Researchers at Cornell University are developing technology that would allow an electric car to charge while it’s in motion. Like a high occupancy lane, highways would have a charging lane that would charge vehicles’ batteries as they drive over its surface. This would be a monumental solution to some of the biggest obstacles of owning an electric vehicle, including dealing with battery range and charging availability. 

Khurram Afridi, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Cornell and lead researcher, has been behind the project for the past seven years. According to Afridi, the technology is still at least five to ten years away, however, he sees wireless charging as having an immense impact on an industry that is so dependent on the presence of charging stations and battery capacity. It would save time for electric car owners, alleviate the anxiety of locating charging stations and running out of battery and pave the way for more sustainable transportation. 

According to Insider, there are about 1.8 million battery-powered cars in the U.S., however, there are only about 100,000 charging plugs spread across around 41,000 public station locations. And, a recent study from the University of California Davis found that one in five electric car owners switched back to gas-powered cars due to the inconvenience of relying on charging stations. Another reported impediment to sustained electric car ownership is the anxiety related to the vehicle’s battery range. Expanding this network is costly and comes with a slew of logistical issues.

"The only way people are going to buy electric cars is if they're just as easy to refuel as combustion engines," Afridi told Insider. "If we had this [wireless charging] technology the electric vehicles would have even less limitations than traditional ones."

The origins of Afridi’s research go back more than 100 years to Nikola Tesla, who used alternating electric fields to power lights without plugging them in. Afridi’s charging lane would comprise special metal plates connected to a powerline and a high-frequency inverter. The plates will create alternating electric fields that attract and repel a pair of matching plates attached to the bottom of the electric vehicle. 

This isn’t the first attempt to develop a method to wirelessly charge vehicles. In 1986, California tested roadway-powered electric vehicles as part of its Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways (PATH) program. Similar technologies have also been seen in the world of smartphones with wireless phone chargers. These efforts have been limited though as the hardware to sustain wireless charging has proven to be expensive and cumbersome. 

Afridi’s approach looks towards higher frequencies to make wireless charging more feasible. “Wireless power transfer is based on the same underlying physics used to send messages through radio waves to spacecraft in deep space, things like Voyager,” Afridi said in a statement to the Cornell Chronicle. “Except now we are sending much more energy across much shorter distances, to moving vehicles.” 

Up to now, Afridi and his team have developed a prototype that can power vehicles from 18 centimeters away. They have also created technology that allows a vehicle to gain full power when passing over the charging plates. The team is still faced with major hurdles, including finding and creating other necessary components, as well as the huge infrastructural task of installing charging lanes. One approach, according to Afridi, would be to electrify high-traffic roadways first and major cities first.

Afridi is currently working with Toyota Material Handling North America to develop in-motion charging for forklifts and material-handling mobile robots.