Third-party stress and endurance testing completed by the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute verifies wireless charging technology does not negatively impact the roadway.
BEIT YANAI, Israel & GOTLAND, Sweden––(November 2022)––Electreon (TASE: ELWS.TA), the leading provider of wireless and in-road wireless electric vehicle (EV) charging technology for commercial and passenger EVs, announced today that results from recent testing confirm that installation and use of Electreon’s technology and charging coils do not negatively impact the lifetime or the quality of the roads. Results were verified by an independent third party, which performed stress and endurance testing to determine the life expectancy of its Electric Road System (ERS). The testing was done as part of a pilot project in Sweden, referred to as Smartroad Gotland, of which 400 meters of ERS were recently upgraded after multiple years of successful operation. The Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI), an independent research institute under the Swedish Ministry of Infrastructure, performed the tests at the VTI road laboratory in Linköping, Sweden, and verified that Electreon’s technology and charging coils do not negatively impact the lifetime or quality of a typical Swedish highway.
“The testing conducted as part of our Gotland pilot is an important milestone for Electreon because it demonstrates the durability of our product both over time and in Swedish winters where highways are exposed to temperatures below 30°F. The testing confirms that Electreon’s technology is ready for large-scale commercial use,” said Oren Ezer, CEO, of Electreon. “We are looking forward to deploying our wireless charging product on highways across the world, enabling electric vehicles of all types to charge on the go.”
The upgraded 400 meters of roadway was installed using Electreon’s rapid deployment method allowing the use of the wireless charging technology within 24 hours of installation. As part of Smartroad Gotland’s project extension, Electreon also increased the capacity of its receivers to transfer energy to 30 kilowatts and successfully charged a transit bus with 90 kilowatts at a speed of 60 kilometers per hour. Electreon’s wireless charging technology is designed to be future-proof, and the Gotland project proves that Electreon’s ERS can be installed quickly, with installation causing little disruption to road users, and offer long-term performance with minimal maintenance required.
The VTI conducted tests of two different installation methods using a heavy vehicle simulator (HVS) that applies loads to small sample areas on full-scale roads. Over the course of many months of testing, more than 30,000 passes were done with varying axle weights, ambient temperatures, and different types of wheels. The maximum axle weight permitted in Sweden is 10.5 tons, however, axle weights of up to 16 tons were tested. The results concluded that the two installation methods are equal in performance with only small variations. There was no evidence that the structural life expectancy of a Swedish highway would be reduced any more than a typical highway by comparison.
“The structural performance of the Electreon Electric Road System has been tested with our Heavy Vehicle Simulator on a typical Swedish motorway structure,” said Björn Kalman, Research Director for the Road Technology Unit at the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI). “In our analysis of the structural properties and the lateral wandering of heavy vehicles on motorways, we concluded that the structural lifetime of the motorway with the electric road system installed will be the same as the reference motorway without.”
To date, Electreon’s patented technology has been integrated with a wide range of vehicles, as part of its ongoing collaborations with automotive manufacturers and tier-1 suppliers including Ford, Renault, Stellantis, Iveco, Higer, Volkswagen, and others. In February 2022, Electreon announced it was awarded a Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) contract for the first public ERS in the U.S. In September 2022, Electreon and MDOT entered into a separate 5-year agreement to develop and work toward implementing a scalable wireless public in-road charging network in Michigan.