Electric cars are increasingly staking a claim in the market, growing from just 4% of global car
sales in 2020 to 14% in 2022.
And with that popularity comes much needed charging infrastructure.
A Lack of charging infrastructure and range anxiety are among the top reasons US consumers
aren't buying EVs.
We have definitely seen charging infrastructure affecting adoption, both in
terms of the availability, accessibility and the cost.
Biden's infrastructure bill allocated $7.5 billion to build out America's EV charging
network, but a lot of those chargers are expected to be level two, which only gives out about 25
miles of range in an hour.
But there is another charging solution that doesn't require stopping at a station at all.
A road that could change the way we drive.
It's powering and charging this electric bus on the go
wirelessly.
A process where roads are connected to the grid, allowing EVs to wirelessly receive a charge while
driving over electricity transmitters.
Sweden, which has become a world leader in the realm of electrified roads already having taken
part in four pilots, has plans to construct the world's first permanent electrified road,
and the first electric road in the US is expected to be tested in Detroit, Michigan within a year.
The inductive charging project is looking at a system and
implementation for electrification in vehicles on our
infrastructure. So how can we take and look at different capabilities
of charging infrastructure, whether it's plugging a plug in, charging or inductive charging such as
this project and create a cohesive environment for people.
CNBC explores how electrified roads work and whether they'll become a widely adopted charging
solution for EVs.
Electrified roads work a lot like the wireless charging that's in most smartphones with a
transmitter coil in a phone and a wireless charger.
A magnetic field is created in between allowing the phone to receive between 10 and 15W of energy
without any physical connection.
Now multiply that amount of power by about 3000.
Bury the coils under about four inches of pavement.
Add a wireless receiver to an EV and you have a working dynamic electrified road.
EVs don't currently have receivers allowing a wireless charge, but it's relatively cheap and
easy to add, and manufacturers could start to integrate this technology in the future.
This approach is really a approach that can charge vehicles in
any type of shape, meaning vehicles that are busses or vans
or passenger cars or trucks.
But it can also charge the vehicle while either driving or while standing still.
For a phone to charge wirelessly.
The coils have to be almost perfectly aligned for it to work.
But with an electrified road, the technology allows for more leniency, so precise alignment of
the coils isn't necessary.
So you have a higher tolerance of moving on the road.
On having an air gap that's tolerable, that makes it practical for using in
everyday operations for for cars.
So it is much more of an efficient system, I would say an optimal system
compared to the phone charger, which is more simplistic.
These systems typically connect to the electrical grid.
However, electrified roads can also be hooked up to battery hubs connected to solar panels or other
sources of clean energy, which would make the process greener and allow for electric roads and
disconnected areas like on an interstate highway.
And that's where we see a lot of the benefits as well, both in terms of the environment,
but also in terms of economic development.
And that would definitely also release some of the pressure on the grid.
Right now, an estimated 43% of American roads are in mediocre or poor condition.
And one report showed there's over $750 billion worth of backlogged road and bridge repairs.
Some view this as the perfect chance to innovate.
As we rehabilitate a lot of the infrastructure, we know the
conditions of our assets here in the US.
It's an opportunity to really think about this technology and we'd be much more cost
effective to be able to install and implement this.
As we, as I said, do more major rehabilitation of interstate highways or
tollways and so forth.
Electrifying roads would only add to the hefty price of road repair and maintenance.
Electreon One company leading the charge on electrified road technology, estimated that at a
high production volume, the cost to electrify a mile of road would be about $1.2
million. While reconstruction costs per mile of a road can already cost anywhere
between 1.5 to $11 million, depending on condition and population density.
Sweden is one of the pioneers implementing this technology in an attempt to reduce the nation's
impact on the environment.
It has already piloted four unique electrified road projects, testing out different electricity
conduction techniques.
We have kind of tough climate goals in Sweden that we have to
reduce our carbon footprint 70%.
If you look at how it looked at 2015 or
14 there, the battery capacity wasn't like it is now.
So for the heavy transport, we have to look into other
solutions. So and that was why we were into E-roads.
And now the EU will require all new cars and Member states to be electric starting in 2035,
adding pressure to improve EV infrastructure.
Sweden is also testing out how well this infrastructure holds up to extreme cold weather.
If you build something in the road, we also have to consider that we have frozen roads
in Sweden and the challenges with that so that
we are actually testing that right now.
