An Electric Vehicle That Charges While In Motion!

Despite the advances in electric vehicles, the biggest impediment to using them for public transportation is that they need long charge times or large batteries to store the power. However, scientists at South Korea's Advanced Institute of Science and Technology may have come finally come up with a solution - a vehicle that charges while it moves!

The On-Line Electric Vehicle or OLEV as it is called is currently being tested at the Seoul Zoo in South Korea and so far, the results are quite encouraging. To enable the self-charge, the scientists first placed about 400 meters of electric strips below the surface of the road, along the bus route. They then fitted the chassis of the main carriage with a receiver, which picks up the current through a contact free magnetic system. The electricity generated from this powers the motor, which in turn helps re-charge the batteries, alleviating the need for lengthy re-charge breaks.

If everything goes as planned, South Korean officials hope to convert all their public transportation buses to these self-sustaining vehicles by 2012. While that will involve ripping out the surface of some of the roads, the officials estimate that it will be have to be done only on 20% of the routes - in places like bus stops, busy intersections and near stop signs - essentially every place where the bus may idle for a few seconds or minutes.

This would allow for enough time to re-charge and keep going almost continuously on self-generated electric power, which means that they may be able run on a battery that is one-fifth the size of current batteries.

Not only will this make more room for passengers, but also save the city a lot of money, because they will not have to install overhead electric cables for the buses. In addition, once the electric strips are installed, any vehicle, fitted with the right receiver will be able to re-charge as it drives - Pretty cool, don't you think?

sources: popsci.com, greenoptimistic.com