Electric Car Electrified By Electric Road While Driving

One of the biggest obstacles to widespread acceptance and usage of electric vehicles (EVs) is range. American motorists are simply reluctant to buy an automobile that they can only drive for 100 miles at a time. This “range anxiety” is compounded by two other elements: The charging infrastructure in the U.S. is still in its infancy, meaning there just are not that many places to juice up; and charging an EV requires a pretty substantial investment of time—sometimes up to eight hours. This makes a long road trip in an EV next to impossible.

But what if there were alternatives? What if we could continually charge an EV while were were driving it? What if we never had to worry about charging stations? What if our highways were the charging stations?

image via Stanford University

That’s just what Stanford University researchers may have just discovered. The scientists say they’ve designed a high-efficiency charging system that uses magnetic fields to wirelessly transmit large electric currents between metal coils placed several feet apart. The long-term goal of the research is to develop an all-electric highway that wirelessly charges cars and trucks as they cruise down the road.

The new technology has the potential to dramatically increase the driving range of electric vehicles and eventually transform highway travel, according to the researchers. Their results are published in the journal Applied Physics Letters.

“Our vision is that you’ll be able to drive onto any highway and charge your car,” Shanhui Fan, an associate professor of electrical engineering, said in a statement. “Large-scale deployment would involve revamping the entire highway system and could even have applications beyond transportation.”

[source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Earthtechling/~3/wR-byTqx5K0/]