Electreon’s Electric Road System uses copper coils with inductive couplings installed beneath the road surface. When EVs with receivers activate magnetic resonance induction by driving over, it maintains a steady charge for batteries. 

While the ascent of electric vehicles is ongoing, the speed of adoption is, at best, unpredictable. One major holdup for consumers and commercial customers is range anxiety. While developing networks of roadway chargers is discussed at federal, state and local levels, an innovative solution has emerged. Meet the electrified road.

To set the stage, lithium ion (Li-ion) battery-powered EVs hold a charge between 300 to 500 miles depending on make, model and road versus highway driving. Though petroleum vehicles offer a similar range, they benefit from the abundance of filling stations. EV motorists, in turn, must carefully research where to find chargers. Commercial or municipal EV drivers may need to return to a fleet yard to charge their vehicles.

An electrified road, part of a family called smart roads, offers a tantalizing future. Based on an idea first demonstrated in Europe, a demo road has been built in Detroit to explore charging EVs in motion.

The Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) and Michigan’s Office of Future Mobility and Electrification are working with Electreon, an Israeli company dedicated to wireless charging technology in stationary applications and its self-developed Electric Road System. The firm is a primary partner in the Michigan project, having been part of several pilots in France, Germany, Israel, Sweden and other countries. This project marks the first public wireless electrical road system in North America.

The pilot road is part of Michigan Central, a mobility innovation hub, supported by partners including Ford Motor Co., Dearborn, Mich.; DTE Energy, Detroit; and the city of Detroit. The electrified road pilot is also supported by NextEnergy, Detroit, and Jacobs Solutions, Dallas, among others.

How it works

Five-foot copper coils with inductive couplings are installed beneath the road surface. Magnetic resonance induction is activated through receivers installed on the EVs that pass over them. Control units (similar to electrical utility boxes) along the road manage the electricity going to the underground chargers. The control units could also be installed underground, instead.

Michele Mueller, senior project manager of connected and automated vehicles for MDOT, explained more. 

“We completed construction of the first segment at the end of 2023. We’re learning how to integrate smart road integration with infrastructure such as water mains, utilities and integration into traditional road construction,” she said. ”Feedback from road contractors is especially important. This type of construction is very design- and planning-centric. You are adding something new for everyone to learn. Together, we discover things we hadn’t thought about and add it into the making of an electrified road. We adjust as we learn.”

To date, Phase 1 of the project has included an induction charging retrofit of a quarter-mile of Detroit’s 14th Street. 

“We integrated and coordinated our system into an existing city road maintenance project. This has illustrated how our system can easily be incorporated into typical maintenance and resurfacing projects,” said Stefan Tongur, vice president of U.S. Business Development for Electreon. 

   

“Working in Michigan has meant adapting to different U.S. standards, different grid connection, 480V instead of 400V or 60Hz compared to 50Hz, and so forth. How do you adapt a smart road to code is another variable,” he said.

Tongur explained the installation’s design: “We have a layout of about 66 coils, about 200 meters of coils connected to one management unit. In the quarter of a mile that we already deployed, we have three management units 300 meters apart. The coils are independently connected and are passive until you have a validated, authorized and approved vehicle receiver above it.” 

Tongur found it encouraging that in the demos his firm participated in, the integration of induction charging has been viewed as an additional element rather than a radical change to road construction.

MDOT’s practice of working with local agencies and public engagement has helped in its smart road pilot. 

“We had a lot of conversations with the contractors doing the work, with the people designing it and with the community,” Mueller said. “We put this pilot road in the backyard of people who live there, who ride their bikes, walk their pets. It was important they were comfortable, understood what we were doing, what would be involved and how it would look. We had people from the asphalt industry and other groups come out to watch the road installation and learn.”

Matching power to road traffic

The more receiver-equipped EVs on a charging road, the more management units are required and the larger the grid connection. 

“The more vehicles that use it, buses, cars and more, the smarter this investment, compared to installing banks of plug-in chargers. You are also extending an EV’s driving range,” Tongur said.

