Electric cars are old news by now, but the one thing the industry hasn’t seemed to quell fears over is battery life and how to keep cars charged. Charging stations are few and far between, requiring you to leave your car there for prolonged periods and restricting how far you can stray – it’s just not the same as taking a pit stop at the pumps.
The answer to this conundrum might have been tucked away in our childhoods all this time. The Swedish government plans to cut fossil fuel powered transport to zero by 2030, forcing them to look for the best ways to keep their roads and economy moving. One such way was the installation of the world’s first electrified road.
Looking a bit like a Scalextric track, the eRoadArlanda uses a track in the road, which an arm on the underside of a vehicle can lower and attach to as it travels along. This is just a test for now, with the stretch of road containing the track being only 1.2 miles long. There are plans for more roads to have this single track embedded, with a national map drafted to show how it could be rolled out.
Sweden has identified the transportation industry as ripe for change to help them meet their changing policy on fossil fuels. The current stretch goes between the Stockholm Arlanda airport and a nearby logistics centre, billing drivers based on their energy consumption.
Credit to eRoadArlanda for the images.
The initial cost to install this technology might a little eye-watering, but at roughly €1m per kilometre it is actually thought to be a much lower cost compared with introducing an urban tram system. Safety concerns have also been addressed, with the road said to be completely safe to walk on even when flooded with water, because the voltage would so low.
It should be pointed out that Sweden would not need to cover their entire road network with these tracks, since vehicles will carry charge with them and simply recharge once they hit another stretch with the tracks embedded. The boon of electrified roads also means manufacturing vehicles with smaller batteries will save costs, while older vehicles could be retrofitted with the technology.
So maybe now we can stop sweating of the range anxiety which has often accompanied electric vehicles. While this may not be a viable option for larger countries, it could certainly work in smaller European nations.
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