Billed as a world first, Israel-based Electreon Wireless has been chosen by the Swedish Transport Administration to build a dynamic electric road that charges vehicles as they drive along it.
Costing approximately $12.5m (£9.55m), the 1.6-km stretch of inductively active roadway will be created on a 4.1-km route from Visby Airport on the island of Gotland to the centre of Visby city.
The public-private initiative built by Smart Road Gotland will be the first in the world to charge inductively both an electric truck and a bus while in full motion, reports The Jerusalem Post.
Other trials of so-called “electric highways” have involved vehicles fitted with pantographs that scrape along under overhead power cables.
Electreon will put its copper coil technology, which transfers electricity wirelessly, under the road’s surface.
An electric shuttle bus and an electric lorry will test the road in different seasons to see if it can be rolled out to Sweden’s highways.
The Swedish government has an ambition to create 2,000km of electric highways.
“We, the Swedish Transport Administration, believe that electric roads are an important contribution to reducing CO2 emissions from heavy transportation,” said Jan Pettersson, Swedish Transport Administration program manager.
“Demonstrating and evaluating new technical solutions for electric routes is one of our most important steps in our long-term plan for a potential roll-out of electrified routes on the heavy road network in Sweden.”
Image from an Electrean promotional video (Electreon)
