Honda R&D developing high-power dynamic charging system for EVs at speeds up to 96 mph
24 February 2017
At the upcoming WCX 17: SAE World Congress Experience, a team from Honda R&D will present a paper on their study of a dynamic charging system that uses high power to charge a traveling EV, with the goal of realizing an unlimited vehicle range.
Major issues facing EV include range, charging (hassle, time, construction of infrastructure), and reduced driving performance due to increased vehicle weight. Technology enabling to both supply power and perform charging while driving (dynamic charging) is being researched and developed as a means of addressing issues such as those above.
—Tajima et al.
The system enables dynamic charging with a charging power of 180 kW (DC 600 V, 300 A) while driving at a vehicle speed of 155 km/h (96 mph). The paper presents the results of running tests, and discusses future prospects.
The current study is a follow-on to a 2015 paper presented by members of the team on a high-power dynamic charging prototype, presented at SAE 2015 World Congress.
Resources
Takamitsu Tajima, Hideki Tanaka, Takeo Fukuda, Yoshimi Nakasato, Wataru Noguchi, Yoshikazu Katsumasa, Tomohisa Aruga (2017) “Study of High Power Dynamic Charging System” SAE 2017-01-1245
Tajima, T., Noguchi, W., and Aruga, T. (2015) “Study of a Dynamic Charging System for Achievement of Unlimited Cruising Range in EV,” SAE 2015-01-1686 doi: 10.4271/2015-01-1686
I always thought this sort of on-the-fly charging might be possible especially for applications like trucking. I suspect that once 300+ km range cars become common there wouldn't be too much demand from passenger cars but its interesting to see that a company like Honda is looking at it. Maybe that explains why they seem to be a bit slow in developing electric vehicles.
Posted by: Calgarygary | 24 February 2017 at 07:27 AM
It is a bit like world peace - a very good idea that everyone can understand, just a little hard to implement.
Trucks and buses could use overhead catenaries, but private cars couldn't reach.
Cars could reach down to the road, or across to some side mounted rail, but both would be very expensive to fit and maintain.
On the other hand, if you have fast charging and a battery (which you will have), you do not need continuous charging connections.
One possible idea would be to have a truck height catenary with frequent charging zones every 5Km or so for cars; like mini service stations with a cafe and a bunch of charge points. Thus, you could charge every 1.5 or 2 hours of travel without having to make a big deal of it, or calculate of you could go the next 25Km to the next main charger station.
Posted by: mahonj | 24 February 2017 at 08:50 AM
The UK Government are conducting extensive trials of through the road charging on the move:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/off-road-trials-for-electric-highways-technology
Full details of study here:
http://assets.highways.gov.uk/specialist-information/knowledge-compendium/2014-2015/Feasibility+study+Powering+electric+vehicles+on+Englands+major+roads.pdf
IMO the costs of wiring up major roads is not excessive, and it would enable trucking to be far more efficient, as the length of trucks and their train allows several charge pads to be built in, whilst a car would only pick up on one.
Initially it would only be for major highways, and only on one lane each way.
Although superficially less efficient than wired charging, it would enable electric vehicles to need much smaller battery packs reducing both the energy cost of moving the vehicle and the cost of the batteries.
Posted by: Davemart | 25 February 2017 at 02:32 AM
Put this on a track, instead of existing highway and along with self or semi-self driving cars, you have a dual mode PRT system. It would be cheaper and faster than building new highways, allocate space above current right of way, provide high density non-stop travel and last mile driver controlled capability. Ford was looking at a similar concept a few years back. I don't know what every happened to that concept.
Posted by: JMartin | 25 February 2017 at 07:39 AM
If it takes 15 miles to charge at $10 million per mile then $150 million could pay for 150 high speed chargers.
Posted by: SJC | 25 February 2017 at 07:49 PM
A driverless ride hailing service like the Tesla Network is what we need to solve the remaining price, range and charge time issue with BEVs.
Self-driving cars car go anywhere and charge themselves using high power (like 120,000 watt chargers) high efficiency power and low cost power cables. The Tesla Network will open pretty soon (end of 2018) for the rest of the auto industry to see how they should do it. They will follow by 2021.
I estimate one supercharger station with 6 superchargers at 120k watt cost at most 250,000 USD. So for 100 million USD you can make 400 supercharger stations with 2400 superchargers that could fully charge about 100.000 Tesla BEVs per 24 hour for 200 miles drive. Tesla will have to expand their supercharger network a lot to power the driverless cars on the Tesla Network. They will not be charge much at home when they are driverless and need to clock as many miles per year for the owners that buy them solely to make mony on them on the Tesla Network.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 26 February 2017 at 05:41 AM
Thinking about the 15 miles, it would charge more cars but would need one heck of a LOT of power to do so.
Posted by: SJC | 26 February 2017 at 11:57 AM
The copper required to build these will cost too much in carbon footprint to realize any benefit.
Fuel cells will be far more efficient and renewable fuel , wether hydrogen , ammonia or biofuels , 500 mile ranges will be normal , see the solid state hydrogen storage system being tested. Solar cells in windows and roofs will also add dynamic charging will driving or parked . By using small fuel cells with with ltracaps instead of batteries there will be high power acceleration without the weight of battery pack . Of course adding the wireless charger in road to the ultra cap circuit will enable much longer ranges.
Posted by: D | 27 February 2017 at 11:28 PM
or PHEVs or EVs with gasoline or diesel range extenders.
Then you can just refuel at the usual gas stations when you need to.
Posted by: mahonj | 28 February 2017 at 04:06 AM
A small two cycle supercharged diesel engine in a series/parallel hybrid configuration running High Performance Diesel (HPR) made from plant oils would do it until they reform HPR for PEM FCs.
Posted by: SJC | 28 February 2017 at 09:50 AM
Unlike Tesla (See my Seeking Alpha piece published in 2015: http://seekingalpha.com/article/3294695-battery-recharging-why-is-tesla-not-going-wireless), Honda does seem to like wireless charging. However, the question remains as to whether it will bet seriously on this technology in the years to come. I do have some doubts it will but I may be wrong.
Posted by: Juan Carlos Zuleta Calderón | 01 March 2017 at 02:36 PM
When the average American drives less than 50 miles per day, the emphasis on range is a total waste of scarce resources. Instead, since the average American can afford to pay only $8000 for a car. the emphasis should be on building an affordable EV. Thus such a target BEV should be a small 4-5 person 2-door like a Ford Ka or a Fiat 500e or a two-door Fit, that weighs under 1000 kg and sell for no more than an ICE Chevy Spark. Remember, we are posting these comments on GreenCarCongress whose objective is to clean the air. Building EVs that only a fraction of the car buyers can afford does very little for that objective. Be aware also that if clean air and more range are the objective, any fuel injected ICE car can be driven on hydrogen using fuel injection that works similar to that used in propane conversions.
Posted by: Henry Keultjes | 24 March 2017 at 11:56 AM