Rouute: ROAD-BASED ENERGY

[AVGresponding]

When you go downhill then the speed of the car increases, and when you go uphill it decreases. And it's the same amount of energy, because reservation of energy.

No - the "bump" siphons energy; driving over the bump means a net loss of energy (for your car; not considering other losses). So in theory you will get slower, If you don't accelerate.

Why did you take seriously what I wrote?

They are German, and therefore cannot comprehend humour.

[Nominal Animal]

The really sad thing here is that many who work for that company, actually truly believe they're going to make things better.

It is surprising how shortsighted even otherwise intelligent humans can be, when easy solutions with ample rewards are presented.  Even straight-up lies are eaten up hook, line, and sinker, when a little bit of belief, charm (or social manipulation), and grease in the form of monetary reward and social reputation is offered.

[SiliconWizard]

The really sad thing here is that many who work for that company, actually truly believe they're going to make things better.

I think you may be a bit "optimistic" with this statement.
A few may truly believe, but I'm rather sure that most of them are there just for the money and don't care one bit what it is for.
Then again, isn't this what most people do with their job. It's just a job. Oh well.

[Eagcress88]

This reminds me of the geniuses suggesting attaching generators to the wheels of electric cars to charge the batteries of those same electric cars. They're like "inventors" of perpetual motion machines. Where do they think the energy for that will come from?

[Helio_Centra]

attaching generators to the wheels of electric cars to charge the batteries of those same electric cars.

That's exactly what regenerative breaking is.

[Nominal Animal]

attaching generators to the wheels of electric cars to charge the batteries of those same electric cars.

That's exactly what regenerative breaking is.

No.  Regenerative braking uses the motor driving the wheels as the generator.  There is no separate generator at all.

I'm not trying to be snarky here.  Describing it in detail like this is the only way to get non-technical people to understand the situation and why things like "let's attach a generator to the motor so we get free energy" don't work and cannot work.  If you don't believe me on this, try it in practice.  If you then follow up by explaining a road that extracts energy from passing cars is like a road where all brakes are applied (at least a little bit), they get the implications darn quick.

After all, a brake is nothing but a device, a generator, turning kinetic energy (wheel rotation) into waste heat.

[SiliconWizard]

Yes, braking is just the complete opposite of generating any energy: it is dissipating it as quickly as possible while keeping heat at a reasonable level.
In terms of energy use, braking makes no sense, but it turns out it's needed because vehicles have inertia. Unless we never needed to stop.

With that said, *harvesting* energy from braking does work and is a clever way of storing back some of the energy that you need otherwise to dissipate to be able to brake.

So as Nominal said, it has absolutely nothing to do with free energy. It has to do with limiting the waste.

[PlainName]

attaching generators to the wheels of electric cars to charge the batteries of those same electric cars.

That's exactly what regenerative breaking is.

No.  Regenerative braking uses the motor driving the wheels as the generator.  There is no separate generator at all.

I'm not trying to be snarky here.  Describing it in detail like this is the only way to get non-technical people to understand the situation and why things like "let's attach a generator to the motor so we get free energy" don't work and cannot work.  If you don't believe me on this, try it in practice.  If you then follow up by explaining a road that extracts energy from passing cars is like a road where all brakes are applied (at least a little bit), they get the implications darn quick.

After all, a brake is nothing but a device, a generator, turning kinetic energy (wheel rotation) into waste heat.

I'm going to put my head above the parapet here and suggest that your argument is about implementation, not principle.

With a typical vehicle you need an engine to make it go, and brakes to make it stop (kind of - the engine can make it stop, but slowly). So if you take an ICE and make it an EV all you've done is replace the petrol engine with an electric motor. Still got brakes to make it stop. Now some bright spark will thing "Hey, why don't we use the motor as a generator to slow the thing down instead of brakes, and that way we can re-use the energy we'd otherwise waste as heat?" Et voila - regenerative braking.

Doesn't really matter if that's achieved by putting a generator in the wheels a la brake calipers, or using the motor as a generator. Obviously, the latter is much better because of cost, space, etc., but in principle there is no difference.

So I think your answer to

attaching generators to the wheels of electric cars to charge the batteries of those same electric cars.

That's exactly what regenerative breaking is.

is missing the point he is raising. He's not saying it is free energy (although, strictly, I suppose it is if only briefly since otherwise it would be lost). He is just pointing out that regenerative braking is exactly what having a generator in the wheel is, subject to implementation detail.

[Bud]

How does emergencg breaking in this case  work though ? I do not want the "regenerative break motor" to keep spinning when i hit the brakes hard. I want the darn thing stop asap.

[PlainName]

EVs still have normal drag brakes, don't they?

[tszaboo]

How does emergencg breaking in this case  work though ? I do not want the "regenerative break motor" to keep spinning when i hit the brakes hard. I want the darn thing stop asap.

