained electric generating power source in a vehicle.

There may be potential for this but transmission would have to be wireless. It could be put on some major highways to assist electric cars with long trips.

How about we just electrify the highways?

Let the cars run on batteries in the city. When they're on the highway, they connect to the overhead power, allowing for long distance travel as well as a battery recharge for when they go back into the city.

You can use electromagnetic induction in the road to power the vehicles this can also aid in self driving vehicles.

The initial idea has some merit and is worth exploring further. Everybody so far is locked into the paradigm of what already is and has been.

The idea of the Bumper Car Grid is the way to go...but not overhead...underneath the road surface.

Do away with wires, giant transmission towers, third rails, etc.

Cars should be powered by induction from a grid laid down under the road surface. The grid is simply rolled out in front of the asphault before it is laid. Grid expands (after initial core corridors taken care of) at the usual rate of road surface replacement.

Still need 10-20 mile backup batter/ultracapacitor in the suburbs...or anywhere really...backup power is just good sense.

Hysterical...John, I stepped away before posting and you jumped on the right idea...bravo!

We do have the technology for Battery Electric Vehicles now.
There is an even easier low tech solution to extending the range of your BEV

Tow a push-trailer. ... this can have either extra batteries, or a generator, and a small motor so it puts no strain on your BEV car.

Now for most people, a 100 km range as is available now or the 200 km range that will be available soon is just fine for most driving needs. The even better hopes of a 400 km or 500 km range may even arrive faster than we all expect. If recharge stations are available in public parking locations, such as your local mall, then a recharge for occasional longer trips are quite acceptable even if they take 2 hours. When I drive for 2 hours or so, a stop is welcome.

Also, on extended trips I tend to rent a car, just because getting broken down in some ill equipped location will destroy a holiday, and a rental gets replaced pronto.

So ... BEV for in city trips, Public charging for day trips, and rentals of a car or 'push-trailer' for long trips ...

I think its not a good idea. Better to build cheap hybrid vehicles than that.

Hmm... grid power on highways and in cities, battery power in suburbs. Isn't that we cities have mass transit, the connections to other cities have (or should have) railways, and people in suburbs drive cars?
Instead of grid-connected cars, it would be much cheaper to build more railroad infrastructure (since we know how to do it right). Rail carries much higher traffic density per "lane" and runs on grid power.
Then those of us who live in the suburbs (like me!) would really have no excuse to be unsatisfied the range on the electric cars we'll be seeing even over the next few years.
I won't buy a new car until I can get a serial hybrid like the Volt because at the moment the rail in the US is woefully outdated, there is no availability of things like zipcar near me, and I can't rely on 100km to get me through my unavoidable more driving-intensive days, but I would be more than willing for the next car after that to be an all-electric one that got, say, 150 miles per charge. And when I need to go farther than that in one day I should really be thinking: hey, maybe I should get there by rail or plane and then rent a vehicle once I get there.

Mexico City still has trolleybus and its very cheap travel to them, only $2pesos, its like 20 cents of dollar, There's a lot of infrastructure for them in the city with a lot of rutes

Lots of reasons to pass on this idea, but wouldn't an open current solution like this be terribly inefficient in terms of energy loss?

Sorry, but I just don't see them running these wires out to my farm. Just not likely to happen. Any place that has problems with Ice storms or high winds (ie most places in the ole USA) this would not work.
I do like the bumper car Idea, drive to the nearest town, take the next available bumper car to work? Slamming my home to take out agressions! Would be a blast, but I think it would generate more sprawl just so you could ride longer.

How about forget cars, and move to a Tokyo equivalent city?

Cars are so old fashioned.

This post reminded me of that Super Mario Brothers live action movie. Anyone remember that, where all of them drove cars connected to a grid. Damn, pretty prophetic. haha.

All electric cars should have a universal, swappable style of battery pack. You can drive 200 miles, stop at a gas station, and swap out your drained battery pack for a full one. That way there's no recharge time, and you could drive cross-country in your electric vehicle without having to stop and recharge every 200 miles.

In reply to Amanda, if it was done correctly, the road wouldn't shock you, just like how if you fall out of a bumper car you don't get shocked. I found a great explanation of this online so here it is:

"What is interesting is that there is also electricity at the floor of the bumper cars room as well. (That is why most are metal). You might wonder why you don't get shocked when you walk across to the cars? For one, they usually cut power when people leave and get on. But even if you fall out when moving you won't get shocked. The reason is the floor has electric flow but no potential. Potential means the ability to do work. A rock held above your head has potential. It can smash a can, break your toe, splash water. All of those are examples of work. Water can have potential as well. Water held above a water wheel has the ability to turn the wheel when falling to a lower pool. Electricity works much the same way. Electric potential is called voltage. Electricity can do work (turn a motor, light a bulb) when going from a higher voltage to a lower one. It is convenient (and safer) to go from a high voltage to a voltage of zero, or ground. This is the potential of the earth, which is the lowest voltage or potential. Kind of like the ocean is for water. The floor of the bumper cars has the same potential as the earth (ground) and the same potential as you. That is why you don't get shocked! However, there are electrons (electricity) flowing under you from the car motor to the earth. If the didn't your car wouldn't run. It is like having a water wheel that dumps into a tank. Soon the tank fills up and the water has no where to flow. No flow, no wheel movement, no work gets done. So like the water
flowing off in the river, the electricity flows from the high voltage ceiling to the motor then to the floor and off to the earth. The only way you could get shocked from the floor is to provide an easier path from the floor to the earth (unlikely since you have high resistance compared to metal) or if you provided the ONLY path (If the ground line to the earth broke)! That would be bad!"

Another thought: has anyone thought about what lightning striking a grid would do? Would it electrocute anyone in a car on the power grid? Or would it just give a boost of power and speed? I don't know, but it's worth thinking about.

Er, sorry, that first one was in reply to Hindrim, not Amanda.

This is fabulous! I actually dreamed about this concept three weeks ago, which is why I am visiting this site, No, I'm not a nutcase. I actually dreamed a logical dream of cars driving down the interstate with attached rods that were extended upward about ten feet and periodically scraped against a metal extension from existing powerline poles --like bumper cars. I couldn't get the concept out of my mind, so I decided to research it. I love innovation, even if it's to acknowledge that our predecessors had some ideas that we can rely on.