Ground-breaking development
Utah State University broke ground on a 4,800 square-foot research building which will be surrounded by an innovative track that will have the capability to wirelessly charge electric vehicles while they drive. The track will be the first of its kind in the country.
“What’s really making things unique here is that we have the right pieces to pull this together and actually show and develop all of the pieces in to actual wireless charging EV (electronic vehicle) system with the roadway,” said Regan Zane, principle investigator for the Electronic Vehicle and Roadway (EVR) system.
The track will house the coils used to charge cars under the asphalt so, in a real world setting, the wireless charging system would not need to be replaced for 30 to 40 years while the actual roadway would undergo construction in a normal time frame, every four to five years.
Zane said the project is meant to have a practical impact on the enhancement on electronic vehicle. It’s not just an experiment but a financially feasible option.
“This is dollars and cents,” Zane said. “We’re not proposing this thinking it’s just neat. We’re not proposing it just because of the environmental potential impacts, which would be significant, even just straight up dollars and cents we think there is an opportunity here,” Zane said. “This would have return that’s better than any other kind of improvement that’s on the horizon for transportation.”
Though the overall cost of a roadway with the capability to charge a vehicle is more expensive than an average roadway it would greatly lower the cost of electronic vehicles and fuel costs.
“We’ve found, somewhat surprisingly, that because of the cost of fuel and the significant savings that could be had on a vehicle like this the return on investment could be quite short,” Zane said.
Right now the batteries alone in electric vehicles cost more than half the total cost of the car. If major roadways had the technology to charge electric cars, Zane said it’s reasonable 10 to 20 years from now when people are buying new cars there is going to be at least 20 percent of people buying electric cars because they would be less expensive and fuel cost would be virtually nothing.
“If 20 percent of (the) cars purchased and running had this technology it would take about three years to pay off the entire infrastructure in the roads,” Zane said.
The track is expected to be completed by spring of 2015.
“We’re going to have a quarter mile track going around that building,” Zane said. “The demonstration you should be watching for in the next few years, we anticipate having a vehicle that’s just going to be running continuously around that track. Come here at midnight, come out here in the morning, stop by after work; make sure it’s still running. The thing won’t stop.”
The ground-breaking comes just weeks after the university announced its record year for research funding.
“I think this is a great event for us, not just because it’s another ground-breaking for another important, innovative, challenging, Utah State University project,” said USU President Stan Albrecht. “This event this morning represents for me what must increasingly be the model that will drive the work that we do at research universities like Utah State Universities.”
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Twitter: @DahdahUSU