The future of mobility points to an emissions-free scenario with autonomous and connected vehicles. The electric car will replace cars with a combustion engine and both micromobility and shared mobility will have a weight in large urban centers like never before. Experts calculate that this new panorama that is coming will be a reality before reaching the equator of this century.
There are still a few decades to go before this paradigm shift in the way of understanding mobility becomes a fact. Until then, it will be necessary to deepen the search for solutions to reach a stage in which electric cars offer greater ranges of autonomy than those currently on the market. Most of the electric models that we can currently find in dealerships are within the range of 150-400 kilometers of autonomy.
One of the alternatives for electric cars to compete with gasoline and diesel cars in terms of autonomy could come from other charging solutions that go beyond batteries. Induction charging is one of the options being considered by the automotive industry and various experiments have been carried out for some time to verify its effectiveness.
One of the latest tests has been successfully carried out by Electreon, a leading company in wireless electric charging technology. The Israeli company has announced the achievement of a new world record for the longest distance traveled by an electric passenger car without stopping.
In a 100-hour demonstration, a Toyota RAV4 equipped with Electreon’s patented Wireless Electric Road technology covered a total of 1,942.56 kilometers. A total of 55 drivers took part in the test, taking over in two-hour shifts.
With this experiment, the startup aims to demonstrate how induction charging technology can overcome one of the biggest challenges facing electromobility and reduce dependence on large batteries. The Toyota RAV4-PHEV’s 18 kWh compact battery was continuously charged on the electrified road as the vehicle drove around the circuit.
The car never ran out of autonomy and stopped emitting 373 kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO2) that a car equipped with a thermal engine would have released.
This charging-in-motion system works by using copper coils strategically installed under the asphalt. These coils are responsible for transferring electrical energy through the road and the cars that drive on it absorb it through receivers installed in the underbody. Once the energy is captured, it is transferred to the battery, which in turn transmits it to the engine while the car is moving.
The advantages offered by wireless charging go far beyond the extension of the range of autonomy. If on the one hand it allows you to travel longer distances without the need to recharge, with the consequent time spent for it, on the other hand, it eliminates the need to equip large batteries. This circumstance contributes to reducing the environmental impact and lowering the cost of the car, since batteries are the most expensive component of an electric vehicle.
Electreon announced in December 2022 that it will implement the first public wireless charging project in the German city of Balingen to power the electrical system of a bus. The facility will be 1 kilometer long and will be ready by the end of this year. The infrastructure budget amounts to 3.2 million euros. Other towns in Sweden, France and Belgium are negotiating with Electreon to implement similar systems, as reported by the Israeli company itself.
