
Mobile Tracking and Consulting Services says the Electric Highway is coming to a road near you
Here’s what Mobile Tracking and Consulting Services learned from Stanford:
Stanford researchers have designed a new technology that could lead to wireless charging of electric vehicles while they cruise down the highway.
Road works. Inconsiderate drivers. Congestion. Today’s drivers have their fair share of stress already. But now there is a new malaise for the modern motorist: range anxiety.
That is the term given to drivers of electric cars that are struck by the sudden fear that their vehicle does not have enough charge to reach its destination. Most of us have experienced that sinking feeling when the little orange indicator light comes on to tell us we are low on petrol, but there is not a gas station in sight. Imagine that, combined with the feeling that you get when your cellphone starts beeping because the battery is low, and you are nowhere near a plug. That gets you close to the feeling of range anxiety.
A Stanford University research team has designed a high-efficiency charging system that uses magnetic fields to wirelessly transmit large electric currents between metal coils placed several feet apart. The long-term goal of the research is to develop an all-electric highway that wirelessly charges cars and trucks as they cruise down the road.