Colorado’s transportation department has partnered with a private developer to test a highway that charges electric trucks wirelessly while they’re moving.
The project will bury an electric transmission system under a stretch of highway. The system will beam power to electric engines in trucks that travel in this special “charging lane.”
AECOM, the private partner, helped create the technology with the Sustainable Electrified Transportation Research Center at Utah State University. The center had figured out how to beam electric power to buses parked on a grid; AECOM persuaded them to expand the research to devise a way to power vehicles on the fly.
Colorado’s test patch will begin construction in 2018. Meanwhile, AECOM is looking for a few cities that might want to try the system as well.
