Electreon is an Israeli publicly listed company with the sole objective of commercializing wireless electric road systems.
One would ask why an electric highway is necessary in this day and age, when EV battery range and charge times are constantly improving. That’s an excellent question.
Individually owned automobiles and other vehicles may not benefit from wireless on-the-go charging, but fleet vehicles, particularly those with many drivers, will.
“By considerably reducing battery size, cost, and weight while enhancing operating efficiency,” the business notes, “Electreon gives governments, communities, and fleet operators the most sustainable and cost-effective approach toward 100 percent global electrification.”
Electreon points out that, in addition to financial benefits for fleet owners, an electric roadway may give holistic benefits in cities. Among the benefits, they mention many factors that are important in the context of congested metropolitan surroundings with limited space:
- There are no charging stations.
- Conserving land resources and reducing visual threats
- Using current infrastructure
- There is no requirement for additional grid infrastructure or transformation stations.
- Distributed renewable energy is encouraged.
The Electreon system is quite simple to deploy. Copper coils buried in asphalt serve as the basic framework. A management unit transmits power from the grid to the coils, which is loaded with information about on-the-road automobiles. All that is required is a receiver on the vehicle’s floor.
Electreon has claimed the first wireless electric road system in Germany, intended for an electric bus shuttle run by Karlsruhe Transport Company, VBK.
The business is also working on projects in Italy, Sweden, and Tel Aviv that are especially intended for buses and other heavy duty use cases. However, Electreon’s mile-long electric highway project in Detroit seems to be its most ambitious, broad-reaching, and influential initiative to date.
Reference- Businesswire, The New York Times, Electreon website, Clean Technica