Earlier this year, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said the wireless EV charging road the state first announced last September would be completed by 2023. It now seems as though the project has been delayed by two years, with an article on SAE.org indicating the project will actually be operational in 2025.
The pilot project will consist of a one-mile stretch of both dynamic and stationary wireless EV charging in downtown Detroit, with the SAE article indicating the Michigan Dept. of Transportation is currently conducting a feasibility study on electrifying a section of Michigan Avenue and/or 14th Street in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood. The $1.9 million project is backed by Ford, Michigan utilities provider DTE Energy and the City of Detroit.
A press release published by Whitmer’s office in February indicated construction on the one-mile stretch of single-lane road, which will use technology developed by Tel Aviv, Israel-based company Electreon, would be completed by 2023. SAE, which spoke to Electreon CEO Oren Ezer for its article, reports the project will now be completed in 2025 instead. Electreon’s technology uses rubber-coated copper coils embedded 3.15 inches beneath the road surface, which use magnetic induction to charge EVs that are both driving on the surface above or parked.
Ezer said the company’s technology has been tested at speeds of up to 49.7 mph and can be used with a wide variety of vehicle types, from passenger cars and crossovers to Class 8 trucks, buses and more.
“Our electric vehicle receiver units are modular and compatible with passenger vehicles and with light-, medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles,” he said.
GM Factory Zero
This is one of several Michigan projects supported by the Big Three aimed at accelerating and promoting EV adoption. GM is building a large new Ultium battery plant in the state, which will provide battery cells to its various EV production facilities there, which include Factory Zero in Detroit-Hamtramck and Orion Assembly in Orion Township.
Subscribe to GM Authority for more GM electric vehicle news, GM-related politics news and around-the-clock GM news coverage.
Comments
Sorry GOV Whitmer-less your pet project is delayed just like everything else in this country. Say thank you SLEEPY JOE.
Is this fake charging roadway as effective as her fake kidnapping????
This is dumb, no vehicle can do this and there are no plans from any manufacture yet. Seems she is being paid millions to put this in. A waste of tax payer money.
@Joe
It is not stupid and ALL Automakers are working on this.
I came up with this idea twenty years ago after reviewing some data developed by Nikola Tesla. The basics of the energy transfer is so simple, it makes one laugh.
Yet it’s highly inefficient. It’s the same process as wireless phone chargers. It’s the creating of an EM field. Most energy is just lost to the field. It used up in charging.
And much less efficient with giant vehicles that sit unnecessarily high off the ground like all the monstertrucks and SUVs everyone MUST have. This will work most efficiently the closer the vehicle is to the field. Too bad all that really matters to most is virtue signaling from the highest seating position.
Thats ok, I can wait. Maby by then I will be able to afford a electric vehicle. For now I will continue to pay almost $100 to fill my tank
Pipe dream.
She can’t even “fix the damn roads” we have like her campaign promised. They will pay millions of dollars to re-pave this one mile stretch of road only to see it crumble and become a sea of potholes within a couple of years. What a waste.
Nobody with half a brain ever cancels these ‘pie in the sky’ products…
Think Elon Musk’s “Rust-O-Loop”, (Hyperloop) which got zinged with the name since they never bothered to coat the steel tunnels… Nobody there ever foresaw things like expansion and contraction – especially within the SAME length of pipe used to enclose the train tunnel.
(Sunshine on the TOP of the pipe would make it longer than the cool bottom of the pipe – leading to splits, cracks, and leaks).
Even if someone competent got it to work longer than the mile section they actually built (without the train !!! hahaha) a sub-atmospheric tunnel would have been a certain death trap if there was ever a slight problem along its length.
At least SpaceX seems to have competant people – a rarety these days.
And real companies seem to fall for this crap all the time… I remember less than 10 years ago ABB (Asea-Brown-Bavari), normally considered a legitimate conglomerate), had a plan for Electric Busses that Included a SUBSTATION worth of equipment at EVERY bus stop…. No wonder companies like BYD took over the market by simply putting large capacity batteries in the busses, and are only charged back at the bus depot at the end of the shift. Those require no ‘Bus Stop Infrastructure’ at all.
I hope GM’s Barra resists the temptation to forward corporate largess to these silly and more silly projects.
The Future will be Conductive Charging on all Highways. I don’t think it will be needed on City streets though.
This will bring money into the cities and States and more importantly it will allow Automakers to have a much smaller Battery Pack in all the vehicles.
No, not conductive, but inductive charging.
There are currently no tolls on Michigan Highways sans bridges, who will pay the electric bill? How will this fit into Consumers Energy’s accelerated decommissioning of Coal plants without similar capacity replacement plants? The inconvenient realities of environmentalism above all else leads to economic and infrastructure disaster… These are the questions the powers at be wont’ allowed to be asked…
If anything it’s better to put this in truck/rest stops and loading depots.
How is the water in Flint? How about providing clean water for the tax payers before working on EV charging Gov Whitmer? Typical leftist policies. It’s no different in California. These leftist spend billions on a stupid train and yet we have major water issues. Lack of water that is.
You know bunches of republican millionaires came to flint to offer to fix the water problem, and several liberal billionaires including Mr. Musk, but flint rejected the money from every millionaire, charitable organization and even multiple corporations because everyone required Flint to open their legers to prove the money wouldn’t be wasted. Flint wants the feds to come in and drop in excess of 1 billion so it can be wasted on special projects and their good old boy system. Darn democrat city council.
Is there a cost to charge your vehicle on this proposed charging road, and if so, how does it work? Poor journalism GMA!
Autoline had a special on this. There are different Payment ideas. Private Companies can pay for the roads if they get to collect Vehicle Date. Or we the Drivers can pay. We shall see. I would prefer to pay and not have Data Collected.
They will make you pay while tracking your every move and shutting your vehicle down entirely if Wrongthink is detected
Put this in Downtown Detroit? Heck, all the parts will be stolen before it can even be built.
No the the engineers would be kidnapped and shot by Michigan “militiamen” before ground would be broken 😉..
Guestt – you mean the FBI?
Why is everyone downvoting me I’m not a troll?
Much sooner put my faith in the Michigan Militia than Whitmer and the totally corrupt scum-oozing radical leftist Democrat controlled Federal Government. Free Peter Navarro NOW!
🤤https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-peter-navarros-arrest-third-world
Probably because the definition of militia is any civilian citizen over 18 that is able to fight for their country on US soil, so if you are over 18 and capable, you are part of the US militia along with most everyone else posting here. Saying that patriotic citizens would kidnap and shoot engineers doesn’t go over too well.
The concept of wireless charging while you drive is interesting and would require much smaller batteries in EVs, the problem is the extreme expense of redoing all the interstate highways and smaller highways with electrification in America would be humongous. And on top of that no EVs are capable of this right now. One would have to buy a device and have it installed professionally by the dealer, so as not to void warranties.
I think Michigan taxpayer money may be better spent on adding 350 kW charging stations to all the rest stops in the state.
Ford investing in a token 1.9mil ev project that won’t work in Michigan to make local politicians feel good while taking near 900mil in taxpayers money from Tennessee to build a new city.