Electric vehicles aren’t as new as many people think….
German engineer Andreas Flocken built the first real electric car in 1888. Electric trains were also used to transport coal out of mines, as their motors did not use up precious oxygen. Before the pre-eminence of internal combustion engines, electric automobiles also held many speed & distance records.
In New Zealand electric cars appeared in the early 1900’s along with electric trams, tucks, buses & tractors.
The current state of the EV & hybrid markets suggests a correction, recognising that investment in renewables requires considerably more than first anticipated in order for those means of mobility to be ubiquitous.
For an interesting counter factual argument see the Ted Talk by Graham Conway here –
In some jurisdictions, there are already significant advances in transport infrastructure with the development and application of new technology & solutions to getting us around.
These include things like new surface materials & dynamic paint, automatically anti-icing roads, interactive wind-powered street & highway lighting and solar roads.
One of the most compelling though is piezoelectric roads. A brief section of the abstract notes that:
“Advanced piezoelectric technologies can generate electricity from otherwise untapped mechanical energy resources. Piezoelectric technologies provide the opportunity to harvest energy where stress or vibration is generated and have the advantages of high-power density, simplicity, and scalability for a variety of applications. Heavy traffic of ground vehicles and pedestrians on highways, streets, and sidewalks provides considerable mechanical energy. Harvesting this energy can increase distributed renewable energy capacity.”
The full 2023 study on piezoelectric energy harvesting by Jian-Qiao Sun, Tian-Bing Xu, Atousa Yazdani can be found here
https://www.energy.ca.gov/publications/2023/ultra-high-power-density-roadway-piezoelectric-energy-harvesting-system
Bridges cross rivers and valleys – moving water and air create energy. Some simple engineering creations will likely make increasingly important contributions to how we utilise transport infrastucture.
