It’s interesting to watch in various settings around the world how unfolding automotive technologies are undergoing testing and market roll-out. In the two articles below, two electric road tests are explained, one in Europe and one in North America. These tests involve support for advanced propulsion technology, specifically electric drive technologies. In the Sweden example, government has created a test environment for a short-span electric roadway near Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport. The test links the Airport to a nearby logistics site. In the other example, Siemans and a major California electric utility company have joined to develop an electric roadway to test a heavy truck route at the largest seaport in North America, the Port of Los Angeles.
A fundamental challenge with the fast-evolving technologies that are reshaping human mobility is the dearth of special-purpose environments to support product testing. There is much now written about the legal authorities that governments are providing (or not) to autotech companies related to on-road testing. This is a hugely important topic as industry requires to test its technology in a range of real-world environments. Governments are trying to carefully measure those authorities and ensure public safety as the world enters a precarious period with still-under development technologies that will be testing alongside public traffic. At the same time, companies in the autotech space are almost uniformly challenged by the lack of purpose-built, sophisticated off-road testing places – and this is having a negative impact on the industry and its march toward market readiness. It may seem odd, but though billions are being spent by hundreds of established and newcomer companies on the underlying tech development, there is simply little outlet for these companies to test their technology in private, high-quality test environments.
All of this is to say that the global autotech universe, trade organizations and government partners have quite a lot more to do to support what is a tremendously important period in the evolution of mobility. We need larger transnational agreements on testing and development infrastructure and test protocols and the industry needs a myriad of testing and development environments. At present, in North America and Europe there is a patchwork of test facilities but in the end, there is far too little available for AV and propulsion systems engineers to test their proprietary technologies and to test the integration of overlapping technologies.
GLDPartners is working to address the lack of facilities available to industry in the US with the development of a state of the art testing, development and production complex of scale at a site that is oriented to Silicon Valley. The California Autotech Testing and Development Center (CATDC) is a purpose-designed 500-acre complex with multiple test zones created to support a range of testing requirements, including high-speed testing, suburban and urban grid testing, parking lot, wet weather, etc. Silicon Valley’s software and creative environment is the perfect setting for automotive tech innovation and it is now a global autotech hub – and practically every global automotive OEM, automotive supplier and most major Ai, computer processing/semiconductor, computer systems management firms, optical reader and software is present. The CATDC takes advantage of its proximity and is developing a test and development asset unlike anywhere in the world. The project has been received with overwhelming levels of interest by the industry – and will only be limited by the size of the facility to accommodate.
We see this is as very exciting in and of itself – but the fact remains that there will need to be more projects like the CATDC, especially in other key markets, R&D settings, etc.
World’s First Electrified Road for Charging Vehicles Opens in Sweden
The world’s first electrified road that recharges the batteries of cars and trucks driving on it has been opened in Sweden. About 2km (1.2 miles) of electric rail has been embedded in a public road near Stockholm, but the government’s roads agency has already drafted a national map for future expansion.
Sweden’s target of achieving independence from fossil fuel by 2030 requires a 70% reduction in the transport sector.
The technology behind the electrification of the road linking Stockholm Arlanda airport to a logistics site outside the capital city aims to solve the thorny problems of keeping electric vehicles charged, and the manufacture of their batteries affordable.
Energy is transferred from two tracks of rail in the road via a movable arm attached to the bottom of a vehicle. The design is not dissimilar to that of a Scalextric track, although should the vehicle overtake, the arm is automatically disconnected.
The “dynamic charging” – as opposed to the use of roadside charging posts – means the vehicle’s batteries can be smaller, along with their manufacturing costs.
A former diesel-fuelled truck owned by the logistics firm, PostNord, is the first to use the road.
Hans Säll, chief executive of the eRoad Arlanda consortium behind the project, said both current vehicles and roadways could be adapted to take advantage of the technology.
In Sweden there are roughly half a million kilometres of roadway, of which 20,000km are highways, Säll said.
“If we electrify 20,000km of highways that will definitely be enough,” he added. “The distance between two highways is never more than 45km and electric cars can already travel that distance without needing to be recharged. Some believe it would be enough to electrify 5,000km.”
