*THIS* is obviously what I'm here for, unfettered @The Undead Creature.*rubs hands together*
LSMs are an order of magnitude more efficient than they were 20 years ago. Modern drives are limited only by how much juice you can shove through them.
The advantage of a hydraulic launch is that it spreads the energy requirement of the launch over about 30 seconds or so, it makes the ride a bit more power grid friendly. An electric launch would need a more substantial power connection to handle the periodic power spikes. Not that it would be impossible though.
To give you a rough idea of the numbers involved, TTD uses 4, 400KW motors and between them they take about 30 seconds to charge up the accumulators. This leaves a nice 48MJ of energy trying to barge its way back out the gate valves.
When it comes time to launch, the accumulators donate this energy to the train and catch car for about 3 seconds which translates to a power output of 16MW.
A 16MW electric drive is not beyond the realms of pissibility with modern stators and VFDs. And at that power rate, you would actually get to 120mph a bit faster because there's no 2 tonne catch car to ....... well..... catch at the end of the launch.
Another bonus is that the trains won't need any upgrading as the Intrasys magnets work with synchronous motors just fine.
Indeed was chatting about this with fellow EV colleagues who are also roller coaster nerds - the general advances in electric motors, especially being able to get more power out of smaller space, would theoretically translate to LSM launch track, at least in the sense that you could get a higher speed launch than say 5 years ago.
This was what I was zeroing in on as well with all of my page 3 speculation. Despite Intamin OKing Cedar Point to do limited inspection/certification, I still hypothosize a full, thorough re-inspection of the entire ride could be in the cards for this year. Ultimately, we'll just keep an eye out for any activity, if at all, at the ride throughout the 2022 season.
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