South Korea has switched on a road which can recharge electric vehicles as they drive over it. The projects developer says the 12km (7.5 miles) route is the first of its kind in the world. It means vehicles fitted with compatible equipment do not need to stop to recharge and can also be fitted with smaller than normal batteries. Two public buses are already using the technology and there are plans to add 10 more by 2015. Its quite remarkable that we succeeded with the OLEV [online electric vehicle] project so that buses are offering public transportation services to passengers, said Dong-Ho Cho, who led the team behind the scheme at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). This is certainly a turning point for OLEV to become more commercialised and widely accepted for mass transportation. However, another transportation expert warned that the costs involved in installing the equipment meant it was less practical than other schemes which involved vehicles wirelessly charging at specific locations or using overhead cables. There is clearly a lot of potential for this technology for public transport applications, but for private electric vehicles the cost of fitting all roads with such systems may be prohibitive, said Dr Paul Nieuwenhuis from the Centre for Automotive Industry Research at Cardiff University.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 07:19:48 +0000
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