Automotive technology company HaloIPT wants to bring electric vehicles and wireless recharging to the world of racing. Teamed with UK-based Drayson Racing Technologies, a team that purportedly “develops and races green motorsport technology,” the two outfits are looking to fit electric racing cars with dynamic charging systems. Transmitters in the road surface will feed energy to the vehicle’s battery pack, ensuring that time consuming stops to plug-in and recharge are a thing of the past.
It’s pretty exciting technology, especially in terms of real world applications for EVs. Imagine pulling up to a traffic light in your EV and, while waiting for the light to turn green, your car is seamlessly topped up with electricity. Not only do you have a zero emission car, you also own a vehicle that could feasibly never stop running under its own power. That’s a dramatic improvement from the approximate 70-100 miles of range offered by most of today’s EVs.
“Dynamic wireless charging will be a real game-changer, enabling zero emission electric vehicles to race over long periods without the need for heavy batteries,” said Lord Paul Drayson, co-founder of Drayson Racing. “Motor racing is the ideal environment to fast-track the development of this promising technology and to prove its effectiveness.”
HaloIPT says the first electric racing car to demonstrate this technology will hit the track “later this year.” Charging pads will be placed in the pit lane and on the track itself. However, the type of car and the location of the track have not been disclosed. A search on HaloIPT’s website turned up several videos of a Citroen C1 EV-ie and, somewhat ironically, an animated Toyota Prius hybrid demonstrating how Inductive Power Transfer (IPT) works.
Both are fine eco-conscious cars, though neither seems particularly suited for carving corners and smoking the tread off their low-rolling-resistance tires on a racetrack.
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