TORONTO – One of the problems facing electric car owners is range anxiety – the worry that you won’t have enough of a charge to get to your destination, or the next charging station.
But what if the road you were travelling on could give you a battery boost?
Highways England, the U.K. government body responsible for road infrastructure, has announced it will begin feasible testing of electric “re-charging” lanes, which would provide a charge to vehicles as they drive along them.
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“Vehicle technologies are advancing at an ever increasing pace and we’re committed to supporting the growth of ultra-low emissions vehicles on England’s motorways and major A roads,” said Mike Wilson, Highways England’s chief highways engineer, in a press release.
“The off-road trials of wireless power technology will help to create a more sustainable road network for England and open up new opportunities for businesses that transport goods across the country.”
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The technology would see vehicles equipped with wireless transmitters. Electric cables buried under the surface of the road would generate electromagnetic fields. The energy would then picked up by a coil inside the car’s transmitter and converted into electricity.
Similar technology is already being used in South Korea, where there is a seven-mile stretch of road that charges electric buses as they pass over it.
The U.K. testing won’t be done on public roads yet, however. A test track will be built for the feasibility study that is expected to run for 18 months.
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