Well, tbf, both trains and cars require converters
Totally! My idea was that -> arrows represent the converters and to put it simply more arrows = more efficiency loss. But right, since power can also be injected back into the network, which is a good thing, there could be <-> arrows, or maybe <=> to better hightlight the bi-directionality:
power lines <=> electric motor
Since you mentioned putting power back into the grid:
I heard another potential use for car batteries would be using them to balance out local power fluctuations in the grid to make it more stable. Since cars stand still most of their life anyway, they might as well be connected to the grid whenever they’re parked. Not as a big energy reserve, since that wouldn’t be very efficient and capacity would be too low, but just to keep things more balanced which is a healthy thing for the power network. I suppose that also applies for train batteries.
Nissan has already started rolling out Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) or Vehicle-to-X (V2X) chargers for its offering of vehicles since 2022, so it’s already happening.
Chris Nelder, who runs the Energy Transition Show podcast and who is a member of the Rocky Mountain Institute, published a paper even as far back as 2016 arguing how the potential for the US consumer rolling stock of BEVs (Battery Electric Vehicles; grid + batteries only) and PHEVs (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles; grid + batteries + gas) offering Demand Response services to utilities is enormous.
I’m not sure about the V2G compatibility of BEMUs feeding energy back to the grid to serve Demand Response is where the industry is going currently, instead favoring the implementation of overhead line islands as compared to extensive grid rollouts, but that reality is 100% feasible. The island approach I believe is also what Siemens is aiming for with the overhead-fed trucking solution I shared earlier.
Still exciting nonetheless!!!
![[meme] Trains are 100000x easier to electrify and automate than cars, so why does everyone keep talking about electric and driverless cars?(lemmy.world)](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/11c37658-7c32-4cc2-b12c-6ced348bd09d.png){kind=link}