And all the power could just come from a few large centralized facilities that are super efficient. We could just use thin strands of metal to get it to the vehicles over head…
And all the power could just come from a few large centralized facilities that are super efficient. We could just use thin strands of metal to get it to the vehicles over head…
Of course, the maintenance on those wires outside of the city means that you'd make electric trains with large batteries on them instead.
https://evmagazine.com/articles/tesla-launches-first-all-ele...
Expense is correlative to scale, likely it's cheaper to deploy pantographs than battery factories.
Why did India build a high speed freight corridor with overhead power when they could have used batteries instead? Because the quantity of battery to power the trains doesn't exist, and overhead wires do.
I don't think I buy BEV trains to be honest. I'm struggling to think of a proper reason why they might be better compared to normal electric trains.
But the linked article is pretty light on info, so I'll reserve judgement till more info comes to light.
They are good for infrequently used track and places where overhead wires would be in the way, like that very Tesla employee shuttle on it's own track and container ports.
It's not the best way to go for mainline track and not suitable for long distance high speed trains.
If it's infrequently used, a dual mode diesel-electric can fill that use case today.