Keeping electric cars topped up with fresh electricity isn’t easy but it certainly isn’t as challenging as keeping lorries or buses supplied with power.
Travelling over long distances with precious little downtime, electrifying large vehicles has proven to be challenging. However, Electreon, based in Tel-Aviv, is working to make charging buses, lorries, and cars alike absolutely painless with wireless in-road charging.
Auto Futures spoke to Asaf Maman, Vice President of Commercial Development in the US, to find out more.
Making In-Roads
“Electreon’s system is the optimal long term EV charging infrastructure solution,” says Maman.
Electreon’s Asaf Maman
Electreon’s system is based on inductive energy transfer and transmits energy over the air from one could to another. In layman’s terms, it’s like the wireless charging for a phone, but for a vehicle.
“Our management unit transfers power from the electricity grid to the in-road (or paved areas) wireless charging coil segments when an authorized vehicle is directly above an in-road segment,” explains Maman.
“Our vehicle unit receives the wireless energy from the wireless charging coils and transfers it to the vehicle battery. The communication with vehicles is managed in real-time. Our Cloud-based management software enables live monitoring and full oversight of all the vehicles using the system charging.”
Electreon’s setup means that, in practice, vehicles can charge as they drive – meaning no breaks in service for buses, no lengthy charging stops for lorries, and no need for huge charging stations for regular cars.
However, it isn’t simply a theoretical matter – Electreon is already running real-world pilots using the tech.
“Electron has partnered with various key mobility champions to establish pilots addressing real EV transport use cases. The feedback we’ve received from our partners, clients, and the general public who live around our project site locations has been overwhelmingly positive,” says Maman.
“For example, after the successful conclusion of our Tel-Aviv pilot for one bus, our pilot partner the Dan Bus Company, one of Israel’s leading bus operators, selected Electreon to provide wireless charging solution for 200 buses, the world’s first and largest commercial wireless charging project for public transit.”
However, it isn’t just in its native Israel that Electreon is making in-roads. The company has ongoing projects in Sweden, Italy, Germany, and, most recently, Detroit.
“We have won a request for proposal by Michigan DOT to deploy wireless EV charging infrastructure in the City of Detroit,” says Maman.
“Towards submitting our offer, we partnered with the City, automotive, and engineering companies in order to offer an ‘open-source’ charging infrastructure to be used by interested fleets and mobility leaders who wish to commercially integrate the Electreon Wireless Charging solution suite into their electrification and ZE strategic initiatives.”
Roads Paved With Gold
While Electreon’s system certainly makes sense from an operational point of view, the thought of tearing up every road to build electric induction charging rails underneath will likely make politicians and planners worry for their wallets.
However, according to Maman, Electreon’s service isn’t that expensive.
“Through economies of scale, Electreon’s solution optimizes the use of hardware, simplifies grid-connection operation and results in smoother and more cost-effective operations and maintenance compared to conductive (plug-in) charging,” he explains.
“These benefits are translated to a very attractive Total Cost of Operation (TCO). The system is relatively simple to install. Electreon works with infrastructure and construction companies to plan a speedy and minimal impact deployment of the system.
“Over the years, we have managed to optimize the process up to deploy of more than 1000 yards of our wireless ERS to be completed in one night and working with one of our construction partners on automating the deployment processes, so we can install the system at larger scales.”
Technicians laying Electreon’s charging coils
In practice, according to Maman, this all translates to a cost of $650,000-800,000 per 1,000 yards.
“We’re offering flexible finance models, including a full end-to-end solution – Charging as a Service, to eliminate upfront costs and accelerate EV adoption.”
Of course, lorries, buses, and cars (sadly) won’t be getting free, limitless electricity.
“In the same way we consume road services such as toll-roads,” explains Maman, “we and our partners (whether government or road operators) will offer a Charging-as-a-Service model – road users will pay for the energy they consume in a subscription or pay-as-you-go model.”
This model is absolutely integral to Electreon’s plans.
“Electreon’s system can provide dynamic and static wireless charging in every environment. Like many typical infrastructure projects, the project’s commercial feasibility depends on its utilization,” explains Maman.
“We want to install our services where there is a real need – that is heavy fleet traffic to begin and then heavy traffic areas, so such a utilization can be examined on a case-by-case basis.”
The Road to Commercialisation
But is this all feasible? There are a lot of independent factors at play with Electreon’s business model – getting cities and road networks to agree, getting operators to put charging pads underneath the vehicles, and more.
But, Meman says that all these concerns should, in the not-too-distant future, prove unfounded.
Fitting charging pads to vehicles, for example, is easy.
“Integrating Electreon’s receiver is relatively simple. Once an integration protocol is established with the manufacturer or authorized up-fitter, the actual installation can be done in less than one day. This can be done after-market or built into the OEM’s assembly line,” explains Maman.
And the trials are proving popular when fitted.
“Although the infrastructure could be easily removed once a pilot is completed, our infrastructure is literally invisible and creates no aesthetic or operational impact for the road,” says Maman.
“In some cases, where the pilots are deployed on public roads – several of the projects are being extended in time and in scale, so our intent is to keep it there as part of commercial upscales of the pilot projects.”
Scaling the the business won’t be easy but Maman and the rest of the Electreon team are confident that they can continue to convert people to the benefits of in-road dynamic charging.
“During the next five years, Electreon aims to continue building out our strong and growing ecosystem of partners,” says Maman, “with major fleet operators, with public and private channel partners in the transit, automotive, transportation and infrastructure sectors to complement our capabilities and establish commercial projects in the public transit, trucking and AV that could be scaled up during the second half of this decade.
“We are looking at a total revolution of the way we perceive mobility today, with the key elements of electrification, automation and connectivity of the vehicles that will require parallel supportive flexible, convenient and hands-free charging infrastructure that solves the issue of range anxiety.”
While replacing petrol stations with charging stations might seem easy, in the long run, Electreon’s system might be the way forward.
Keyword: “A Total Revolution of How we Perceive Mobility” – Electreon VP Asaf Maman