pseudo-hover car?

[Icefire]

Imagine this:

a car that for each wheel has a round thing a bit larger than drum brakes. inside these things are really strong magnets that basically each control a 6" thick ring the diameter of a regular tire. by use of repulsion-attraction fields the magnets try to centre themselves inside the rings (and pull the car up off the ground) and they rotate the rings (to move the car). this would allow for a very smooth ride, and theoretically the tire rings can be removed and the car can hover on top of a magnetic track if needed. the significant problem would be that a lot of power would be needed to just hover the vehicle, but that could be fixed by using an onboard generator (like the Chevrolet Volt), or another system that would just swap in.

thoughts?

[insane_alien]

Imagine this:

a car that for each wheel has a round thing a bit larger than drum brakes. inside these things are really strong magnets that basically each control a 6" thick ring the diameter of a regular tire. by use of repulsion-attraction fields the magnets try to centre themselves inside the rings (and pull the car up off the ground) and they rotate the rings (to move the car). this would allow for a very smooth ride, and theoretically the tire rings can be removed and the car can hover on top of a magnetic track if needed. the significant problem would be that a lot of power would be needed to just hover the vehicle, but that could be fixed by using an onboard generator (like the Chevrolet Volt), or another system that would just swap in.

thoughts?

 

okay, thats just magnetic suspension although its done a lot differently than that

 

and the chevvy volt doesn't have a generator at all. it just has lots of big batteries.

 

engines in cars do actually provide a lot of power some provide ridiculous amounts. the veyron runs at over 750kW mechanical which means it produces something on the order of 1.5MW of waste heat.

[Icefire]

so in theory the engine will be able to generate enough eneregy... what is your thought about the drive-train being just four electromagnet capsules levitating themselves inside tire-rings?

[InigoMontoya]

and the chevvy volt doesn't have a generator at all. it just has lots of big batteries.

A bit of a sidetrack, but yes, it does have a generator. It's small, like a 1 kW or something like that. The idea is that it can be quietly running, recharging your batteries while the car sits in the parking lot. Thus you can have an electric car that can function in areas where it may not be easy to plug the car in to recharge the battery. It can also run while you're driving thereby giving you additional range (thus why Chevy calls it a "range extender").

 

http://www.chevrolet.com/pages/open/default/future/volt.do

[insane_alien]

ah i was getting my cars mixed up, i thought you were talking about the tesla(or whatever the hell it is, i'm not really up on my cars particularly US cars) which is a BEV, i didn't think you were talking about a hybrid

[Icefire]

ok, good to know.

But do you have any thoughts of the drivetrain being just magnets and rings?

[insane_alien]

not going to be too efficient as not only will it eat power just to work, its going to be very prone to slippage.

[Icefire]

slippage? how so? if it is composed of say eight segments, possibly with fixed directions of currents, each segment can have its power and direction controlled independently by a computer in order to balance, maintain height, and control speed.

possibly the car would rest on either spaceship-like landing pads or just by dropping to conserve energy when not moving.

[Icefire]

Although the main problem with having a wide ring as tires would be that at high speeds the ring would not be very aerodynamic because the flat side is to the wind and may be forced under the tires and so. what if the tire rings were separated into say five heavy duty bicycle tires side by side, possible permanently connected in a way that allows air to pass through?