You press the pedal, and you get regen breaking. You press it more, you get regen plus regular breaks. You press it even more the ABS comes on. You put the car in B speed, and it doesn't disengage the ICE, you get engine breaking. You pull the handbrake and that comes on. I think that's all the normal breaking modes of hybrids.

[EEVblog]

How does emergencg breaking in this case  work though ? I do not want the "regenerative break motor" to keep spinning when i hit the brakes hard. I want the darn thing stop asap.

All EV's have normal disc brakes as well, they just don't engage for most regular driving unless you are very agressive.
My IONIQ has a "flappy paddle" brake as well as the foot brake, and both engage the regen, but only the foot pedal hard will engage the brakes. I do the majority of my driving using the flappy paddle regen because it's just nicer.

[Nominal Animal]

attaching generators to the wheels of electric cars to charge the batteries of those same electric cars.

That's exactly what regenerative breaking is.

No.  Regenerative braking uses the motor driving the wheels as the generator.  There is no separate generator at all.

I'm not trying to be snarky here.  Describing it in detail like this is the only way to get non-technical people to understand the situation and why things like "let's attach a generator to the motor so we get free energy" don't work and cannot work.  If you don't believe me on this, try it in practice.  If you then follow up by explaining a road that extracts energy from passing cars is like a road where all brakes are applied (at least a little bit), they get the implications darn quick.

After all, a brake is nothing but a device, a generator, turning kinetic energy (wheel rotation) into waste heat.

I'm going to put my head above the parapet here and suggest that your argument is about implementation, not principle.

No, my argument was supposed to be about the principle –– energy is not created, we can only change its form ––, and intuitive understanding.

Fundamentally, acceleration and deceleration are the two sides of the same thing.  To accelerate, you need to convert some form of energy into kinetic energy.  To decelerate (brake), you need to convert kinetic energy into some other form of energy.  The easiest form to convert to is waste heat through friction.  A generator is nothing but a device to change one form of energy to another, plus some losses typically in the form of waste heat and possibly electromagnetic radiation.

Most non-technical people believe a generator creates energy somehow.  This is what leads to unrealistic ideas like attaching a generator to a motor and getting free energy as a result.  My post was about combating this at the core level, human intuitive understanding of reality, and avoiding the linguistic/imaginary pitfalls people often get stuck in when they consider things at the wrong level of abstraction.

We could argue about the dictionary definition of "generator", but for a physically realistic, intuitive and correct understanding, only the model of "changes the form of energy" as opposed to "creates energy" makes any sense whatsoever.  And, in this particular sense and model of understanding things, brakes are just generators too, changing kinetic energy (in the form of rotating brake discs) into waste heat.  That, too, is important for a physically realistic, correct intuitive understanding of what is happening here.

If you happen to understand and agree my point above, then the idiocy of energy recovery from vehicles on flat roads becomes obvious.
(Whether energy recovery from vehicles going downhill would be practical, is a completely separate question.)

[CatalinaWOW]

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this video is the data it provides about Morgan Freeman.  I had always had the impression that he was a pretty bright guy.  But either that is wrong, or else he is quite willing to lie for a a modest speaking gig.

[coppercone2]

he could play a role as maxwells's demon to have on the job training about the laws of thermodynamics in the form of a hockey drama about Soviet bidding with said entity to ensure success in international hockey.

[pcprogrammer]

Most non-technical people believe a generator creates energy somehow.  This is what leads to unrealistic ideas like attaching a generator to a motor and getting free energy as a result.  My post was about combating this at the core level, human intuitive understanding of reality, and avoiding the linguistic/imaginary pitfalls people often get stuck in when they consider things at the wrong level of abstraction.

We could argue about the dictionary definition of "generator", but for a physically realistic, intuitive and correct understanding, only the model of "changes the form of energy" as opposed to "creates energy" makes any sense whatsoever.  And, in this particular sense and model of understanding things, brakes are just generators too, changing kinetic energy (in the form of rotating brake discs) into waste heat.  That, too, is important for a physically realistic, correct intuitive understanding of what is happening here.

Then the people who came up with the name "generator" should have had more wits about it and should have named it "converter". 

Connect a "converter" to a steam turbine and it converts the rotational energy into electrical energy.

[EEVblog]

Their numbers don't even add up. You'd have to stop a 3 ton car from 96km/h to get their claimed 300Wh energy converted, at 100% efficiency to boot. 

[Circlotron]

Then the people who came up with the name "generator" should have had more wits about it and should have named it "converter".  >:Denergy.

Or maybe "transducer".

[Nominal Animal]

We could argue about the dictionary definition of "generator", but for a physically realistic, intuitive and correct understanding, only the model of "changes the form of energy" as opposed to "creates energy" makes any sense whatsoever.  And, in this particular sense and model of understanding things, brakes are just generators too, changing kinetic energy (in the form of rotating brake discs) into waste heat.  That, too, is important for a physically realistic, correct intuitive understanding of what is happening here.

