The next generation of electric cars could be charged wirelessly and even powered up as they drive over electrified roads, claims a company backed by engineering conglomerate Arup.
Employing the same technology used to charge electric toothbrushes, HaloIPT says its wireless charging system could drive greater use of electric cars and overcome drivers’ fears of forgetting to recharge them.
The company recently demonstrated adapted electric cars in London that could recharge themselves simply by parking over a transmitter pad in the road.
The Citroën electric cars were fitted with receiver pads on the underside of the car, allowing the cars to be powered up automatically and wirelessly.
Drivers of existing electric cars such as the G-Wiz, Mitsubishi i-MiEV and Nissan Leaf, have to connect a cable from a socket in the car to mains in car parks and at home.
“There are a number of issues that wireless charging solves,” said Anthony Thompson, HaloIPT’s chief executive. “People are inherently lazy and don’t like having to take action. With our system, you can recharge without having to make a conscious decision,” he said.
The technology works using inductive charging and the pads in the road can be buried under asphalt, making them effectively invisible.
While other companies are working on similar technology, HaloIPT claims its system can charge with greater lateral movement — meaning parking accurately is not so important — and a greater gap between the pads than rivals.
The company has already trialled wireless charging using buses in New Zealand and Milan, but there are currently no wireless charging bays in the United Kingdom and none of the car makers has adopted the technology.
In spite of the news that electric car sales in the UK had dropped nearly 90% in two years, to just 55 last year, HaloIPT views the UK as a key market globally for electric cars.
“It offers good government support for them and it has lots of early adopters,” said Thompson. “Germany and France also have big electric-car programmes and California is pushing along quite nicely.”
Starting in January 2011, a government subsidy will offer up to £5 000 off new electric cars, which it expects will help drive sales of about 8 600 of the vehicles in 2011.
As well as wireless charging bays, Thompson views wireless charging roads as “technologically possible” and says getting such charging lanes to most of the UK’s population would cost about £60-billion.
“By electrifying the roads, you shift the argument from energy being stored to energy being distributed,” he said. “Batteries could be smaller and drivers wouldn’t have to worry about range.”
However, David Bott, the director of innovation programmes at the Technology Strategy Board, has expressed scepticism about whether such charging lanes are practical.
“It’s scientifically feasible, but whether it’s scalable is another matter,” he said. Two of the main obstacles to the take-up of the firm’s technology are standards and cost.
HaloIPT estimates it would cost £3 000 to £3 500 to retrofit an existing electric car with the wireless pad and, to make it affordable, car makers would need to be persuaded to incorporate the technology in new cars. —