I know in junkyards cranes use electricity to make a magnet powerful enough to lift a car, but could a car battery be used the same way? Could it have enough juice to lift a car? Or maybe pull one?
In: 0
Yes and no?
To make a better magnet, you mostly just need to make it bigger. In an ideal world, once the magnet is ‘turned on’ it wouldn’t use any energy to keep it running. In practice it usually does because of inefficiencies.
A car battery can dump 100 amps at 10 volts pretty easily, although not for very long. 1000 watts. A quick google indicates that a regular junkyard magnet draws closer to 10,000 watts. So, at least for a junkyard magnet, the answer is no.
However, we could make a more efficient magnet, it would just be costly. For instance, a superconductor magnet.
Latest Answers