Wireless Charging Buses in South Korea - New Technology To Gain Traction In Automotive Industry Also?

The tech industry's rapid shift to the mobile platform gave way to a slew of new developments and advancements. One example of this is wireless charging, which is quickly gaining traction not only in the smartphone market, but believe it or not - the automotive industry.

Recently, a town in South Korea deployed buses which charge wirelessly making it among the first locations in the world to offer such services. The roads of Gumi have been outfitted with underground cables which enable these buses to recharge.

The team responsible for this technology, the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, named these wirelessly charging buses Online Electric Vehicle (OLEV). Several of these high-tech rides are already in operation on trams in the capital of Seoul. OLEVs routes in Seoul include roads at amusement parks and school bus paths.

The developers of the technology said in a research paper published by the KAIST Graduate School for Green Transportation that commercial use of electronic transportation vehicles have been delayed due to issues in battery charging. Electric car batteries have not been very accessible and user-friendly, and researches said that they are considered "technological barriers".

Compared to the size of electric car batteries, the OLEVs will be able to run on much smaller batteries. The technology allowed the buses to travel about 15 miles despite the smaller sized power generators. According to reports, the charging efficiency between the road and the bus was at 85 per cent.

Wireless charging technology has been used in the past for mobile phones and even electric toothbrushes. The concept behind this technology lies on the magnetic plates installed underground and inside the public vehicles. Due to the process called 'induction', OLEVs are able to charge its on-board battery when the magnetic plates inside the bus pass over their subterranean counterparts.

To address concerns of massive costs from restructuring of the road systems, the developers said that only five to 15% of the road needs to be overhauled for the new wireless charging technology to work. The government of South Korea has yet to announce its support on the project.