Electric Roads That Charge EVs In Future

Introduction

Electric cars are increasingly staking a claim in the market, growing from just 4% of global car sales in 2020 to 14% in 2022. And with that popularity comes much needed charging infrastructure. A Lack of charging infrastructure and range anxiety are among the top reasons US consumers aren’t buying EVs. We have definitely seen charging infrastructure affecting adoption, both in terms of the availability, accessibility and the cost. Biden’s infrastructure bill allocated $7.5 billion to build out America’s EV charging network, but a lot of those chargers are expected to be level two, which only gives out about 25 miles of range in an hour.

New Charging Solution

But there is another charging solution that doesn’t require stopping at a station at all. A road that could change the way we drive. It’s powering and charging this electric bus on the go wirelessly. A process where roads are connected to the grid, allowing EVs to wirelessly receive a charge while driving over electricity transmitters. Sweden, which has become a world leader in the realm of electrified roads already having taken part in four pilots, has plans to construct the world’s first permanent electrified road, and the first electric road in the US is expected to be tested in Detroit, Michigan within a year. The inductive charging project is looking at a system and implementation for electrification in vehicles on our infrastructure. So how can we take and look at different capabilities of charging infrastructure, whether it’s plugging a plug in, charging or inductive charging such as this project and create a cohesive environment for people.

How it works

Electrified roads work a lot like the wireless charging that’s in most smartphones with a transmitter coil in a phone and a wireless charger. A magnetic field is created in between allowing the phone to receive between 10 and 15W of energy without any physical connection. Now multiply that amount of power by about 3000. Bury the coils under about four inches of pavement. Add a wireless receiver to an EV and you have a working dynamic electrified road. EVs don’t currently have receivers allowing a wireless charge, but it’s relatively cheap and easy to add, and manufacturers could start to integrate this technology in the future. This approach is really a approach that can charge vehicles in any type of shape, meaning vehicles that are busses or vans or passenger cars or trucks. But it can also charge the vehicle while either driving or while standing still for a phone to charge wirelessly.

The coils have to be almost perfectly aligned for it to work. But with an electrified road, the technology allows for more leniency, so precise alignment of the coils isn’t necessary. So you have a higher tolerance of moving on the road. On having an air gap that’s tolerable, that makes it practical for using in everyday operations for cars. So it is much more of an efficient system, I would say an optimal system compared to the phone charger, which is more simplistic. These systems typically connect to the electrical grid. However, electrified roads can also be hooked up to battery hubs connected to solar panels or other sources of clean energy, which would make the process greener and allow for electric roads and disconnected areas like on an interstate highway. And that’s where we see a lot of the benefits as well, both in terms of the environment, but also in terms of economic development. And that would definitely also release some of the pressure on the grid.

Implementation of Technology

Projects around the world Sweden is one of the pioneers implementing this technology in an attempt to reduce the nation’s impact on the environment. It has already piloted four unique electrified road projects, testing out different electricity conduction techniques. We have kind of tough climate goals in Sweden that we have to reduce our carbon footprint 70%. So and that was why we were into E-roads. And now the EU will require all new cars and Member states to be electric starting in 2035, adding pressure to improve EV infrastructure. Sweden is also testing out how well this infrastructure holds up to extreme cold weather. If you build something in the road, we also have to consider that we have frozen roads in Sweden and the challenges with that so that we are actually testing that right now. One of the world’s first permanent electrified roads will be built on European Route E20, located between three major Swedish cities, but plans have been delayed due to the high cost.

Electreon Company

Electreon has several pilot programs in operation, including projects in Israel, Norway and Italy, among others. One project in Sweden, which connects the airport to the town of Visby, cost about $10.5 million and was almost entirely financed by the Swedish Transport Administration. It also has some commercial programs in the works, like its bus project running in Balingen, Germany. Once all stages of the project are complete, it will have two static charging stations and one kilometer of dynamic charging, which adds an estimated 2 to 4km of range to the battery. Electreon is also working with the state of Michigan to pilot a dynamic electrified road in Detroit within the next year, which would be the first in the US. The project costs about $6 Million, with the Michigan Dot spending about 1.9 million and Electreon covering the rest. The first location is in the city of Detroit on 14th Street. We have two static charging pads that will be installed in that area. So that’s an area where the shuttle can pull up on last mile. Delivery trucks can pull up there while they’re making the delivery, They can be getting a charge. And then we have about a quarter of a mile on 14th Street that will be installed in the pavement. That will be for In-motion charging. And now in 2024, we installing on Michigan Avenue as part of a road reconstruct project of about three quarters of a mile as part of this pilot program. They’re studying how this technology could later be implemented in Michigan at a larger scale. But even if the pilot proves successful, it could still be some time before you start to see electrified roads used more widely in the US.

Case Study

One of Electreon’s case studies in Israel is a bus line that includes 700m of electrified roads and a static charger at the bus terminal. Mass adoption While the EV market is growing at rapid rates, charging infrastructure is inherently needed to support that growth. There are about 87,000 electric vehicle charging ports in the US in 2019. Now there’s over 160,000 nationwide, nearly doubling in just three years. But studies show the US needs eight times more charging stations by 2030 to handle the coming wave of EVs. But right now, the vast majority of working electrified road projects are temporary, either case studies or pilots. The important thing is that the technology is here.

Commercial Use And Deployment

And so we’re working with the right entity to first do these pilots where you get all the the ecosystem together from the vehicles, from the road construction, from the public authorities and getting the permits and and all these things and the use cases. And once we put that in together, then you now enable a platform to grow in the state, in the city, in the country. It would also be extremely costly to electrify every road. So while it likely won’t be a regular road replacement, it could fit well in certain target areas like exit ramps, intersections and high traffic streets. We don’t view 100% of roads being electrified, but we definitely see this technology being viable both financially and also essential in rural areas where we might not have a lot of charging stations or we have what we call charging deserts.