Volvo has announced that it will participate in an inductive charging project called Continuous Electric Drive (CED) led by Belgian technological and automotive development specialists Flanders’ Drive.
A Volvo C30 Electric will be delivered to Flanders’ Drive on May 19, to be modified for wireless charging. The handover also marks the formal starting signal for the project.
Wireless energy transfer
In inductive charging, a charging plate is buried in the ground, for instance in the driveway at home where the car is parked. The charging plate consists of a coil that generates a magnetic field. When the car is parked above the plate, energy from the plate is transferred without physical contact to the car’s inductive pick-up. The energy that is transferred is alternating current. This is then converted into direct current in the car’s built-in voltage converter, which in turn charges the car’s battery pack. Charging a battery pack of the size fitted to the Volvo C30 Electric, 24 kWh, is expected to take about an hour and twenty minutes, if the battery is entirely discharged. The charging system to be evaluated is dimensioned for 20 kW.
One aspect of this project is to integrate this technology into the road surface and to take energy directly from there to power the car. This is a smart solution that is some way into the future.
Several car makers and technology companies are conducting research into this area but as yet there are no car manufacturers that can offer the market a finished product.[wzslider height=”400″ lightbox=”true”]
