On the difficult path to solve the electric vehicles’ great nemesis, the charging infrastructure, manufacturers, technology companies and the public sector are joining forces to achieve the objectives to strengthen electric mobility worldwide.
In this sense, Stellantis, an international Italian-French-American automotive group based in the Netherlands, has built the “Arena of the Future” circuit, a test laboratory for dynamic induction charging technology for electric vehicles.
On this 1,050-meter-long track, different prototypes will be experimented with to study and test how wireless charging looks like on the move. For this purpose, the track is powered by a megawatt internal network, and the first tests have already been carried out with a Fiat 500e and an Iveco E-Way bus, with which the Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer (DWPT) system was tested.
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The project also counts with the collaboration of companies like ABB, Electreon, FIAMM Energy Technology, TIM and even universities, such as those of Milan, Rome and Parma. It is located along a private area of the Italian A35 freeway, very close to the Chiari West exit.
The Innovation Focus
The main objective of Arena of the Future is to demonstrate that the applied technology can be able to immediately meet the needs of decarbonization and car recharging. But it will not be the only one, as advanced connectivity will ensure maximum road safety by enabling both highways and vehicles on the road to communicate constantly.
With the DWPT, electric cars can be recharged wirelessly while driving on electrified lanes. These have a copper coil system buried into the pavement creating a magnetic field when an electric current passes through them.
Image: stellantis.com
Anne-Lise Richard, Head of Global Business Unit Electric Mobility at Stellantis emphasized that the track is a cutting-edge solution to provide a concrete answer to range and charging issues, which customers are concerned about.
“We are accelerating our role in defining the mobility of the future and, in this respect, DWPT technology seems to us to be in line with our desire to provide a concrete response to customer requirements. Charging vehicles while on the move provides clear advantages in terms of charging times and the size of their batteries”.
By 2025, Stellantis plans to invest more than 30 billion euros in electrification and software development.
Written by I Jhonattan González
