Your questions answered: inductive charging for road vehicles

Wireless inductive charging could help popularise electric vehicles (EVs) by making it quicker and easier to top up the battery. If the technology could be installed into roads, it might even be possible to charge EVs as they’re driving, a process known as dynamic charging.

The system creates a localised electromagnetic field around a charging pad, which is activated when an electric vehicle with a corresponding pad is positioned above it. The field induces a current in the receiving pad, supplying current that recharges the battery.

The technology is still in its infancy and there are plenty of questions remaining over how it will work. We put some of those queries suggested by readers to our panel of experts involved in developing wireless charging.

The panel includes:

Why do we need wireless charging?

The big OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] are not investing so much anymore in complete battery electric vehicles but more into the combination of electric with combustion engines. The problem is, Toyota has reported that with their plug-in hybrids people don’t use the cables to charge the batteries because they have the combustion engine on board and they would rather go to the petrol station. So now everybody is going for automatic charging.