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If Your Electric Car Runs Out of Power on the Highway ...
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EPAIII:
They had that in my home town. Actually they still do. They call them street cars.



The St Charles line ran directly in front of my university and I rode them often to and from school. Probably been in the one in the photo many times. And these electric street cars were not new back in the 1950s. In fact they had been around NO for decades even then.

New Orleans was way ahead of the times. Not only did they have electric street cars back in the 1950s but also ELECTRIC busses. I often rode on them too. Like the street cars, they got the electricity from a pair of lines that ran overhead. The street cars used the metal tracks for the return circuit and you could see sparks if there were leaves on the tracks. But the electric busses needed twin overhead lines. One of the electric bus lines ran near my grandparent's home and I rode them often going to and from there. The line pictured below ran in front of my then future wife's house. Again the photo is from the 1950s.



A regular bus route is a great place for an electric vehicle back then. So I must wonder, if they had them and electric was so great, why didn't they completely take over? I suspect those electric busses are now all replaced with gas or diesel powered ones. If electric powered is so good, then WHY? A thinking man must wonder.




--- Quote from: themadhippy on January 01, 2024, 01:17:16 am ---Maybe a wire could be installed above every road,then when your ev runs out of fuel you extend a pole with some sort of pick up on the end from your vehicle to make contact with the ovehead wire that then refuels your car,of course you'd  another contact from the car to ground  complete the circuit,maybe conductive rubber tyres would work for that.

--- End quote ---
Andy Chee:

--- Quote from: themadhippy on January 01, 2024, 01:17:16 am ---Maybe a wire could be installed above every road,then when your ev runs out of fuel you extend a pole with some sort of pick up on the end from your vehicle to make contact with the ovehead wire that then refuels your car,of course you'd  another contact from the car to ground  complete the circuit,maybe conductive rubber tyres would work for that.

--- End quote ---
In the 1993 movie flop "Super Mario Bros", in an alternate dimension where dinosaurs evolved to higher cognitive beings, and did not become extinct to become fossil fuels, all vehicles are EV and charged by overhead wires:

EPAIII:
As for conductive rubber tires working for the return path, I think that neither concrete nor asphalt is naturally conductive. You would need to replace a lot of both of them with conductive versions. That's gonna be a lot of $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ or euros or whatever currency you want to use.

Electric trains and the street cars I showed above run on steel rails, which are conductors. And those conductive rails cost absolutely nothing extra.
Andy Chee:

--- Quote from: EPAIII on January 01, 2024, 09:09:03 am ---Electric trains and the street cars I showed above run on steel rails, which are conductors. And those conductive rails cost absolutely nothing extra.

--- End quote ---
For a rubber wheeled vehicle, you can have the return current returning back to a second overhead wire, though, it obviously presents a challenge in aligning the pantograph with the two wires.

.RC.:

--- Quote from: Siwastaja on January 01, 2024, 06:58:04 am --- What people don't realize is how much we rely on reliable grid. After a blackout longer than a few hours, our societies basically collapse to stone age.

--- End quote ---

Just went 23 hours of no mains electricity.  Then 23 hours later it is off again and have the generator running.

But you are right.   Some years back a cyclone went through and the local city was mostly without power for a few days.  A new term came about.  Generator rage.   People who did not have one were raging over the noise of those that did.  Then there were the fuel restrictions and food restrictions.  It was interesting how most people helped one another there was a minority who were just arseholes.  If you want society to hold together in a rough time, then you need to concentrate on providing hope so people can see a way out.  Once that is gone, watch society turn on itself as tribes get formed.  Then a man named Max becomes the only beacon of hope for many.
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