But so far it seems to be okay.
One of the world's first permanent electrified roads will be built on European Route E20, located
between three major Swedish cities, but plans have been delayed due to the high cost.
Electreon has several pilot programs in operation, including projects in Israel, Norway
and Italy, among others.
One project in Sweden, which connects the airport to the town of Visby, cost about $10.5
million and was almost entirely financed by the Swedish Transport Administration.
It also has some commercial programs in the works, like its bus project running in Balingen,
Germany. Once all stages of the project are complete, it will have two static charging
stations and one kilometer of dynamic charging, which adds an estimated 2 to 4km of range
to the battery. Electreon is also working with the state of Michigan to pilot a dynamic
electrified road in Detroit within the next year, which would be the first in the US.
The project costs about $6 Million, with the Michigan Dot spending about 1.9 million and
Electreon covering the rest.
The first location is in the city of Detroit on 14th Street.
We have two static charging pads that will be installed in that area.
So that's an area where the shuttle can pull up on last mile.
Delivery trucks can pull up there while they're making the delivery, They can be getting a charge.
And then we have about a quarter of a mile on 14th Street that will be installed in the
pavement. That will be for In-motion charging.
And then in 2024, we'll be installing on Michigan Avenue as part of a road
reconstruct project of about three quarters of a mile.
As part of this pilot program.
They're studying how this technology could later be implemented in Michigan at a larger scale.
We really are looking hard within this pilot project to look at the different use cases
that are out there. There's use cases for freight transit, but then also passenger vehicles.
But even if the pilot proves successful, it could still be some time before you start to see
electrified roads used more widely in the US.
Ramping it up is a little more difficult with inductive charging because of the infrastructure
impacts, so it does go under the pavement surface.
So we have to look at the use cases, right, that we've identified.
We're not going to go redo every road in the state of Michigan to put this
charging in. But looking at a sustainable plan forward of how that implementation would
be in those key areas where our citizens in Michigan would get the benefit.
A typical city bus in the US gets only 3.4 miles per gallon with a fuel tank that holds about
125 gallons of gasoline.
That means a diesel bus can go over 400 miles without needing a refill and an electric
busses range can sometimes max out at 150 miles, not to mention the hours it'll need to
recharge. Many of these fleet vehicles are essentially driving without stopping, meaning
batteries will be drained fast.
Operating repetitively for long hours, needing huge batteries.
A lot of tons of batteries, like maybe eight tons more.
And that costs a lot of money.
And it takes it's heavy for the roads.
In addition to dynamic charging, companies like Electreon are also creating static chargers, a
technology that's thinking could be perfect for busses.
As it halts at each stop, even if it's just for 30 seconds, it could harness enough electricity to
keep going throughout the day.
And it's pretty fantastic because that bus doesn't need to go now, suddenly in charge
overnight at the depot so you can extend the operations of the bus, you can limit
the the load that at the depot when all the busses need to charge.
One of Electreon's case studies in Israel is a bus line that includes 700m of electrified roads and
a static charger at the bus terminal.
While the EV market is growing at rapid rates, charging infrastructure is inherently needed to
support that growth.
There are about 87,000 electric vehicle charging ports in the US in 2019.
Now there's over 160,000 nationwide, nearly doubling in just three years.
But studies show the US needs eight times more charging stations by 2030 to handle the coming
wave of EVs.
But right now, the vast majority of working electrified road projects are temporary, either
case studies or pilots.
The important thing is that the technology is here.
It's there for commercial use and deployment.
And so we're working with the right entity to first do these pilots where you get
all the the ecosystem together from the vehicles, from the road construction, from the public
authorities and getting the permits and and all these things and the use cases.
And once we put that in.
Together, then you now enable a platform to grow in
the state, in the city, in the country.
It would also be extremely costly to electrify every road.
So while it likely won't be a regular road replacement, it could fit well in certain target
areas like exit ramps, intersections and high traffic streets.
We don't view 100% of roads being electrified, but we definitely see this technology
being viable both financially and also essential in rural
areas where we might not have a lot of charging stations or we have what we
call charging deserts.
I expect that we'll have focus on certain regions where this is widely
adopted in a city for commercial fleets.
And I think in ten years I see a foresee a scenario where we also have
inter-city roads between regions that have electric corridors.