As the race towards the electrification of the automotive park progresses, important developments are emerging to enhance sustainability projects and firmly establish the use of electric cars. This is how the electrified ‘Scalextric’ roads come to light, which allow any type of car to travel 2,000 kilometers without the need to refuel gasoline or recharge lithium batteries.
One of the first countries to make this technological leap was Sweden. In 2018, the Nordic country introduced an electrified ‘Scalextric’ road that mimics toy technology, but in real scale. To bring the eRoadArlanda prototype to life, they used two kilometers of a road with rails integrated into the asphalt.
This is a development completely similar to that of the toy: the cars must be modified with an arm that makes contact with two parallel rails, through which electricity flows. In this way, by making contact with the metal piece, the vehicle’s batteries are recharged, and the electric car can operate without the need to stop at any time.
In this electrification context, the company Electreon Wireless Ltd comes into play. The Israel-based company has created a system similar to the one mentioned above, but with inductive wireless charging that recharges the battery of an electric car, or a plug-in hybrid, while driving on the road, or while parked, without cables.
To execute the model, they used a Toyota RAV4 PHEV, which traveled 1,942.56 kilometers without using a drop of gasoline, without stopping to refuel or recharge batteries.
According to the developers of this project, it is an effective system, not only for electric vehicles equipped with large batteries, but also for plug-in hybrids with smaller and lower capacity batteries.