What Is Electric Highway, Countries Working On Electric Highway

Hello guys, welcome back to our blog. Here in this article, we will discuss what is electric highway, what countries are working on it, what will be the benefit of utilizing it, and which was the first country in the world to adopt it.

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Electric Highway

Electrical cars are the trending automobiles these days. The charging of electrical vehicles is ongoing research and development program in many countries. Charging of electrical cars is majorly two types as we already know such as wired and wireless charging technologies.

E-mobility is the largest trend and every country is well focused on it as a part of it they are trying to plan the various technologies for charging the electrical vehicle, they last came out with dynamic charging and now they are implementing bigger and larger possibilities. E – the highway is the technology that can charge the vehicle when it is going on or continuously supply the electricity to the trams as in the old ways it had been.

The E – highways are planned for electrical vehicles and the major reason behind it is to charge the electrical vehicles and develop the E-mobility revolution. E – highways will transfer the electrical energy dynamically to the electrical vehicle when the car is traveling on it, these highways are designed for both conventional and electrical vehicles.

The road is divided into two parts, one side of it is fully loaded with the dynamic charging components underground and used to charge the electrical vehicle and the other side is a normal road that can be used for the travel of conventional vehicles.

This is also called the Electric road system (ERS). The overhead power lines can also be used but they are limited to only heavy-load commercial vehicles which have the current collecting pantographs on their tops underground power transfer has the highest utilities compared to the overhead power lines.

Coming to dynamic wireless charging there is only one difference compared to static wireless charging: the EV can be charged while the vehicle is in running condition so there will not be any interrupts or stops for charging purposes. Dynamic wireless charging is a modern technology that is in development in large quantities which are named especially as ‘E-Highways’.

The E-highways are majorly divided into three types according to the Transport and Research Laboratory (TRL);

Overhead power lines
Ground-level power through rail
Induction coils

Overhead power lines electric highway — Overhead power lines

The overhead power lines are the most used across the globe but it is only used for heavily loaded commercial vehicles and is unsuitable for non-commercial vehicles.

For commercial and non-commercial vehicles it is not possible to maintain two different technologies so now the rail system or ground-level power through rail is introduced for the power transfer to the electrical vehicle which is more efficient and cost-effective.

Ground-level power through rail electric highways — Ground-level power through rail

Induction coils electric highways — Induction coils

The induction coil power transfer is less efficient compared to the rail system but to decrease the visibility of the rails and ease of vehicle usage the E-highways are mostly designed with induction coils because it is comfortable compared to the other methods. Now let us see some of the constructed and ongoing E-highways developing across the globe:

01. Korea developed the first electrical highway which allowed public charging for people who had electric vehicles. Korea started developing in 2009 and it used induction coils technology which made the work well later on it was developed with the addition of the overhead bus line in 2013 and the E-highway is still in working condition. It is developed by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

02. Sweden is the second country that is focused on E-mobility and trying to make all the roads electrified and trying make automobiles electrical by 2030 in the country. The Swedish transport administration started the electrical roads project in 2013 which is now in testing and will be implemented at the end of 2022. They planned to make the country fuel-free transportation infrastructure by 2030.

03. France constructed the test track for the electrical vehicles which are developed by Qualcomm using dynamic wireless charging technology. They just tested the highway in 2018 and it can be used in the future.

04. Japan developed the E – Highway for electrical vehicles as part of E- mobility and tested it with the Honda vehicles it succeeded in 2018 and it is running as a public road in Japan

05. Germany developed the E- highway with the dynamic wireless technology in Mannheim by Bombardier in 2013. Germany also developed the overhead electrical power transfer road in 2019, especially for commercial vehicles.

06. India is developing the E – Highway named expressway which will cover the 5 major populated states of India through the center of India in its routes it covers Rajasthan, Haryana, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra. India is mainly focused on reducing fuel consumption and pollution from transport.

This highway also provides the advantage of decreasing the travel time from Maharashtra to Delhi by up to 24 hours. India is considering this highway as a boost for E-mobility and it will be implemented in the upcoming three years.

07. United Kingdom-related England highways sanctioned the electrical highway with dynamic wireless power transfer technology in the year 2015 and later on they canceled it in the year 2016 due to some financial issues.

08. China and the United States are also doing trials on the E – Highways as part of the E-mobility revolution.

This was about the “Electric Highway“. I hope this article may help you all a lot. Thank you for reading.

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Chetan Shidling

Automotive | Technical Blogger | Engineer | Content Creator

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