The Swedish Transport Administration chose a wholly owned Swedish subsidiary of Israeli company Electreon Wireless to lead a consortium in building the world’s first demo of a road that will wirelessly charge an electric truck and an electric bus as they travel.
Led by Electreon AB, the international consortium will build the 1.6-kilometer electric road as part of a total route of 4.1km between the town of Visby and the airport on Gotland Island in Sweden.
The electric bus – provided by Israeli bus operator Dan Transport, a strategic investor in Electreon — will be used as a public shuttle, while the electric truck will be tested to ensure that the system is ready for large-scale projects on highways. The total budget of the project is $12.5 million.
Electreon CEO Oren Ezer said the company’s DWPT (dynamic wireless power transfer) technology “makes it possible to electrify truck fleets economically without the need to carry huge batteries, stop for charging or create a visual hazard. Heavy trucks are an important initial target market for Electreon in addition to urban public transport.”
Based in Beit Yannai, where it has testing facilities including a 260-meter circular e-road, Electreon also is about to start building a 1-kilometer e-road in Tel Aviv, in cooperation with the municipality and Ministry of Transportation.
The publicly traded company has about 15 employees, said VP Bus Dev Noam Ilan, who came to Electreon (originally named ElectRoad) from its first investor, the Israeli renewable energy investment firm Capital Nature.
“Sweden has its own program for testing, evaluating and eventually implementing electric roads. Their main motivation is to reduce CO2 emissions from heavy trucks on highways. They’re evaluating a few different concepts and chose us for wireless charging,” Ilan explains.
“Demonstrating and evaluating new technical solutions for electric routes is one of our most important steps in our long-term plan for a potential rollout of electricity routes on the heavy road network in Sweden,” said Jan Pettersson, program manager for Trafikverket Swedish transport administration.
[Photo: Israel21c]