I’ve been hearing about Motion Power technology, and I think it stinks. The descrption is that as you drive over a little platform built into a rive-through or parking lot, it gathers energy from rollers feeding a generator. The problem, s I see it, is that this isn’t really “green” at all. That is, they’re just dragging juice away from the driver. I won’t claim the dreiver will notice, but the cost isn’t actually changing, it’s just moving from more efficient power plants to less efficient cars.
Yes, OK, but will it actually work, or do people stomp the brakes anyhow? Will it cause wrecks as drivers suddenly stop short? basically, I’m dubious as to whether this actually works, because won’t people have to accelerate a little to exit? It seems to work by the platform dropping down, which is what triggered my smell-o-meter.
Some videos here on the inventor’s website show more clearly how it operates and what will happen. As you drive over it your car will not particularly lose altitude; instead, the raised speed-bump gets pressed downward by your car to the level of the surrounding roadway as your tires roll over it. It’s important to pick the right road locations for the device, i.e. where people are very likely to already be on the brakes anyway: downhill stretches, highway off-ramps, upcoming stop signs, etc., so that you’re capturing energy that would normally be pissed away by braking; otherwise, yes, acceleration/power input would be needed to drive over it. Judging from the videos, the deceleration effect on a vehicle isn’t likely to be humungous; drivers are not going to go from 60-10 as the cross the platform, so wrecks might not be a huge concern. I suppose that’s one of the things that a road test like this will tell for sure.
Interesting stuff. I could see the multi-plate design being installed across 10 lanes in front of toll booths chugging along non-stop all day in parts of Chicago.
Depends what you think a scam is. The inventor is open about the process. Whoever implements this should be aware that its just taking energy from one place to another.
I think the various proposal for motion power need to scrutinized and perhaps regulated. I read about one recently about making a squishy floor thats hard to walk on and using that energy to power little generators. In the end, I think its scammish and just bait for a class action lawsuit. Some lawyer will notice that cars get worse MPG in some part of town or that its harder to walk through a certain mall and its all over.
I dont even see how the economics of this would work out. All the proposals to put generators on gym equipment just turns out to be a waste of resources, or will pay for itself in decades, which is longer than the life of the gym equipment. Putting a generator on a revolving door just means more sprained wrists or making it harder for the elderly and the handicapped to get by.
I would think the economics of power work more towards large installations with large delivery systems than local micropower like this. We’re better off subsidizing CFLs or building more nuke plants or even wind farms than investing in micropower like this.
>Interesting stuff. I could see the multi-plate design being installed across 10 lanes in front of toll booths chugging along non-stop all day in parts of Chicago.
If the engines have to work harder then they will produce more exhaust. The booth area will be a smoggy mess and unsafe for the workers. We should be burning less fossil fuels, not more.
I would like to see the reverse technology – an external device that imparts momentum to a car when it is leaving a tollbooth or entering a high-speed highway.
When I was a kid, Hot Wheels toys used to have this launcher that was composed of two counter-rotating sponge wheels. The car would almost pass between them, the sponges would compress and grip both sides of the car, and it would be flung forward at a high rate of speed.
Something like that to get people up to merge speed instead of letting them brake and slowly blunder into a high-speed merge would be solid gold, baby.
Current situation:
Driver uses his brakes to decelerate as he approaches the tollbooth; all that kinetic energy is wasted as heat in the car’s brake rotors/pads. After passing through the tollbooth, driver uses the engine to get back up to highway speed.
Proposed situation:
If these motion-power devices are installed in the roadbed upstream of the tollbooth, they will decelerate the cars and capture the kinetic energy, instead of having that energy pissed away in the car’s brake rotors/pads. After passing through the tollbooth, driver uses the engine to get back up to highway speed, exactly as he currently does. The car’s engine will not be working any harder in the proposed situation than it does in the current situation. The only difference between the current situation and the proposed situation is that in the latter, the car’s brakes won’t get so warm, the roadbed device will generate electrical power than can be used for other purposes, and we will ease the burden on electrical power plants.
But yes, cars that regenerate power by braking (hybrids and in the future EVs) are losing some of that opportunity as that deceleration energy is instead being caught by the Motion Power device. Other cars are benefiting by having their brakes spared the extra wear and tear though and merely having the device capture some of the energy that would otherwise have been lost.
Even hybrids and EVs though would be okay with these as rumble strips - that otherwise wasted energy is not caught as regenerated power in hybrids and EVs.
>If these motion-power devices are installed in the roadbed upstream of the tollbooth, they will decelerate the cars and capture the kinetic energy, instead of having that energy pissed away in the car’s brake rotors/pads.
In my state I dont stop for toll booths, I drive past at 70 mph and my little rfid box pays the toll. Perhaps this might have been a workable solution in the 1970s.
Even then, who pays for this thing? The state? What if it doesnt make that much in savings? I should pay taxes for green stuff that might not work? How about we focus on smarter better macroenergy projects instead of microenergy that is literally competing with the little rfid system everyone is rolling out?
Yup they only make sense where they would pay for themselves over a defined period of time. You need a high volume of vehicles that would be otherwise decelerating or should be.
Around Chicago and other places, there are high-speed lanes for EZ-Pass holders to cruise through without slowing down, but there are still many stop-and-pay lanes for folks without EZ-pass.
And toll booths aren’t the only place where this concept makes sense.
That said, the increasing popularity of hybrids that emloy regen-braking will render this device pointless in the future.
If it’s installed on public roadways, yes, I’d imagine the state would be paying for it. If it’s in the drivethrough at BK, well, I’d expect BK will voluntarily pay for it if they believe it makes economic sense for them.
If it doesn’t make that much in savings, hopefully your state officials will recognize that and skip it; if you’re not sure they will, you may want to speak up.
Until someone runs the numbers, I am going with the opinion that this makes about as much sense as placing solar panels in fairly cloudy places or windmills where the wind is weak or irregular.
Probably like Moellers flying car. Technically possible, but economically and technically stupid.
2000 kg dropping 3 inches every 30 seconds (Burger King drive through) = about 50 W
8-lane toll booth, 5 seconds per toll, 3 power pads per lane = about 7000 W
Throw in some inefficiency here and there, and maybe you’ll need to multiply these numbers by 0.5 or 0.2 or whatever. But ballpark, the drive thru seems silly and the toll plaza seems at least worthy of thought.