Here’s another impending and fascinating technological advance: wireless charging of electric vehicles. There is no chance I try to break down the science of it, but here is a very basic and I’m sure not-quite-perfectly-explained synopsis: you have a transmitter coil which converts electricity into a high frequency electromagnetic field, which you place under pavement or flooring. And then you have a receiver coil placed on the undercarriage of the vehicle, which takes the electromagnetic field and converts it back into electricity for storage in a car’s battery. The car can either be parked/stationary or moving, so not only could you install these systems in parking lots or home garages, but you could also place them in roadways for dynamic charging. Wireless charging is cool enough, but wireless charging in motion would be a game changer – if people could charge their cars as they drive, that’s one less stop to make during a busy day. Gas stations today can see their future prospects waning with the onset of electrification, but wireless charging definitely would accelerate their extinction.
While this concept of wireless charging seems like a newfangled idea, scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been working on it for 13 years now. It is one of those technological advances which is not quite ready to roll out, but it is very doable in the near future.