Israel and Sweden experiment with a new way to increase the uses of electric cars.
Wider up take in electric cars face challenges, including few charging hubs, slow charging & costly batteries. But copper embedded ‘electric highways’ may be the answer.
Two companies-one in Israel & the other in Sweden-are already testing the concept says the New York Times.
In Israel a small start Electreon “has placed copper coils under 900 feet of circular pavement that transmit recharging wireless energy to an electric Renault Zoe test car as it drives by.”
“Electreon is aiming to electrify urban bus and shuttle routes first, in an effort to clean Israel’s city air and reduce the country’s dependence on imported oil.”
The city of Tel Aviv and local, private bus company Dan are planning to deploy a mile of electrified road at the end of the year. Gradually expanding deployment of the coils to specified lanes around the city for buses, trucks and eventually autonomous cars.
Sweden is planning a similar project on the Baltic Sea island of Gotland using Electreon technology. That project will recharge an airport shuttle bus supplied by Dan and an electric truck at a cost of $12 million, mostly financed by the Swedish government.
The test will be an initial step in Sweden’s plans to eventually build more than a thousand miles of electrified high-speed highways at a cost of $3 billion.
More detail: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/07/business/energy-environment/electric-roads-cars-israel-sweden.html