From 2GreenEnergy Supporter Audrea Cook: Inductive Charging Is Coming To The Electric Vehicle World, But Don't Hold Your Breath

(Here is the first of what I hope to be many guest submissions from my colleague Audrea Cook.  Here, she covers inductive charging, a topic of great importance to the migration toward electric transportation.  Thanks, Audrea.  – Craig)

Inductive Charging is the wave of the future in an industry that embraces ever changing technology and it is as competitive as any UNC vs Duke Basketball game ever was.  First, what is inductive charging?

Inductive charging happens when the primary coil in the charger induces a current in the secondary coil in the device being charged. As pictured below, an electric vehicle would drive over the grid and would be charged while waiting at a traffic light or a loading and unloading station.

Why is this a better application? When the vehicle drives over the magnet in the road there is about an 6.7-inch gap between road an vehicle  and a 85% charging efficiency at 100 KW from road to bus. Also the batteries are about a third of the size that are currently in electric cars. Smaller batteries equal smaller cost.

What is the ideal market for this application? The current market is aiming at airports, amusement parks, college campuses, and on a bigger scale, public transportation.

In August of 2013 in Gumi, South Korea, wirelessly charged buses were debuted. The people at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology developed the Online Electric Vehicle system where a cable runs under the street and charges the bus when it makes incremental stops. Cities around the world have bought into the trial of inductive charged buses and this is precisely why corporations such as BYD are looking into this market and wanting to dominate it.

However, there is a thought that we are still as much as 10 years away from seeing the inductive charging platform as a mainstay in our society.  There are safety issues still that have to be resolved and the science and chemical makeup behind batteries is evolving daily.  It is a widely held belief the electric vehicle industry has some years ahead before mass development. So for now, the game will still be played as hard as ever, which means we as the consumer will benefit from a more efficient transportation method with less impact on our environment.