Towards new infrastructure materials for on-the-road charging

Abstract

As a future-oriented industry, the electrified mobility has the potential to enhance the sustainability of our road transportation sector radically. With the aim to break the EV batteries' bottleneck (e.g., cost, range anxiety, long waiting time) by focusing not on the battery but on the solution to charge it conveniently, different on-the-road-charging solutions have been found under active investigation. From a road infrastructure perspective, however, little attention has been given to the practical, physical roads where these charging solutions will be enabled. In reality, good performance of E-Road infrastructure in aspects such as robustness, durability, costeffectiveness will be crucial for the final success. Taking the Inductive Power Transfer (IPT) charging solution in a dynamic way as a basis, this paper mainly discusses about the physical infrastructural aspect i.e. the road infrastructural materials and the changed construction and maintenance principles. The paper aims to give developers in this field more awareness of the necessity and potential cross-coupling benefits from interdisciplinary collaboration, by taking the road infrastructure research into the concept development of E-Roads.