Toyota Working on Mid-Drive Charging System for EVs

It is well known that electric cars can only be driven short distances, this being their biggest downside. No matter how energy efficient they are, people are still giving it a second thought.

However, a team of Japanese researchers from Toyota Central R&D Labs and Toyohashi University of Technology is currently working on a technology that would provide a solution to that problem.

Specifically, the tech would allow roads to charge electric cars, allowing them to be driven without needing to charge, based on a similar mechanism that allows trains to travel under overhead wires.

This would also allow vehicles to lose even some more weight. This is because EVs would require smaller batteries because roads would be the one to supply the majority of power to the motors.

While there is still a long way to go before the ‘mid-drive charging system’ proves its feasibility, researchers believe this could be the answer to the limited-range issues the EVs currently face.

The system transmits electric power through a radio frequency to steel belts placed inside two tires and a metal plate in the road, as the NewsScientist magazine reports.

In response to this project, some think the electrified roads could also raise several problems that need to be addressed in order for them to become reality.

For example, John Boys, an electrical engineer at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, says that with this system, the metal pads on the road would need as much as 50,000 volts to power the car, the same voltage used to operate tasers. "You wouldn't want to step on that," he warns.

In addition, Boys thinks the electric plates would produce a large magnetic field that would "cause significant radio-frequency interference that might create chaos with all manner of electrical systems."

And this is not all. Ripping up the roads to install the infrastructure needed would be extremely costly,  according to Daniel Friedman at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, who also suggests to limit it to main highways.