from Hacker News

Ask HN: Is inductive charging feasible for electric car batteries?

by houseofshards on 2/3/15, 10:10 PM with 1 comments

The way I am thinking about it is to have the car wirelessly and continuously charge when it is on the road.

  • by pedalpete on 2/3/15, 10:23 PM

    I'm sure lots of people will say no. The rate of loss in induction charging is too high when you need high-power application, you'd have to wire the entire road, which would be costly, and I'm sure a million other reasons.

    Doesn't mean it won't be done though. However, rather than consider induction charging specifically, may I suggest you look at the potential another way?

    What is the benefit of 'continuously charg[ing] when ... on the road'? What you want is a car that drives and the battery will never run down. So how else can you get to that state? Why does it matter if the battery runs down? With autonomous vehicles on our doorstep, how does that change the need to always have a full battery? Can a car be charged by another care while driving?

    So, is it feasible? Maybe. Is it valuable? Maybe. Keep on your line of questioning and you may discover something more interesting.