Smart roads don’t replace chargers

“An electric road equipped with sufficient charging infrastructure will maintain a vehicle’s battery level or increase it to a degree, but not like a super-fast charger,” Tongur said. Smart roads, therefore, do not end the need for stationary EV charging. 

For the electrical engineer who might help design a smart road or the electrical contractor that could connect to it for power, this sort of installation will be new but not totally foreign. It’s just one more mechanism for providing power.

“These projects of innovation do require a special partnership when working with the state,” Tongur said. “You are dealing with permitting issues, questions on how to connect to the grid. You are helping to answer questions asked of the MDOT that may come from residents and other commercial partners.”

   

A question for all was whether Michigan winters would affect the road’s charging ability or capacity. Last winter’s ice and snow had no negative effect on the charging ability of the test road. 

“That’s what we discovered here in Michigan, which confirms what we found in our pilots abroad,” Tongur said. “As our pilot progresses, we get more answers to questions. If a vehicle has a big undercarriage metal shield, that will impair the charge connection between the road coils and the vehicle receiver no matter what the season.” 

Tongur added that successful pilots open doors to scaling the technology.

Other findings

Tongur and Mueller are gathering and sorting through data from the pilot smart road. Having more contractors in place has fostered more consistent testing and encouraged the exploration of other variables.

“We learned that when you repave a road, you don’t affect the system,” Mueller said. “That was unplanned learning. Another time, I was doing a live television interview at the site, and we were having an ice storm. It was very cold. The induction charging was put to the test and performed well. We are now testing how the system works under extreme summer heat. In addition, we are studying how grid power transfers into the smart road system. Is there a power loss from the management unit cabinet through the system, and then on to the vehicle? We conduct testing, compile data, and see what we learn.”

Another area of exploration is proper road marking, so that vehicles are guided on a steady path over the charging coils.

Winning advocates

In pilot projects, you try to build advocates—first, for the idea, and then during implementation. In Michigan, it was first a matter of narrowing down types of EVs to test on the induction charging road.

“To start with, we’re looking at fleet vehicles, like shuttles or buses or trucks,” Tongur said. “Certified state vehicles could be great, delivery company vehicles, too. Once you have the infrastructure for road charging in place, your partners can set strategies. This is a gradual process where initial beneficiaries could be commercial fleets, maybe private or public fleets. We do have collaborations with Toyota, Ford, Stellantis and Denso.” 

Tongur cited Toyota as one company that will apply induction charging technology to assess its EV fleet vehicles on the smart road. Stellantis and Denso focus on mobility tech.

A need for standardization

Electreon is not alone as a smart road technology company. The Michigan project was a competitive RFP and there were several other bids. The firm is, however, one of the leaders in the field in terms of active projects and possibly deployments.

“There are other projects and technologies coming forward, some based on our research,” Tongur said. “Our company is co-chairing a standardization committee called SAE J-2954/3. We are holding discussions about standardization and interoperability so you can scale within different spaces like public roads. Different vendors are talking with each other, including the automotive industry.”

“The work of the standardization group will be important. No matter who makes the coil, who makes the vehicle or the receiver, you’ll want a secure handshake associated with coils giving the EVs a charge,” Mueller said.

Tongur shared that several states, including Utah, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Florida have noticed what Michigan is doing and are interested in pursuing their own smart road testing. 

Next steps

Michigan is embarking on a second stretch of smart road for testing. “This added pilot is the Michigan Avenue [Highway 12] reconstruct project—a full reconstruction of an existing road,” Mueller said. “I’m sure there will be lots of lessons learned in adapting a road for smart charging. We want to build on our work so we and our partners can replicate what’s been done.”

The two pilot roads together will represent one mile of smart road. This innovative exploration in Michigan could support a future of many more EVs on U.S. streets and byways. Once again, electrical contractors could find themselves as central players in a transformative future.

Electreon / stock.adobe.com / Image Craft / Michigan Department of Transportation