Alt TextA screenshot of a post showing a red pickup truck with a mechanical arm structure attached to its bed, holding a magnet in front of a metal plate mounted on the front bumper, titled “Okay explain why this wouldn’t work”. Below, a comment from the official Volkswagen account reads “We sent this to the engineering department and they blocked us on teams.”

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[–] 107 points 1 day ago (5 children)

The real reason is because the magnet is trying to pull the car. Have you ever tried to pull a car? You'll find it impossible even in neutral. But you'll find out pushing it is much easier.

You should instead magnetise the shell of the car, then hook to its back a magnet with the same pole as the car's back.

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  • [–] 5 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

    I know you joking bu, isn'tt this how those fancy asian bullet trains work?

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  • [–] 20 points 20 hours ago* (1 child)

    That's magnetic levitation, and it's magnetic repulsion not attraction. The push the train away from the tracks and that balances against the gravity pushing it down onto the tracks, so it levitates. Then you just oscillate the polarity of the electromagnet to move forward.

    It allows for extremely high speed travels since there is no friction with the tracks, but in terms of efficiency it's not much better than a normal electric train. It's just faster, which in commuter trains it is what you want. But it wouldn't be much good for personal vehicle transit, even if we did magnetize all of the roads.

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