Electreon, the Israeli in-road wireless electric vehicle charging technology company, has announced a year-long extension of the Smartroad Gotland pilot project in Sweden, which includes demonstrating how wireless charging infrastructure can be upgraded as the technology evolves.
The €2 million project extension, funded by the Swedish Transport Administration, includes upgrading 400m of the existing road with higher capacity coils. This, says Electreon, will demonstrate the technology is future proof by testing the next generation equipment and also deploying enhanced software capabilities including billing features.
The effectiveness of the upgrade will be tested using the long-haul e-truck and commercial passenger electric airport shuttle bus that have been operating on the wireless charging infrastructure for the past year.
Third-party endurance and stress testing will be undertaken by the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI) who will assess the impact of road construction and heavy-duty truck use on the charging coils and overall system performance. Additional third-party endurance tests of the technology are currently being carried of as part of the BASt project in Germany and the Arena of the Future project in Italy.
Jan Pettersson, program manager of electrification, Swedish Transport Administration said, “We are very positive about the opportunity to test higher wireless charging performance, as well as road durability. Now that the corona restrictions have eased, we are also looking forward to spreading the knowledge from the project more widely.”
Government stakeholders, commercial fleet operators, and businesses interested in the technology are welcome to visit the project site, says Electreon.
