How about this idea for Electric Vehicles. Eliminate the huge batteries. Instead, the EVs should be powered like a slot car. No...no long trenches in the road with live electrical rails on either side. I’m thinking something like miles of very flat induction coils, like the ones that charge our phones. No direct electrical contact. There would be a small battery on-board that would stay charged by the road coils and it would allow some autonomous travel away from the road coils to get into parking lots or your home driveway. You’d probably have a charging coil on your driveway or garage or wherever you car rests.
The road coils would be made of very thin high strength polymer that would be on a large spool and installed in the middle of a lane with an adhesive. They’d be so thin that you wouldn’t know they were there if you drove over them. The coils could be “printed” and produced I would think pretty efficiently in a huge, continuous roll, cutting off what is needed for each situation or pieces could be joined together and laid flat. These coils would have to be powered by an electrical grid that is no where near ready to power this idea or charge hundreds of thousands of cars at home. So this is down the road a piece.
I wanted to get rid of all the batteries, the weight, waste, expense of replacement and initial vehicle purchase, and hassle of charging. Ev’s would be so much lighter and efficient if they didn’t have to schlepp a heavy battery around with them. Unlimited mileage...never have to stop...like we do now for gas.
Almost there. Introduce magnetism for contactless travel. Collision avoidance system.