The biggest hurdles to electric car adoption are battery range and charging availability. But if cars could wirelessly charge while driving, these issues would be resolved. Consumers would have no reason to feel hesitant about buying an electric vehicle (EV).
Thanks to several different companies and research teams worldwide, we should have roads that keep EVs’ batteries juiced up within a decade. Several trials have been underway testing technologies that allow electric cars, trucks, and buses to charge on the move – a process called dynamic charging.
Dynamic charging works via under-road pads that transmit electricity wirelessly to receivers mounted underneath vehicles. It could be a total game-changer, minimizing time wasted at charging stations and eliminating range anxiety.
At the moment, would-be EV buyers fret about charging. As a result, EVs accounted for less than 5% of new car sales globally in 2020 and 2% in the US. According to University of California Davis research, one in five electric car owners switched back to a gas-powered car because of the charging hassles, like having to find a charge point and wait for a long time.
Plus, there aren’t even enough charge points per EV on the road. As it stands, there are around 1.8 million battery-powered cars on US roads but only approximately 100,000 charging plugs at about 41,000 public station locations.
And even though President Joe Biden pledged to build 500,000 new plugs by 2030, experts say that’ll be a challenging goal to reach. Furthermore, there could be 35 million EVs on US roads by 2030, which would require at least over 2 million public chargers, the economics consulting firm The Brattle Group projects. On top of that, Biden also pledged to convert 650,000 vehicles – the entire federal government fleet – and every US-made bus to electric by 2030.
Electrifying transportation is understandably at the top of the priority list for solutions to decarbonize the American economy since 60% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the transportation sector. But the US isn’t alone in this mission. Many European countries have also prioritized transport electrification.
Germany expects up to 10 million EVs on its roads by 2030 and is testing electric highways around Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Stuttgart. Sweden plans to build 2,400 kilometers (1,491 miles) of electric roads by 2037 as part of its plan to reach zero net emissions by 2045.
The idea of highways that automatically charge any EV driving on it has been on people’s minds for a while. As a result, several projects have been developed to charge EVs as they drive by providing power from within the road or a strip near it in the past few years.
In the US, the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) partnered with Purdue University and a German company called Magment to test out new, high-tech streets that automatically charge batteries of EVs equipped with a particular receiver. If testing is successful, INDOT plans to expand. Magment says the product has a 95% efficiency rate, a high degree of thermal conductivity, can withstand all weather conditions, doesn’t cost more to use than standard road building materials, and is safe from vandalism.
Meanwhile, researchers at Cornell University have been working on similar tech and predict that EV-charging streets are about five to ten years away.
Khurram Afridi, an associate professor of computer and electrical engineering at Cornell, told Insider:
“Highways would have a charging lane, sort of like a high occupancy lane. If you were running out of battery, you would move into the charging lane. It would be able to identify which car went into the lane, and it would later send you a bill.
The only way people are going to buy electric cars is if they’re just as easy to refuel as combustion engines. So if we had this [wireless charging] technology, the electric vehicles would have even fewer limitations than traditional ones.”
The charging lanes’ infrastructure would require a massive overhaul of roadways. However, Afridi recommends electrifying busy highways, stop signs, and traffic lights in major cities first.
Yet another team of American researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory has been steadily advancing a wireless technology that can make charging an EV just as easy as filling up a car with gas. Their system has a transfer efficiency of 92%. Plus, power can even flow in both directions, enabling EVs to serve as energy storage.
Burak Ozpineci, head of ORNL’s Vehicle and Mobility Systems Research Section, said:
“Once you get to these higher power levels to enable fast charging, you especially don’t want people handling the heavy cables typically required. You wouldn’t have to remember to plug in your vehicle at home with wireless technology, and it’s always topped off. You just park it in the garage, and it’s done. The same with charging pads at workplaces or extreme-fast wireless charging stations.
Now, we want to take it a step further. What if you have an EV and never have to worry about having enough of a charge to go anywhere you like? We can accomplish that with dynamic wireless charging. For instance, with dynamic charging, some highway lanes or even on- and off-ramps would be embedded with charging pads, and your car is charged as you drive it over the coils. Then, you would exit and enter the highway with the same battery charge.
If you can charge wirelessly at home, at work, and even when you’re on the way, you never have to think about charging your car, and you eliminate range anxiety
Dynamic charging can also reduce the grid impact resulting from the peak demand of overnight charging in homes or at charging stations. Instead, that demand for EV charging would be level and allow for better grid stability.”
In 2017 and 2018, a group at Stanford University and another at Ra’di independently stumbled upon similar workarounds.
In Europe, the British government has been testing out charging roads that work like wireless phone chargers, using magnetic induction technology.
In Asia, the South Korean city of Gumi has shuttle buses getting their juice from underground power cables.
Also, Israeli Startup ElectReon, founded by Oren Ezer in 2013, has lined 6 kilometers of roads in Israel and Sweden to prove the idea’s viability. It’ll soon embed highways in Italy and Germany with its induction technology, too. The company’s 2018 trial in Tel Aviv was a success, and so now it seeks to transform roads across Europe.
Ezer said:
“The layer of asphalt zeros out the chance of passersby getting electrocuted. There is no pyrotechnics. You get on the road. You get your charge. You keep moving.
At the current rate, the average city bus could run a full day on two hours of charging.”
ElectReon’s on-the-go charging would allow EVs to have significantly smaller power reservoirs, bringing down the cost of the vehicle by a lot compared to one with a full-size battery.
Martin Gustavsson, the project coordinator at Swedish Electric Transport Laboratory, said:
“It’s become more and more apparent that with electric roads. Cars could drive very long distances without large, heavy, and expensive batteries.”
Furthermore, since wireless charging is more convenient, it’s an easy sell for the luxury car market. Jeep is one of the few manufacturers with many new all-electric and hybrid electric models, including the Avenger, Renegade, Compass, Wrangler, Grand Cherokee, and Grand Commander. Walker, a renowned Jeep dealer in WV says that they have observed a huge surge in the sale of their electric Jeep models. Plugless is the primary brand offering wireless charging for EVs on the road today. The Nissan LEAF was the first vehicle to sport the Plugless wireless charging accessory option, and it became the most popular battery EV on the market when it started production.
Plugless is also available in the Tesla Model S so that people can charge wirelessly at home. The Model X and upcoming Model 3 will likely feature it as well.
In addition, VW, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Porche, and Audi announced plans to feature wireless charging.
In the end, the biggest challenge for charging highways is organizing an implementation method that makes logistical sense. Interoperability will be the next challenge to the widespread adoption of wireless EV charging. Research and industry leaders (Plugless manufacturers included) are collaborating on making a wireless charging standard.
Plugless said:
“It is our vision that one day shortly, EV drivers can pull up to any Plugless-enabled space for a home, workplace, or public charging. For example, a wireless charging space at the grocery store where their battery tops off while they shop. No hassling with messy cords in poor weather conditions—park and go.”
The discussion about wireless charging is prevalent, from automakers wanting to provide customers with a reason to go electric to governments aiming to decarbonize. Wireless charging gives EVs the bump to surpass the convenience of gas cars. The wireless charging market overall is expected to grow by 30% every year, reaching $27 billion by 2025. It’s an up-and-coming sector and a good sign for finally getting to the tipping point of EV mass adoption.
