Nine years ago we predicted that electric vehicles charged wirelessly by induction from coils embedded in blacktop were the future of road transportation.
Apparently, we were some years ahead of our time, although a demonstration of the concept was then being undertaken in South Korea.
Now some folks in Coventry, England, have decided to give it a whirl too. Right now, total funding for the project is less than half a million quid. But if the Conservative Party really wants to hang onto those Northern, former labor-voting, Tory Parliamentary seats, this is a Northern development project they should back: first, with full electrification of the main streets of the innovative city of Coventry, then with backing for the development of low-cost, induction-powered cars. Such vehicles would need only a small battery — costing hundreds, not thousands of dollars, weighing less than a tank of gas, with a capacity of no more than 5 kWh, to propel the vehicle on suburban streets and other byways with limited traffic which would not be electrified.
After that, the goal should be to extend the project to adjacent cities and eventually country-wide, with embedded power coils in connecting highways. For this, Britain, as among the world's most densely populated countries, is ideally suited.
Go for it bigly BoJo, or get trashed in the next election.
Related:
CanSpeccy (2011): The Real Future of the Electric Car
