Nottingham is hosting a trial in which electric taxis will be fitted with wireless charging hardware for taxi rank-based charging.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps today announced a £3.4m investment into the six-month trial that will see 10 Nissan and LEVC (London Electric Vehicle Company) electric taxis fitted with the charging technology. The project is a collaboration between organisations including Cenex, Sprint Power, Shell, Nottingham City Council, Parking Energy, Transport for London and Coventry University.
London’s black cabs go electric and Japan embraces autonomy
August 1897 – The London Electrical Cab
Nottingham City Council will own the vehicles and provide them to drivers rent-free. If successful, this technology could also be rolled out more broadly for public use.
In a statement, councillor Sally Longford, deputy leader at Nottingham City Council said: “Nottingham is excited to host the trial of this new type of innovative charging technology, keeping us ahead of the pack, and helping to promote cleaner taxis in our city and potentially take us a further step forward towards our goal of being carbon neutral by 2028.”
Zero-emission taxis are currently exempt from the higher rate of vehicle excise duty and £20m has been made available for 27 local authorities to install electric taxi chargepoints across England and Scotland. The government is also offering a £50m grant fund that provides drivers with up to £7,500 off the price of an eligible, purpose-built taxi.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps said: “Taxi drivers up and down the country are at the vanguard of the electric vehicle revolution, playing a leading role in reducing air pollution in our city centres where people live, shop and work.
“New wireless technology will make using an electric taxi quicker and more convenient, allowing drivers to charge up at taxi ranks before heading off with their next passenger.”
Today’s announcement of the electric taxi charging trial follows nearly £40m funding announced in July 2019 for the development of charging technologies that could expand the UK chargepoint network for people without off-street parking. Ideas in receipt of investment include underground charging systems that don’t require on-street structures and solar-powered charging.
Engineers like to distinguish political hype from reality. What charging rate do they achieve? ie power transferred in kW
The ones in Oslo Norway charge the Taxi’s at up to 70 Kwh depending on state of charge, the clever bit is identifying the vehicle and billing the correct account for energy delivered. Taxi drivers refuse to plug in and charge as they might miss a fare so wireless charging is perfect for them, ironically the losses at high charge rates are less for wireless than with wires due to not having to use cables.
They will probably use wireless charging for Tesla Semi trucks that will need to charge at 500 Kwh or more.
WiTricity, the leaders in large scale wireless charging, are trialling a 7.7 kw charger. This would provide 27Mj in an hour, assuming no loss, equivalent to two thirds of a litre of petrol. Norway are hoping to provide 75 kw for their taxis, but this seems a long way off. Thus the taxis in the Nottingham trial are likely to spend more time on the wireless chargers than carrying fares. Also, given the fuss some people make over wireless transmissions from mobile masts, I hate to think what they might now make of the taxi rank.
Encouraging would be nice if the professionalism that came with the cabs in London help push the industry past “Drive by Google” and “Uber-Alice”. Nottingham , you might check on experiences of folks a short hop across the pond where for at least 5 years at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam running 2 fleets of Tesla S taxis [about 65 of them] and where in most major cities in the Netherlands they have had on the street charging posts for almost 10 years.. Thumbs up