Wireless electric car charging in London

Hands free

Today there are approximately 1700 electric cars and 250 charging stations in London. Mayor Boris Johnson wants London to be the electric car capital of Europe however and has set a target of 100,000 electric cars on the city's streets by 2020, together with 25,000 charging stations by 2015. Of these, 22,500 charging stations will be workplace, 500 on-street and 2,000 in car parks. Targets schmargets. There should have been 1300 charging stations by now, so (as I have previously written) we should take such forecasts with a pinch of salt. For the whole of the UK the target of 13,000 charging stations by 2013 has already been scaled back to a more modest 8,500. We live in harsh economic times.

However, some very exciting news. About three years ago I met with a company called Halo IPT (standing for Inductive Power Transfer), which, together with Arup was promoting a new concept, that of induction (wireless) charging. It works like your electric toothbrush (or your old Scaletrix set), with pads buried in the ground and contactless charging to the underside of the car. A one year test commencing later this year is planned for London, whereby Transport for London's Mitsubishi imievs will be converted at a cost of £3,000 per car. Renault and Nissan are also 'looking at' incorporating wireless charging into the next generation of EVs.

It is early days and the system is not without challenges, but there are advantages with inductive charging: the absence of wires means safety is enhanced; street clutter is reduced; but the big benefit is this: by placing the inductive systems at traffic lights, at road junctions, at home, at work, in car parks and at the supermarket, every time you stop you get a charge. In future the system could even work on a drive-over basis. This means that you can use smaller battery packs and so reduce the cost of the vehicles, and/or, increase the effective driving range to a near limitless figure. At a cost of £2,500 per charging point to make and install they are not cheap, but could be another key to unlocking the electron economy.