The point is to make a given amount of battery go further\u00a0and thus\u00a0solve the two main problems of electric vehicles\u2014high cost and range anxiety. In 2019, batteries made up about a third of the\u00a0cost\u00a0of a midsize electric car,\u00a0down from half just a few years ago\u00a0but still a huge expense. And though most drivers typically\u00a0cover\u00a0only short distances, they usually want\u00a0to be able to go\u00a0very far\u00a0if need be.<\/p>\n
Mobile charging works by dividing a car\u2019s battery pack into independent banks of cells. One bank\u00a0runs the motor, the other one accepts charge. If the power source is\u00a0a battery-bearing truck, you can move a great deal of power\u2014enough for \u201can extra 20 miles of range,\u201d\u00a0Bhunia suggests. True, even a monster truck can charge only one car at a time, but each newly topped-off car will then be in a position to spare a few watt-hours for other cars\u00a0it meets down the road.<\/p>\n We already have the semblance of such a battery\u00a0truck. We recently wrote about a concept from Volkswagen to use mobile robots to haul batteries to stranded EVs. And even now you can buy a car-to-car charge-sharing system from the Italian company Andromeda, although so far no one seems to have tried using it while in motion.<\/p>\n If all the cars participated (yes, a big \u201cif\u201d), then you\u2019d get huge gains. In\u00a0computer modeling,\u00a0done\u00a0with the traffic simulator\u00a0SUMO, the researchers found that\u00a0EVs had to stop to recharge only about a third as often. What\u2019s more, they could manage things with nearly a quarter less\u00a0battery capacity.<\/p>\n A few disadvantages suggest themselves. First off, how do two EVs dock while\u00a0 barreling down the freeway? Bhunia says it would be no strain at all\u00a0for a\u00a0self-driving car, when that much-awaited creature finally comes.\u00a0Nothing can hold\u00a0cars in tandem\u00a0more precisely than a robot. But even a human being, assisted by an automatic system, might be able to pull off the feat, just as pilots do during\u00a0in-flight refueling.<\/p>\n Then there is the question of reciprocity. How many people are likely to\u00a0lend their battery to a perfect stranger?<\/p>\n \u201cThey wouldn\u2019t donate power,\u201d explains Bhunia. \u201cThey\u2019d be\u00a0getting the credit back when they are in need. If you\u2019re receiving charge within a network\u201d\u2014like ride-sharing drivers for companies like Uber and Lyft\u2014\u201cone central management system can do it. But if you want to share between networks, that transaction can be stored in a bank as a credit and paid back later, in kind or\u00a0in cash.\u201d<\/p>\n In their proposal, the researchers envisage a central management system that operates in the cloud.<\/p>\n Any mobile device that moves about on its own can benefit from a share-and-share-alike charging scheme. Delivery bots would make a lot more sense if they didn\u2019t have to spend half their time searching for a wall socket. And being able to\u00a0recharge a UAV from a moving truck would greatly benefit any\u00a0operator of a fleet of cargo drones, as\u00a0Amazon appears to\u00a0want to do.<\/p>\n Sure, road-safety regulators would\u00a0pop their corks at the very mention of high-speed energy\u00a0swapping. And, yes, one\u00a0big advance in battery technology would send the\u00a0idea out the window, as it were. Still, if aviators could share fuel as early as 1923, drivers\u00a0might well try their hand at\u00a0it a century later.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/MzYyMzgwNQ.jpeg\")