My Car Drives, Parks And Charges Itself For Me b4in.org/s7HQ Imagine you are rushing to catch a train but must first park your electric car inside the station garage. You lose precious time searching for a space, ideally one where you can charge your vehicle, which might cause you to miss the train. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just drop off the car in front of the station and let it do the rest? Soon it will be possible, thanks to V-CHARGE, an EU ICT research project. Successful tests took place at Stuttgart airport in April 2014. In the future, more and more people are expected to drive electric cars due to energy consumption and environment reasons. As a result, people are also likely to switch more frequently from one transport mode to another – creating the need for better parking solutions at transport hubs. To prepare for this mobility shift, the V-CHARGE consortium – comprising six partners from four countries — is working on a fully automated parking – and charging – system for electric cars at public car parks. Currently they have two electric test vehicles, one in Wolfsburg, and one in Zurich, and a third one is under development. ‘The idea is that we can actually use technology to give people a better mix of public and private transport,’ says Dr. Paul Furgale , scientific project manager for V-CHARGE and deputy director of the autonomous systems lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich). ‘With a fully automated park and ride, drivers can get out of the car and immediately board the train without looking for parking. This will save each driver several minutes a day.’ More b4in.org/s7HQ
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 19:57:21 +0000
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