FastCAP systems is building an ultra-capacitor capable of beating Lithium in watt density storage, but they are about 2 years away from releasing them as practical products, and FORD needs to be aware of this technology.
But dumping massive amounts of current into these babies are going to be limited by the wire size, so I ran the numbers of what it would take to charge a 25 kwh ultra-capacitor battery in 15 minutes of constant current, and the wires needed to carry this kind of current is huge, something like a diameter of 1 inch of copper or smaller if silver. 260 amps for a 380 volt system for 15 minutes. So, a more practical way to charge these is through a big ass induction system. A very large inductor can be applied underneath an induction plate then converted to DC internally, to charge up the capacitor through induction. Using the principle of a transformer, where many many more turns in the primary windings will not need as much current. Plus no physical connections would be necessary. Car would pull up on top of the induction plate and more then 100 KW ( 4 times the capacity) would charge it in 15 minutes, assuming a 25kwh capacitor, making cross country driving possible. Heck man. whenever I stop to get gas, I always like to take more then 15 mins, taking a dump, getting a drink, or filling up my cooler.
Other possibilities of moving a car down a road is to embed coils in the road, and using a magnetic wave, push the car along the road not unlike maglev propulsion. The wave can be programmed for freeway speeds, so cars can go at same speed (70 mph). A normal electric engine would be needed to accellerate the car to 70 mph to "lock it onto the wave", once locked on, the wave pushes the car along the road. This locking mechanism can also be "detected" by the road, and each car would have an electronic code for billing the driver by the mile.
Obviously an amazing amount of engineering must be done to work this out, but in theory, it might work.
John
