Bearings are already quite good. You could get the same result by using magnetic, no contact wheel bearings at a very large increase in cost, but the fuel economy improvement would be tiny.
The big problem is not rolling resistance, its wind resistance. Wind resistance goes up by the square of the velocity increase....double the speed and you quadruple wind resistance. The second biggest fuel consumer is the mass itself (not the weight). Accelerating and decelerating mass requires energy. Magnets might make less "weight" but they would make more mass.
Hm...! No wonder the fuel efficient cars look funny (Talking to you "leaf"). But it shouldn't be hard to break wind resistance. Say we ionize all the air molecules in front of car and bounce it off our way... :-)
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Bearings are already quite good. You could get the same result by using magnetic, no contact wheel bearings at a very large increase in cost, but the fuel economy improvement would be tiny.
The big problem is not rolling resistance, its wind resistance. Wind resistance goes up by the square of the velocity increase....double the speed and you quadruple wind resistance. The second biggest fuel consumer is the mass itself (not the weight). Accelerating and decelerating mass requires energy. Magnets might make less "weight" but they would make more mass.
Hm...! No wonder the fuel efficient cars look funny (Talking to you "leaf"). But it shouldn't be hard to break wind resistance. Say we ionize all the air molecules in front of car and bounce it off our way... :-)
Wait! need to put some thought in to that.