Possible idea for the evolution of travel. (in Off-topic)

There are plenty of things wrong with cars. They're a big step up from horse-drawn carriages, but they carry a lot of problems with them. I've been wondering about this for years and last year my automotive technology built something that shows the proof of concept.

What if cars that ran on gas could be replaced by magnetic cars that ran on some other resource, of if gas, a very small fraction of its current use? My teacher made a small wooden box car that had magnets attached to it and it hovered over magnet strips. It moved with a small fan attached to it, which means the idea behind it could at least work.

I've drawn a rough sketch on my idea how it would be like.
<img src=http://home.comcast.net/~jimidao/Concept.GIF>

The black arches would be the tube or tunnel that the vehicles would travel in. The red and blue represent the opposing magnetic polarizations strips. The purple circle represents the vehicle itself. Now, the magnets on the car would be the opposite of the magnets on the tunnel, which would keep it suspended perfectly in air. With manipulation of the vehicle's magnets, the car could travel along the strips at a very high speed with very little fuel. And since it's traveling in the air and there is no ground friction, hypothetically, it should be able to travel much, much faster.

Being 17, I haven't studied physics and I'm bad at mathematics, but the more I think about it, the more it seems doable.

Sorry for the double post, but I forgot to enable HTML in the first post. So here's the actual sketch for my idea:

donut car ahoy hoy

I think a tube traveling vehicle would be great -- I have been dreaming of that for years.. but I think it could even be run on compressed air in the tube. that would cushion the vehicles from getting to close and would also provide a way of entering and exiting the tube and lower friction. Though a magnetic field would provide even less friction. possible long cars could carry freight, and cost very little energy to propel.

So basically you could only go where the tracks allowed. What do you need cars for then? We could replace all transportation with cheap, highly effecient mass transit (sounds familiar, where have I seen that before? oh yeah, europe.). This idea would be great, if not for the large corporate interests that rule our government.

"hi_im_jake"

Well the reason I didn't make the tunnel a complete circle so the idea can be modified. Like Mian said, the vehicles could only travel in the tube, which would be a very long and expensive process. However, if you remove the top half of the tunnel you're left with:
Those arches are relatively small and could line right on top of the current roads. And as for the actual movement, the magnets on the vehicle could be moved so that the magnetic force would actually move the vehicle since opposing magnetic fields push off of each other.

You do realize that the magnetic force drops in strength relative to the distance between the magnets squared? So you really really want those magnets in the car and in/on the road as close together as possible.

You most likely want to have static magnets in the car and electro magnets in the road, or else the weight needed to store the energy (batteries) becomes huge.

Mmm, this starts to sound like a MagLev ;)

In my drawings, the distance I put in was supposed to be the result from the fields pushing on each other. But yes, I know what their strength depends on how close they are.

And now that you mention it, I think "maglev" was the exact term my autotech teacher used when he presented his wooden car thing. But the car had a small fan attached to it that moved it. The magnetic strips on his track were mainly used to hold the car in the air. This vehicle would accelerate and slow down due to the movement of the magnets, which would themselves be powered by electricity from a battery, or sunlight, or whatever.

Friction is your enemy.

The power to charge those electromagnets, the power to run those rotors; unfortunately, its going to be too big an ask for solar, wind, or ocean power. The only way you can provide that power is through nuclear power plants or good ol' gas power stations. Back to square one!

The magnets are... regular magnets. They don't need charging. The only thing you do need is to turn the magnets on the vehicle, which don't take much power at all.