It’s battery powered. Each end has a burst charger to top it up, followed by a full charge overnight. It seems like a good balance. You don’t need to lug a huge amount of battery along, and you only need power to a few places, not a continuous overhead line.
It’s main benefit is being lightweight and cheap to install. The rails don’t need support beyond the depth of the road. They are also designed to be removed easily for utility access.
Yeah. I get that. I think it is an excellent design.
By adding a third rail in acceleration and deceleration areas you would greatly increase electrical efficiency and reduce battery requirements. You wouldn’t waste power charging and discharging the batteries during deceleration and acceleration. Additionally, the battery would only need to be able to provide enough power to maintain the speed. This also reduces the weight of the vehicle.
A 3rd rail massively increases the complexity of the setup. The tracks are shallow and simple. This makes them cheap to install. Adding a 3rd rail hugely increases the complexity, as well as adding safety concerns. It would be cheaper and safer to add additional chargers, mid route.
How does it increase complexity? It seems like it would be simpler than this mechanised charging system. A third rail wouldn’t prevent the tracks from being shallow and simple.
