Inductive Charging Highway Section to Be Built in Florida
8th May 2023
The Norwegian company ENRX wants to inductively charge electric vehicles with 200 kW while driving on a section of highway in Florida. A one-mile section of a four-lane highway near Orlando is to be electrified.
ENRX was founded in March this year, as a merger of EFD Induction, a provider of induction heating solutions, and IPT Technology, an expert in wireless power transmission. ENRX has teamed up with the Central Florida Expressway Authority (CFX) and the Aspire Engineering Research Center for an initiative to build a 1.6-kilometre section on a four-lane highway near Orlando that will inductively charge the batteries of moving electric vehicles at 200 kW.
The principle is clear: the electric vehicle batteries are fitted with a special receiver pad and charged as they drive over the coils embedded in the road. In the process, the energy is transferred from these coils to the receiver pad mounted on the vehicle floor, which according to ENRX should provide “a safe, wireless power supply” even at motorway speeds.
Not in California. Not in New York. Not in Bernie Sanders’ state. Not in Elizabeth Warren’s state. In Florida–Ron DeSantis’ state.
May 9th, 2023 at 07:02
I have an IT background and a few years ago I did some basic calculations. For comparison, an average bolt of lightning has enough electrical power that, if it could be harnessed, would run an all-electric home for several days. Equivalently, it equals roughly three full charges of an EV battery. (Feel free to do your own math.) OK, what’s that got to do with inductive charging? Simple: while the scientific basis for this is sound, it’s (probably) not practical in the real world. Wireless charging has been around for decades for cordless toothbrushes and more recently, for mobile phones and the like. A notable fact: it takes hours to fully charge these. Now I ask you: intuitively, just how much of a charge woud an EV get, passing over such a charging array for a matter of seconds? If you answered “virtually useless,” go to the head of the class. For such a scheme to work, an EV would have to remain over the charging coils for many hours if not days. The scheme is simply unworkable.
May 10th, 2023 at 04:19
The fact that a scheme is worthless never stopped proglodyte governments in the past. Look at how many billions they spend on light rail setups that very few people use and that lose large amounts of taxpayer money every year.The Amtiplanner has a blog devoted to documenting the stupid things governments do in the name of ‘mass transit’.