Charging an electric vehicle while you’re driving might sound good in theory, but will it ever come to fruition? We find out.
Norway recently announced it has started testing wireless electric vehicle (EV) chargers embedded into a stretch of road, allowing EV drivers to charge while they drive.
According to multiple overseas reports, a 100m stretch of road in the Norwegian city of Trondheim will be tested for a year, but unfortunately it is not yet available to the public and is reserved for electric buses.
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Konrad Pütz, Director of Transportation for the Trøndelag County Authority, previously said the project “will provide important knowledge” for the city as it looks to increase its bus operations “in the greater Trondheim area by 2029”.
“Inductive charging of vehicles in motion can be an important technology for the transport sector,” Pütz said in a media statement.
“We want to contribute to reducing the barriers to making use of inductive charging under challenging winter conditions and learn how to make it successful.”
Despite Norway making headlines for its pilot program, it’s not the first or only country to test this technology, with a number of cities working on something similar.
Israeli company Electreon – one of the start-up tech companies building wireless EV road chargers – has launched similar trial programs across various countries in Europe, the United States, Asia and the Middle East.
According to a December 2023 Drive report, a 400m street in Detroit became the first road in North America to successfully charge an electric vehicle wirelessly.
Built by Electreon with help from the Michigan state government, the road was able to charge a modified Ford Transit van, managing a peak 19kW of charging capacity.
With various countries testing wireless EV charging on roads, is there a chance we’ll see this technology be available for public use in Australia? Here’s what you need to know.
Will we ever see wireless EV charging roads in Australia?
It’s unlikely we’ll see publicly available wireless road chargers in Australia anytime soon.
Federal road authorities said expanding the nation’s public charging infrastructure for the 180,000-odd electric vehicles on Australian roads is more of a priority.
“The Australian Government recognises the importance of public electric vehicle charging infrastructure in our transition to decarbonise the transport sector,” a Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water spokesperson told Drive.
“That’s why we are expanding the rollout of public charging infrastructure through the $500 million Driving the Nation Fund.”
The department said it’s working with the NRMA on creating a “backbone” of a national public charging infrastructure. An unspecified amount of the Driving the Nation Fund will go towards 117 EV charging stations “on key highway routes” at 150km intervals across Australia.
These charging stations will be located at “known blackspots” and will prioritise regional and remote communities.
Instead, wireless EV road chargers could be seen on commercial truck routes across Australia as the country looks to electrify its long-haul transportation.
Earlier this year, Swinburne University announced its plans to conduct a project to test the viability of wireless charging roads for heavy vehicles like trucks and buses on country roads.
According to Swinburne University, electrifying heavy vehicles “could save Australia $324 billion by 2050”. However, ensuring these cars have enough charge to cover long distances “is an urgent roadblock”.
Unlike the 19kW charging output found on the US road, Swinburne’s $8.2 million program – supported by a $3 million government grant – could utilise a 50kW charging capability, akin to the slowest public DC charger found in the country.
According to Project Lead and New Energy Technology Research Group, Professor Mehdi Seyedmahmoudian, Australia is uniquely positioned to adopt wireless road chargers given the vast size of the country.
“In Australia, the landscape is very different because we are a huge country, distances are very large, and dynamic wireless power transfer is something very attractive for the future of transport,” Professor Seyedmahmoudian said in a media statement.
While publicly available wireless road chargers remain in their testing phase across the globe, various manufacturers and companies have started working on at-home wireless EV charging stations.
In an interview with renowned car enthusiast and former late-night talk show host Jay Leno, Lars Moravy, Tesla’s VP of Vehicle Engineering, said the brand is in the process of developing a wireless charging system.
“We’re working on inductive charging. So you don’t even need to plug something in at that point. You just pull in your garage, drive over the pad, and you’re charging,” Moravy said.
Technically speaking, BMW was the first manufacturer to market with a cordless charging pad that can charge a battery-powered car, albeit for a hybrid model.
The inductive charging pad was reserved for the German car maker’s 530e plug-in hybrid sedan and was initially launched in Germany in 2018 before it was offered in the US a year later.
BMW claimed the system allowed the “safe transfer of energy”, with a claimed 85 per cent efficiency output and a charging power of 3.2kW.
However, it never reached commercial viability and remained a pilot program for US customers, with the technology nowhere to be seen nearly six years after the initial announcement.
Tim Washington, CEO of electric car charging company Jet Charge, said while wireless road chargers are more beneficial for “long-haul transport that don’t have time to stop and charge”, other charging solutions like battery swapping – an EV technology that allows the exchange of depleted battery packs for fully charged ones – are more realistic as they “may turn out to be cheaper”.
Additionally, there are a myriad of questions that need to be addressed before inductive charging reaches the public.
“We don’t have a per-kilometre rate for wireless EV road chargers in Australia as they are all under trial around the world. We don’t expect it to be commercially viable considering the other options [like traditional public charging] that are out there,” Washington told Drive.
“This is especially true if you consider the complicated maintenance that may [be] required with these systems. You will [also] need to ensure that all the vehicles are capable of wireless charging, at the moment no vehicles on the mass market can do this.”
While each company or manufacturer might have its system, generally speaking, wireless or ‘inductive’ charging requires three key parts: a main power source (like a wall box or ground pad); a ground connector like an induction pad (usually found underneath the asphalt); and a corresponding receiver – attached to the underside of a car – that allows the vehicle to accept the transfer of energy.
MORE: Wireless electric car charging explained: How it works and why it’s the future
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