Danny Lewis of The Wall Street Journal tells his readers about a real-life electric avenue, a quarter-mile stretch worth six million dollars. Who knew forty-plus years later that Eddy Grant’s song, “Electric Avenue,” would have a whole new meaning? Lewis writes:
Imagine driving an electric vehicle on a highway that recharges your battery as you travel.
Stefan Tongur has been hoping to make this futuristic tech a reality since 2010, when he was working on his doctorate at Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. In 2019, he joined Electreon, an Israeli startup that aims to bring this technology to roadways around the world. Later that year, the company began construction of its first pilot project on public roads, in Gotland, Sweden.
Since then, Electreon has expanded its projects to several cities around the world, including its first in the U.S.—a pilot on public streets at the Michigan Central Station tech hub in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood. The initial phase was completed in November and included a quarter of a mile of roadway set up to wirelessly charge an electric bus retrofitted to work with the system. Tongur says it will stretch for a full mile when the project is completed. […]
In five, 10 years I definitely see this connecting regions. I definitely see this as a solution for having folks go to electric vehicles not worrying about range, not worrying about availability and the sustainability of batteries because we have smaller and more sustainable batteries. And don’t worry about, “I need to stop now” or “I need to have two vehicles, one for my long trips and one I can use just in urban areas.”
Read more here.
