Originally Posted By: BalticBob
Originally Posted By: Shannow
Extension leads typically aren't long enough for a reasonable range, and get tangled at intersections. Rail crossings are also problematic.
New technology from Eastinghouse Electric uses wireless wires for AC drive vehicles, problem solved.
Tesla (the man, not the machine) would be laughing at the electric cars of today. Even he understood fossil fuel is superior for vehicle power.
Uh source?
Around the time of Tesla/Edison, oil was not easy to come by. They had no idea there were huge oceans of crude in the ground, but just they didn't really strike oil until 1901. And that was just the first strikes of oil.
Even so, Tesla was a bit more out there and would actually be pleased with Elon's Tesla/SolarCity electic is the future vision:
http://www.azquotes.com/quote/595058
Electric power is everywhere present in unlimited quantities and can drive the world's machinery without the need of coal, oil, gas, or any other of the common fuels.
http://www.azquotes.com/quote/605623
If we use our fuel to get our power, we are living on our capital and exhausting it rapidly. This method is barbarous and wantonly wasteful, and will have to be stopped in the interest of coming generations. The heat of the sun's rays represents an immense amount of energy vastly in excess of waterpower...The sun's energy controlled to create lakes and rivers for motive purposes and transformation of arid deserts into fertile land...
http://www.azquotes.com/quote/595061
I can now state that I have succeeded in operating a motive device by means of [cosmic rays]. I will tell you in the most general way, the cosmic ray ionizes the air, setting free many charges - ions and electrons. These charges are captured in a condenser which is made to discharge through the circuit of the motor.
http://www.azquotes.com/quote/1413950
We have to evolve means for obtaining energy from stores which are forever inexhaustible, to perfect methods which do not imply consumption and waste of any material whatever. I now feel sure that the realization of that idea is not far off. ...the possibilities of the development I refer to, namely, that of the operation of engines on any point of the earth by the energy of the medium.
Interestingly he didn't think atomic power would work:
http://www.azquotes.com/quote/565991
The idea of atomic energy is illusionary but it has taken so powerful a hold on the minds, that although I have preached against it for twenty-five years, there are still some who believe it to be realizable.
Here;s another page:
http://www.davidjkent-writer.com/2012/09/19/nikola-tesla-and-renewable-energy/
“Long before this consummation, coal and oil must cease to be important factors in the sustenance of human life on this planet. It should be borne in mind that electrical energy obtained by harnessing a waterfall is probably fifty times more effective than fuel energy. Since this is the most perfect way of rendering the sun’s energy available, the direction of the future material development of man is clearly indicated.”
A bit more exuberant here making it seem like electricity and solar will be Mankind's Savior:
"
The economic transmission of power without wires is of all-surpassing importance to man. By its means he will gain complete mastery of the air, the sea and the desert. It will enable him to dispense with the necessity of mining, pumping, transporting and burning fuel, and so do away with innumerable causes of sinful waste. By its means, he will obtain at any place and in any desired amount, the energy of remote waterfalls�to drive his machinery, to construct his canals, tunnels and highways, to manufacture the materials of his want, his clothing and food, to heat and light his home�year in, year out, ever and ever, by day and by night. It will make the living glorious sun his obedient, toiling slave. It will bring peace and harmony on earth."