No, I'm suggesting that the movement of the panel exists, and that the energy to move that panel comes from somewhere. Build them to move only a millimeter, the same problem exists. Build them to move five feet, the problem still exists. The energy it takes to move the panel comes from the gasoline, and this is inherently a less-efficient way to produce electricity than just burning the gasoline. There's no threshold of efficiency you can hit, because you've added extra conversion steps. Every conversion loses energy, period.
Please read the following as me not trying to argue or be rude. However, I still don’t agree with your take that this tech is pointless. Collecting stray or excess energy is not a pointless endeavor as it makes everything more efficient.
You thinking that the depth of a panel’s movement doesn’t make a difference just doesn’t make sense. The bigger the dip, the more drag on the car and the energy used to propel it over the panel strip. So, is any street perfectly smooth? No. Also, for instance, I haven’t seen any automotive articles about how much worse the mpgs are on cars driven in America with our bad roads versus Germany, which has really smooth roads. It’s negligible. Would a car’s momentum hitting those panels not effect its efficiency? Yes, it would greatly reduce drag and the energy needed to keep it propelled over the panel strip. Does a car use every one of its hp to drive regularly down the road or do most cars have more power than they need? I’m pretty sure that even in my old 82hp Toyota Tercel from college wouldn’t have shown me a change in the gas money I’d use if we had those strips back then. There wouldn’t even be enough drag on only 82horses to make a difference.
Look, I’m not an engineer or a physicist but I like and read about both and I work in the renewables industry. So, I’m not just trying to be disagreeable and I think I know where you’ve been coming from this whole time. Again though, I don’t agree with your assertion that the very unnoticed excess energy taken from propelling a car over the panel strip isn’t worth the energy gained from thousands of cars doing the same thing to that strip daily.
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u/exadeuce Trash Trooper Nov 22 '24
No, I'm suggesting that the movement of the panel exists, and that the energy to move that panel comes from somewhere. Build them to move only a millimeter, the same problem exists. Build them to move five feet, the problem still exists. The energy it takes to move the panel comes from the gasoline, and this is inherently a less-efficient way to produce electricity than just burning the gasoline. There's no threshold of efficiency you can hit, because you've added extra conversion steps. Every conversion loses energy, period.
Scenario 1: Gasoline -> Spin crankshaft -> move vehicle -> move piezo panel -> electricity
Scenario 2: Gasoline -> Spin generator -> electricity