Electronic cars are preparing to get ready to meet more consumers (Photography source. brand film [Kia Future Film, PETERㅣRETURNS]).

With the sales of automobiles decreasing all over the world, electronic cars are expanding their market scale as true future automobiles. According to a market research institute Trendforce, it is expected that the global sales of automobiles will be down by 0.8% from 2018 in 2019, round 94.4 million while those of electronic cars are expected to be 5.15 million, which is a 28% increase from 2018. According to POSCO Research Institute, electronic cars are to stably settle into their early market status this year, which will be a turning point. Now is the time for the electronic cars market to take a step further for popularization.

Wireless charging road that will speed up the growth of the electronic cars market

A concern for a new way of charging is required to activate the electronic cars market (Photography source. brand film [Kia Future Film, PETERㅣRETURNS]).

What would we need to do to quickly activate electronic cars? The typical endeavor would be developing a way to charge electronic cars. Until now, charging electronic cars required one to visit a charging station, park an automobile, connect the charging cable and wait over 30 minutes. Not only there is the issue with the charging time, but there is also the fact that there aren’t as many charging stations as gas stations, which gets in the way of the electronic cars market’s growth.

Recently, wireless charging technology is receiving much attention, which has risen to resolve such problem. Wireless charging is literally a technology that provides power to the device without making material connection. Then what would be the most efficient way to supply wireless charging technology?

At the moment, the standard method is to connect the charging cable to an electronic car to supply power.

Simply switching the charging method from material to immaterial from the current electronic car charging station will still require the users to make the effort to visit the electronic cars charging station. But what if we were to bury the charging facility under the road and make wireless charging possible? The charging place itself will change, and innovate the actions of the automobile users.

It can be assumed that if supplying power straight from the wireless charging road becomes possible, cars can drive at all times without leaving the route from the starting point to the destination. New York Times evaluated “automatic charging road as an innovative technology that will change the mobility market”.

Major countries’ efforts to acquire wireless charging roads

Qualcomm developed the electronic automobile wireless charging system, Qualcomm Halo (Photography source. Qualcomm official homepage www.qualcomm.com).

Major countries are already making effort to acquire wireless charging roads. Qualcomm of U.S. is developing the Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging (WEVC) system called Qualcomm Halo. Qualcomm Halo is a technology that allows charging by inserting the power transmission pad which transfers power into the road and the power receiving pad that receives the power onto the lower part of an automobile. Tests were actually carried out as well: the electronic car with a wireless charging receiver drove on a 100m length test track and realized a successful wireless charging. It is said that 20kW level wireless charging is possible when driving at the speed of 100km/h.

China is developing wireless charging highways, which is led by the government. Shandong, China, exchanged the 2km linear section of a circulation road in south Jinan city, the center of transportation and industry where the state-of-the-art corporates are gathered, with solar panels and opened it up. The direct attachment of solar panel onto the road where automobiles drive on causes concerns of damage, and thus Shandong wrapped the top and bottom of solar panels with transparent concrete which has the texture similar to that of asphalt and built a triple protection structure. China’s attempt is getting attention with the facts that it can use road surface as development facility and also that it can make use of electric energy at a relatively eco-friendly way.

Israel is developing wireless charging technology to reduce their reliance on petrol (Photography source. ElectRoad homepage www.electreon.com).

Israel’s start-up ElectRoad disclosed their self-developed, Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer (DWPT). Their foremost goal is to reduce Israel’s automobile reliance on petrol. ElectRoad’s technology supplies wireless power to electronic cars driving on the road by burying copper coil 274m underground. It is getting much attention as it not only charges batteries but also includes a technology that allows sharing energy between automobiles.

Where Korea’s wireless charging road business is headed to

Wireless charging roads will be the core power supply infrastructure for next generation transportation vehicles like drones, etc.

Korea has also begun to take interest in wireless charging roads. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport announced a road technology development strategy plan on October 18th, 2019, which regards the future road plans for the period between 2021~2030. This plan also includes the blueprint for wireless charging roads which automatically supply power to fast driving electronic cars.

If the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport’s road technology development strategy went as planned, and thus we were to establish an infrastructure that allows wireless charging, it would be expected to play a big role in inducing potential consumers who are on the fence as they felt inconvenience with the current electronic cars.

Of course, wireless charging roads do not only apply to electronic cars. It will be a core power supply infrastructure to various mobilities including drones which are the next generation transportation vehicle that’s receiving much attention and robots that can be utilized in many areas of life.

For example, there is the unmanned delivery drones. For drones to make long distance deliveries, there has to be a charging hub in middle of the route; if there is a wireless charging road in front of the living complex that is to receive the delivery, a drone won’t need to charge power without stopping as it can be charged anytime. Thus, the government plans to continuously put in great interest and investment into the wireless charging road as it has various usage and purposes. Let’s look forward to how the future technology is realized onto the roads like the ones we have seen in SF movies by the year 2030.

Written by. Joon-hong Min (Connecting Lab)