Siemens has announced its eHighway concept this week at the Electric Vehicle Symposium in Los Angeles. Its new eHighway concept involves trucks powered by electricity from electric lines over the road. Siemens believes that the majority of pollution we have these days come from big diesel trucks transporting goods over many freeway and highway miles. Siemens claims that its eHighway concept will minimize air pollution by eliminating tailpipe pollution from trucks. Apparently Siemens has been testing the said concept on a test track in Germany. Using diesel-hybrid technology, trucks make contact with overhead electric lines via conductors on top them.
Upon operation, electricity will power the electric drive motors of the trucks while shutting down their engines in the process. The conductors on top of the trucks rise or retract at the push of a button from the driver. A power control unit in the trucks senses when it is receiving electricity from the overhead lines, and shuts off the diesel engine. Once the trucks leave the lanes that have overhead wires on them, the diesel engines of the trucks will start up for the manual operation. Siemens said the eHighway concept could work with any sort of hybrid or range-extended electric vehicle but admits that it is merely a concept for now.
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