Amazon was recently granted a patent for a drone that can attach to an electric vehicle and charge it.
Amazon's plan to create drones that can charge electric cars made headlines last week.
It isn't a bad idea. After all, the United States doesn't have adequate infrastructure for the charging of electric cars. In theory, this will help make charging readily available where charging stations are sparse.
That being said, an idea as radical as this raises many questions. For one, how exactly will it work?
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Apparently, each car will have a docking mechanism attached to the roof which the drone will somehow attach to and charge the car. This means that electricity will flow within the roof and down into the chassis of the vehicle, whereas many electric cars only run power supplies through the chassis, not the roof.
What are the possible dangers of having hundreds of volts of electricity flowing above your head?
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Also, what will be the range of the drones themselves? How long will they be able to fly? How much battery capacity do they have for charging a vehicle? How long would it take to charge a car? How long will it take to charge its power supply?
Furthermore, such a product would require that manufacturers practically re-engineer their cars at vast expense. Amazon will also have to decide where these drones will be dispatched from, and how said drone would be dispatched. Maybe each electric car owner will have an app that makes an appointment for one.
It is a radical idea, however there are a lot of questions that need to be answered before Amazon goes ahead and puts it into action.
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