[ABOVE: An electric vehicle rolls over a wireless charging pad at ITIC.]
Electric highways
Lose the cables. Soon, consumers might be able to charge their electric cars while driving down the highway, thanks to research in Greenville at the International Transportation Innovation Center (ITIC).
The center is the host site for a wireless charging test bed for electric cars. The first two phases were primarily for static charging, but the next phase will work on dynamic – or in motion – wireless car charging, said CU-ICAR Principal Investigator and ITIC CTO Dr. Joachim Taiber.
“The stationary wireless charging is the technology that makes charging easier for the consumer if they have a plug-in electric vehicle, because they don’t have to worry about cables,” said Taiber, who noted that the stationary technology wasn’t in itself new, but now can more easily be standardized for commercial use. “Dynamic wireless charging – that would allow you to recharge without stopping the car.”
The project was funded by an $8.1 million grant to Oak Ridge National Laboratory from the U.S. Department of Energy. Oak Ridge subcontracted with CU-ICAR, and collaborated with ITIC, Toyota, Cisco, Duke Energy and Evatran for the project.
“I will tell you that we’ve been told that what we’ve achieved is two years ahead of our nearest competitor in terms of technology development,” said SCTAC President Jody Bryson. “This is just the tip of the iceberg.”
The $8.1 million grant that funded the wireless charging project in Greenville was one of two issued by the Department of Energy. “That team with two OEMs [was] not successful like we were,” said Bryson, who declined to say which companies were involved. “They have since reached out to us and said, ‘We couldn’t achieve what you could. We’d like to work with you as well.’”
More research into dynamic charging could essentially invert electric vehicle research, Taiber said, because a dynamic charging system would allow for smaller, lighter, lower-capacity batteries, which makes it easier to develop cheaper electric cars.
“If it’s utilized well enough, basically you reduce the cost on the vehicle side, but then you increase the investment on the infrastructure of the road,” he said. The first stage of in-motion wireless charging will be limited to lower speeds (35 miles per hour) but another option has already been identified for a project on a mile-long straightaway road.
ITIC is looking for more partners for further research and development to work with the wireless charging test bed. The stationary wireless test bed recently passed a formal project review by the U.S. Department of Energy. The test demonstrated a transfer rate of 6.9 kilowatts at 85 percent efficiency on one of two different Toyota vehicle models.
As for the future, Taiber says this kind of technology is far from impossible for the mass consumer market. “You won’t have to wait too long,” he says.
