Wireless charging on the road for EVs is a concept by Ex-NASA Scientist Khurram Afridi. He will soon develop it with his team at Cornell University to significantly improve driving experience. This concept was developed to shorten travel time as vehicles need not stop to charge their batteries; they can just keep driving all day.
A ChargePoint electric vehicle charger is displayed during the Drive The Dream event at the Exploratorium on September 16, 2013 in San Francisco, California. California Gov. Jerry Brown met with California corporate leaders at Drive The Dream to discuss progress in the adoption of electric vehicles and workplace charging stations at businesses in the state.
The idea is for the road itself to wirelessly charge an electric vehicle. There will be no need to hook up an EV using wires that would direct current or electricity to its batteries to store an additional range. This concept may seem like something from the future, especially as this level of technology is sophisticated and costly.
The venture would greatly alleviate the need for more electric charging stations in the country, and this news comes after the recent claims of Tesla to add more stations to its current 25,000 spots nationwide. Since Tesla is one of the largest EV companies here, they are the ones that have the most charging stations for EVs, spread out across different states.
Wireless Charger on the Road: How it Works
The team led by Khurram Afridi from Cornell University is now piloting a new way to charge an electric vehicle and this does not require people to divert their route and stop for a few hours to recharge. According to Cornell University's YouTube Channel, Afridi's team aims to develop this, after successfully finding a way to wirelessly charge an electric vehicle from a ground source.
This venture would not need direct contact between the car and the ground, like the wireless chargers found on smartphones that use magnets. Instead, it would have metals that would react and create oscillating energy fields to generate a high-frequency current that results in an electric charge being carried towards the car's batteries.
This technology is called an active variable reactance (AVR) rectifier, which has a piece of reacting metal under the electric vehicle, and another installed on the roads which are hooked to sources of electricity.
Is the Concept Already Under Development?
According to Driving Canada, the Ex-NASA rocket scientist is already working on the project as of now and is working on a prototype to install on the electric vehicles and the road. Khurram Afridi envisions this to give people a choice on whether go on a stop or have "unlimited range" while on the road to avoid long breaks or diverting one's route.
While this venture may surely help in improving electric vehicle charging in the country, it would not necessarily phase out electric charging stations like the ones Tesla has already installed. Unlike Tesla's Supercharger stations, these road wireless chargers would not be capable of fast charging to fill one's batteries up, unless driving on the road all day.
Additionally, the team aims to put this venture on one side of the road only, and that is on the right-most ones or carpool lanes.
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Written by Isaiah Richard
