Leland wonders why, despite trains and ships using the technology for over a century, why don’t most cars?

First off, cars don’t need the torque. It can be handy, but not to the degree it is for vehicles that mass thousands of tons.

Second, you lose energy anytime you transform it from one form to another; with an electrical transmission you convert chemical energy to mechanical energy to electrical energy and then back to mechanical energy. When you don’t need the torque, it’s more energy efficient to skip swapping the energy to electricity and back.

Third, if you’re trying to remove the mechanical transmission, the obvious place to put the motors is in the wheels. This has heating problems (even before you factor in braking) as well as putting the motors below the suspension; wheel mounted motors experience every bump in the road.

Apparently Maersk line prefers twin-engine machinery for its own ships, but the Dali was a charter.

I know, I live in Pittsburgh.

Also (H/T Stephen Green @ Instapundit, 12:44):

No surprise maritime professionals wanted a tunnel, but the government cut corners and built a bridge, now we suffer the consequences – “just a matter of time” pic.twitter.com/GkRDGmVDDu

— Charles (@charlesbonnerjr) March 27, 2024

The draw back is if you lose power generation, you lose propulsion. You might think, “why not battery backup”? In port, maybe that needs to be reconsidered. But at sea, you would need some massive batteries to drive a propeller shaft to maintain control for the amount of time to say slow a vessel.

What I don’t understand is why only high end sports cars use a similar system. Trains use this type of electrical generator driving electric motors. Ships have them. But hybrid cars have batteries that drive motors that augment the ICE engine. You’d get better performance if the ICE ran a generator and the wheels were turned by an electric motor. That’s why high-end sports cars have this setup. Imagine a Ford F-150 that could pull like a freight train, occasionally run on batteries, but could get refilled at a gas station.

I don’t believe your cited calculations regarding construction of the protective berms. Three dimensions, mass required, maths, you know, civil engineering.

T, the solution to this has long been known — put concrete and earthen berms around the piers, which can actually stop and/or even better deflect an incorrectly directed ship away from the pier.

Think of them like you would bollards outside a vulnerable place. Almost all police precincts and stations these days have bollards outside, because, if nothing else, of “I’ll Be Back” of Terminator fame. This is true of even relatively smaller cities — Gainesville FL is about 125k, 250k metro area. GPD has bollards all outside the place.

The University of Florida football, basketball, and baseball stadiums also have bollards and subtly placed walls around the outside, to prevent vehicular attacks during games.

The Berms do much the same thing vs. ships as those bollards do against vehicles.

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}}} P.S. How can you tell if Biden is plagiarizing? Does he have an obvious “tell?

Yes, when he hands you a piece of paper with anything on it. 😛

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}}} The bridge structure laying across the bow does not seem robust enough to “capture” the ship and hold it in place (by itself) if it did not run aground on something.

Dude, that thing has a massive concrete structure supporting it at the base water level. Typically, there is a caisson built and the water drained out of it. Then they build whatever supporting structure is called for. This is going to be a massive steel and concrete structure these days. It just did the job that a berm should have done, and stopped the forward motion of the ship.