Indiana and Michigan have announced separate plans to pilot test wireless EV charging roads in the near future.
Speaking at the Motor Bella outdoor auto show in Michigan this week, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer laid out plans for a new Inductive Vehicle Charging Pilot program. The program will convert a one-mile stretch of highway in Wayne, Oakland or Macomb counties into a road capable of charging an EV’s battery as it drives. According to The Detroit Free Press, it’s currently unclear how the technology will work, how much the pilot program will cost and when Michigan residents can expect it to become operational.
Earlier this summer, Indiana announced it had partnered with Purdue University to construct a similar wireless EV charging road on a yet to be determined segment of interstate highway within the state. A news release published by the Indiana Department of Transportation said the roadway would use an innovative magnetized concrete material built by a German company called Magment GmbH. The project will first entail pavement testing and analysis at Purdue before INDOT constructs a quarter-mile-long testbed road at an undetermined location. If the first two phases are successful, INDOT will go ahead with plans to convert a section of the Interstate into a wireless EV charging road.
Whitmer’s plan announced this week, by comparison, will jump right into the public phase and would skip the trial phases INDOT has outlined. In a statement sent to the Free Press, Whitmer said the project is an important part of the state’s goal of eliminating carbon emissions by 2050.
“Michigan was home to the first mile of paved road, and now we’re paving the way for the roads of tomorrow with innovative infrastructure (that) will support the economy and the environment, helping us achieve our goal of carbon neutrality by 2050,” she said.
The UK and Highways England conducted a similar wireless EV charging road pilot in 2015 on a private test track, although nothing ever came of the initiative. The UK Department for Transport also sidelined £20 million for businesses to explore using overhead wires on motorways for long-range electric trucks earlier this year. The overhead wire technology, developed by Siemens and dubbed ‘eHighway technology’, is seen as being less cost-prohibitive than wireless charging roads. The Siemens technology is already being used on a section of the Bundesstraße highway in Germany, as well.
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Comments
It’s a great idea that’s been floated around for a while, but it would be better if the charging roads were placed in congested areas, like in LA or NY. That way wireless charging can actually be used by vehicles stuck in traffic jams.
That sounds good but you don’t need to charge a car on a city commute. EVs have 200+ miles of range which is more than adequate when you charge overnight. Where you need to charge is for long-distance road trips so this would be better, say, on I-15 halfway between LA and Vegas. Of course, this is when you’re driving fast, so you need a much longer segment.
It’s sounds great if you can make use of smaller,lighter and less expensive battery packs.There are also depth of discharge and degradation issues and by keeping state of charges maintained will extend battery life.They are already doing this with buses to an extent and they charge enough at stops to make it to the next stop.
Richard P.
In NYC already has electric transit (the subway)
California already has a problem with fires. It’s probably not a good Idea to start running electric lines in the center of highways.
Indiana is a small state that boarders: Cincinnati OH; Louisville KY & Chicago IL. It has large amounts of truck traffic. Plus most of the state already looks like Its been bulldozed. Making really easy to build new stuff.
I think inductive parking spots at like Grocery and Shopping centers would make more sense.
We shall see what the Future holds.
Yeah, nothing could ever go wrong with this scale of inductive charging. Uh, let me know where these test areas are being placed so I can take a different route. Don’t want more of my internal molecules being rearranged. Might be safe for your iPhone, but your car is a a bit larger and requires a lot more power to charge. UK not following through on this might be a good place to start asking the question why?
I like the overhead electric tram idea, kinda takes me back to the 70s when this was used for buses in big city buses. Think it still is. Not a new idea. But, having these too creates a danger to anyone that might accidentally come into contact with the HV wires.
Soooo, our already taxed, burdened, and regulated to the point we can’t build it up to modern requirements electrical grid now has to power a road where there will be massive amounts of power radiated to the local environment???? Let me know how it goes.
I grew up in Indiana. They can’t even keep the car swallowing potholes out of regular roads. How could they possibly keep these highly specialized pieces of pavement from cracking/potholing/shorting? And the losses from the road/car gap will be huge. Inductive works best when it is close. Total waste of money.
You do realize the roads do that because they were literally built to do that. There are concrete mixtures/formulas that don’t do that, but of course are more expensive.
Personally, I’m sick and tired of the build-it-to-fall-apart mentality that has permeated our entire economy and culture. Light bulbs, the ones that were made after we discovered how to make them, lasted nearly 100 years. Washing machines and driers, the ones my long dead grandparents purchased when they were young, that were nearing 40 years of age when I was 10, lasted them their entire life.
There is zero reason things should be manufactured to fail when we know how to build the things so that they don’t. Building for failure is a waste of time, energy and resources. We are constantly building things, and then subsequently, unnecessarily, rebuilding things for no other reason than we designed the things to break, so that they would have to be remade.
Having said this, I get dilemma. If you build light bulbs that last 100 years, or washing machines and driers that last a last a lifetime, etc. once the market is saturated, the need for new product is gone. The factories shut down. People are unemployed, etc. But still, it’s a waste of time, energy, and resources. And, in recent history, the last 10 to 20 years, things have become completely ridiculous. Everything you buy literally breaks shortly after the warranty expires. Long-duration road-construction projects/repairs, by the time the projects are completed, the portions of it that were done first, need repaired, making the roads always under construction. And I can assure you, roads constructed 50 years ago didn’t decay as fast as roads constructed now. Why is that? Because they were designed and built that way. Because there would be no next road project if they were done properly.
Whitmer still hasn’t “fixed the damn roads” as her campaign promised. Her idea of piloting a program like this is purely political BS. She may waste time on a study, but she will be voted out of office and the next governor will focus on their own priorities…welcome to Pure Michigan!
will use more electricity to travel the mile that you will ever get from the road. What a feel good progressive BS idea this is
Ummm, let’s see, Michigan and Indiana winters. We’re talking lots of snow on the roads, which means lots of snow removal, which means lots of corrosive salt mixtures that do wonders to metal wires embedded in in the road body (concrete or asphalt). What could go wrong?!? If this “study” is to be done, do it in areas without the environmental challenges of a Michigan or Indiana, and work up to those areas after it is known the concept works. I say this knowing there will be a huge amount of federal transportation dollars involved. And lastly, a mile? Who’s kidding who? A mile hardly makes it worth the effort!
i can already see fast & furious 19 using electric roads to give dom extra boost to fly and save his family
Trolley systems with pantographs are already being used with open pit mining haul trucks. Primarily in South Africa. Caterpillar and Komatsu are offering trolley electric systems with diesel engine back up. This works great in warm weather climates were the haul road surface is stable. As soon as you get moisture from rain, snow and ice, the haul road surface becomes uneven and contact is lost between the Pantagraph and overhead catenerary wires.
Barrick Gold tried a trolley system at their open pit gold mine in Carlin, Nevada. Barrick spent nearly a hundred million dollars on their trolley system. It did not work. They scrapped it.
The trolley system only works in dry, warm climates where the road surface is dry and firm.
Komatsu is coming out with a large battery powered mining haul truck charged by an overhead trolley system.
Snow, ice, and rain in the rust belt will be an interesting test for on the fly inductive charging.
Using your tax dollars to pay for EVs. Which will in turn eliminate your automotive jobs.
EVs have little to do with going ‘green’ but mainly to reduce labor.