Then the people who came up with the name "generator" should have had more wits about it and should have named it "converter". 

Connect a "converter" to a steam turbine and it converts the rotational energy into electrical energy.

Very true, but when has human naming-of-things made any sense in the first place?

Or maybe "transducer".

Non-English terms create exactly the kind of misconceptions that my point is to try to avoid.  Instead of their defined or traditional meaning, people invent their own, based on the context and their own (mis)understanding of that context.

Commonplace words have much better defined contexts –– that is, people generally agree much more about the context.  In particular, "to convert" avoids the misconception of "creating something", whereas a typical English-speaking person does not know whether "to transduce" involves conversion only or also creation.

The best word and example of such ambiquity I know of, is the word "emerge", and whether that which emerges existed in its current form before "emerging" or not.  If you look at the common dictionary definitions, they imply yes (as in, "coming into view"); but if you look at related term "emergent" you get the opposite vibe (as in, "coming into existence").
(Whether "emerging behaviour" and "emergent behaviour" mean the same or the opposite of each other, sometimes keeps me up at night.)

Humans love to use domain-specific terms.  In some cases, it is to show that they "know" the domain; but in most cases, it is because their understanding is so superficial they cannot define their understanding in any other terms!  The act of describing ones knowledge (or lack of) is not just an expression, it is actually a very heavy cognitive function, and is the reason why for example rubber duck debugging works.  Explaining things properly is not just offering the correct terms and solutions, but tying them in their dependent context in a way the recipient understands those relationships.  That is the point I am trying to make: that kind of intuitive understanding is a necessary prerequisite for humans to understand physical reality, and not fall for these dodgy pseudoscientific or technological or technobabble schemes that promise to solve all possible problems.
And it all starts by explaining precisely the terms and their implications.

At one point, the hot "term" in media and advertising was antibacterial; at another point, anything nano.  Now it is green energy and sustainability, with zero actual physical links to what the terms originally meant.  I blame media for using precise terms like they would a badger's ass as a hat.

[madires]

All EV's have normal disc brakes as well, they just don't engage for most regular driving unless you are very agressive.
My IONIQ has a "flappy paddle" brake as well as the foot brake, and both engage the regen, but only the foot pedal hard will engage the brakes. I do the majority of my driving using the flappy paddle regen because it's just nicer.

A brief sidenote: When disc brakes are rarely used it can lead to a rust problem (and a failure of the breaking system).

[madires]

Their numbers don't even add up. You'd have to stop a 3 ton car from 96km/h to get their claimed 300Wh energy converted, at 100% efficiency to boot. 

A Tesla Cybertruck. Very green!

BTW, will Rouute pay for new shock absorbers when the old ones fail early?

[IanB]

Or maybe "transducer".

No, because transducer already has a well-defined meaning for measurement signals.

[IanB]

Then the people who came up with the name "generator" should have had more wits about it and should have named it "converter". 

Connect a "converter" to a steam turbine and it converts the rotational energy into electrical energy.

Converter is a valid name in some circumstances, for example a rotary converter can convert DC to AC, or convert 50 Hz to 60 Hz.

But "generator" is understood in engineering to generate an output of a new kind that is different from the kind of input. For example, a heat generator can generate heat, and an electrical generator can generate electricity. Or an oxygen generator can make oxygen.

[PlainName]

This Rouute thing is obviously a dead duck but I wonder if we're looking at it wrong? ISTM that we see a series of these bump generators over which cars (and trucks, etc) pass at normal speeds as if they're not there. See, for instance, the video of the car trundling along the highway.

But suppose they were built into sleeping policemen. For non-UK drivers these are humps across the road whose sole purpose is to give your vehicle a big enough bump that you slow down to walking pace (and even then some of them are suspension-challenging). With these you expect the notice them and if they are allegedly designed to soften the blow whilst still providing an obstacle, what's not to like?

Obviously you're not going to power a town from them, but how about street furniture. We have illuminated road signs that depend on a solar panel so the power necessary for the sign isn't that high. We also have illuminated cat's eyes that apparently use car headlights to produce the power. Perhaps something like a speed hump with embedded generator (er, transducer... no, converter... no, 'electrical thing') would be worthwhile.

[IanB]

This Rouute thing is obviously a dead duck but I wonder if we're looking at it wrong? ISTM that we see a series of these bump generators over which cars (and trucks, etc) pass at normal speeds as if they're not there. See, for instance, the video of the car trundling along the highway.

The thing is, there is no such thing as "as if they are not there". If they take any energy at all from the moving vehicle, they will have a braking effect. It is just a matter of how much. If you only take a few watts, the vehicles will hardly notice it, but at the same time a few watts is not very useful. If you try to take kilowatts the vehicles will definitely notice it, and their fuel consumption will increase accordingly.