Car Charging Smart Roads--The future of transportation

[Bayard]

Inductive charging, replenishing electric battery power wirelessly, is an idea that could completely wipe out concerns about range anxiety and improve efficiency and performance levels for electric vehicles.

The technology, or at least the theory behind it, is relatively old. “You’re looking back at Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism; it’s really fundamental physics,” explained physicist Laurie Winkless. “It’s about the connection between electricity and magnetism and [how you] can switch one with the other and you can use that in some ways. It’s quite old, in theory anyway, [but] doing it practically is quite new.”

The idea has been taken up by technology giants around the world. Smartphones and electric toothbrushes can be charged by simply placing them on a charging pad, but for EVs, inductive charging built into roads could be even more useful.

Qualcomm, the wireless telecommunications provider, has put the inductive charging theory into a practical solution for charging EVs with its Halo charging pads. But it wants to take the solution further: by putting the Halo plates into the road and charging EVs on the move. “The vision of the technology and our ultimate goal is the idea that you have a charging lane on motorway,” said Graeme Davison, vice president of technology at Qualcomm.

“You pull into that charging lane with your car and you get off 200 miles later with exactly the same amount of charge, if not more perhaps, than you pulled on and you’ve got no range anxiety whatsoever and you’ve got an EV that does everything we want.”

Before getting to that stage Qualcomm’s idea is to demonstrate inductive charging by getting a fleet of electric taxis that replenish their batteries from charging plates as they move slowly through taxi ranks.

“Then you continue the development of that process and start putting the infrastructure in the roads and junctions and red lights,” explained Davison, “so that as you approach the junction and you slow down, you start charging the vehicle whilst you’re sat at the junction. You also charge the vehicle as you accelerate through the junction and pull away – which is quite often the worst situation for the battery because you have to give more energy per velocity to get the car going.”

https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2015/08/electric-vehicles-inductive-charging-extends-the-range/

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. And will this be perfectly safe and harmless

if an animal or human wanders onto the charging plates?

I do like the idea of electric cars, but since I periodically make drives that are well beyond the range of such vehicles, I'm not about to purchase one any time soon.

Of course, it will be a very, very long time before such roads are actually in place. And I'll be willing to bet that they will mostly be in densely populated areas, where people are simply not going long distances to begin with.

[MicaelS]

4. Perfectly safe.

Induction does not use any direct contact.

You drive over induction coils on a daily basis when you go through a traffic light.

Google electromatic induction.

[CaptainTruth]

10. The induction coils used to sense vehicles at traffic lights are low power.

Therefore the electromagnetic field strength is low. Not enough to transfer any meaningful amount of energy to a vehicle sitting above them.

To charge EV batteries the field strength would have to be much higher. I would expect the EVs to have charging coils mounted underneath. Passengers & vehicle contents would be subjected to greater EM fields, but field strength decreases with the inverse square of the distance from the source, so the amplitude decreases fairly quickly.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

2. Everything old is new again.

[customerserviceguy]

3. I'm no electronics engineer

but wouldn't a "charging lane" have pretty massive efficiency losses? And how much would it cost per mile?

[Bayard]

5. Already being used in other countries

Cars, and public transportation/buses. They are also using the same technology for parking spots. You can drive as far as you want to if you're continually recharging.

Big investment in infrastructure, jobs, and abating climate change. Its a viable and much-needed technology.

[elocs]

6. Right now I'd settle for roads that are not crumbling and full of pot holes.

Hey, I thought we were supposed to have flying cars by now! What ever happened to that?

[trev]

7. Are we talking a single charging lane per roadway,

... or will all lanes be converted? Because if the former, I can see a situation arising that would be much worse than current HOV problems.

Regardless, I'll never see this in my lifetime.

[Duppers]

8. This is terrific!! 👍

Has eliminated another excuse for Americans not to buy electric. I imagine it'll be awhile before this country moves forward and can afford this technology.

[lpbk2713]

9. Sounds nice.

But have they considered how it would effect people with pacemakers or other electronic devices?

[Codeine]

11. Electromagnetic fields can impact pacemakers.

I know some kinds of stove tops are dangerous for them, and require the user maintain a couple feet between the element and the pacemaker.

I’m confident it will be considered and safety measures implemented, but a valid concern for sure.

[pecosbob]

12. Nice