World's First Wireless electric buses started running this week in the southeastern South Korean city of Gumi. The fifteen mile route has charging facilities built into the road allowing for less battery power and weight in the bus. But, it requires infrastructure!
The WSJ's Jeyup Kwaak tells Jake Lee how this wireless-charging system works in this short video:
All this raises a number of questions.
If this get used, who pays for the power? Will the vehicles' owners pay? If the technology is installed to meter the power usage, will it also be used to charge for road usage? London installed a system for metering road usage many years ago, but there has never been the political will to use it. London does have a congestion charge in the city center.
What is the cost of installing the hardware in the road and what does this imply for road repair?
Finally, what type of loads will this put on the power system? In our anti-nuclear age, will we have enough base load power?
Monday, August 12, 2013
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
