the car industry has worked on the regenerative break idea for a very long time [1]. And this work does take fruition in some vehicles now. Surely it will be soon mainstream for modern cars.
However, in this brief, I am considering the idea of assisted regenerative breaking through the use of the road surface. The general approach is likely to collect the momentum of the vehicle through the surface material and store it somehow. The stored energy can be used to accelerate the car again. The most suitable location for this are controlled stop points such as traffic signals, exit of motorways and intersections.
When vehicles are required to decelerate, the road should absorb the energy. This can be achieved through displacement of a liquid perhaps embedded oil pockets or water bellows. The displacement pressure can be used to generate electricity. Once the car needs to accelerate the road surface need to be firm and flat. Another more direct option is to use a lever mechanism to use the momentum of the car to lift itself ready to use its own weight for the subsequent acceleration. Vehicles might climb a suitable raised ramp to raise up. A sea-saw movement of the ramp will then accelerate the vehicle again as it appears to move downhill.
Interesting with this general approach is that the driver is expect to perform either deceleration or even a full stop rapidly in order to transfer most of the energy or does not use the break at all. The system needs to be responsible for gradually slowing down a vehicle instead of the vehicle itself. This is a considerable advantage when imposing a stop at a red light.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_brake
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