At a cost of €1m per kilometre, the cost of electrification is said to be 50 times lower than that required to construct an urban tram line. Säll said: “There is no electricity on the surface. There are two tracks, just like an outlet in the wall. Five or six centimeters down is where the electricity is. But if you flood the road with salt water then we have found that the electricity level at the surface is just one volt. You could walk on it barefoot.”
National grids are increasingly moving away from coal and oil and battery storage is seen as crucial to a changing the source of the energy used in transportation.
The Swedish government, represented by a minister at the formal inauguration of the electrified road on Wednesday, is in talks with Berlin about a future network. In 2016, a 2km stretch of motorway in Sweden was adapted with similar technology but through overhead power lines at lorry level, making it unusable for electric cars.
First Electric Highway in US Unveiled Near Ports of L.A. and Long Beach
On Nov. 8, the country’s first electrified highway, or eHighway, was demonstrated by the South Coast Air Quality Management District and Siemens. The demonstration of big rig trucks hauling freight took place on a mile-long stretch of Alameda Street near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Southern California Edison is providing engineering support for the project and analyzing how the system integrates into the grid.
Similar to modern-day streetcars and electric light rail systems, the eHighway uses an overhead catenary system connected to a pantograph on top of big rig trucks to provide electrical power. The pantograph can connect and disconnect automatically with the catenary lines via a sensor system while the trucks are moving, so the trucks can run when they aren’t connected to the overhead wires. The trucks are powered by an electric-hybrid drive system that switches to batteries, diesel or natural gas when they disconnect from the catenary system.
“One benefit of having an electric highway that can be linked to the ports is that it can help reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions,” said Jordan Smith, SCE senior engineer. “It is also a cost-effective way of moving cargo from the ports and, if implemented, should result in lower cost in goods movement overall, which is good for our customers.”
According to the air quality management district, heavy-duty trucks are the No. 1 source of smog-forming emissions in Southern California. Many of the trucks haul goods from the ports to warehouses in the Inland Empire, meaning those customers living near the ports and along freight corridors are more adversely impacted by the emissions.
“This project will help us evaluate the feasibility of a zero-emission cargo movement system using overhead catenary wires,” said Wayne Nastri, executive officer of the air quality management district. “This demonstration could lead to the deployment of eHighway systems that will reduce pollution and benefit public health for residents living near the ports.”
“Experts expect global CO2 emissions from road freight traffic to more than double by 2050,” said Andreas Thon, head of Turnkey Projects & Electrification, Siemens North America. “This electrified truck system, what we call eHighway, can modernize the existing infrastructure using the latest technology to accommodate the growing amount of freight travel, reduce harmful emissions and keep these ports, one of our country’s major economic drivers, competitive.”
Projects like the eHighway are in direct alignment with SCE’s recently released proposal, “The Clean Power and Electrification Pathway.” The white paper calls for an aggressive approach to reducing California’s greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality, especially in vulnerable communities like those near the ports and along freight corridors, such as the I-710 Freeway, in order to meet the state’s ambitious clean energy goals.
It also aligns with SCE’s position supporting a clean, zero-emission freight corridor as part of Caltrans and Metro’s I-710 Corridor Project. A catenary system, like the eHighway, is one alternative electric technology, among many potential technologies, that may successfully be implemented to power the envisioned zero-emission freight corridor on the I-710 Freeway and help reduce air pollution.
GLDPartners is an international investment and advisory firm that specializes in revenue and infrastructure development projects at and around high-opportunity airports, seaports and strategic trade and logistics hubs. The firm advises global manufacturers and companies with retail distribution operations with network design strategy and facility location analytics.
The firm has a division (GLDPartners Auto) which is specialist in working with the rapidly changing automotive industry in supporting next-generation supply chain management and the testing and development of new technologies. GLDPartners Auto is managing the development of the California Autotech Testing and Development Center, a large-scale state of the art automotive technology testing, development and production complex in Silicon Valley, California. California Autotech Testing and Development Center
GLDPartners’ clients and market perspective is global and the firm is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, with offices in New York, Washington DC and in the UK. www.gldpartners.com
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