This road in Detroit is the first in the country to charge an EV, project leaders say

Detroit — A new quarter-mile stretch of road in Corktown can charge electric vehicles as they zoom down the street — a first in the nation, according to project leaders.

The Michigan Transportation Department and city of Detroit on Wednesday opened the segment on 14th Street between Marantette and Dalzelle streets near Michigan Central Station, where Ford Motor Co. is building an electric- and autonomous-vehicle campus. The road is equipped with inductive-charging coils from Israel-based Electreon Wireless Ltd. to test the technology's efficiency and potential for public transportation opportunities. Only EVs equipped with a special receiver can be charged from it.

Range, availability of charging infrastructure and speed to charge alongside affordability are some of the biggest hurdles for Americans to purchase EVs. Those challenges have resulted in the increasing pace of EV sales slowing this year even as more vehicle options become available. Automakers, as a result, have delayed EV launches, postponed production dates for battery plants and slashed EV programs.

"The great thing about electric roads is imagine if you have a stationary charger," said Stefan Tongur, Electreon's vice president of business development. "It stays idle for a very long time, because people use it during lunch breaks or when they start to go somewhere. In this case, imagine a road where people are driving all the time. The utilization of that infrastructure, which is a long time — 10, 15, 20 years — you have a return on an investment, increase utilization and reduce the cost of charging much more."

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in September 2021 announced a pilot initiative to develop the nation's first wireless charging infrastructure on a public road in Michigan — she quipped that the state is going to "electrify the d--- roads" in a prerecorded video. MDOT and Electreon have a five-year agreement to develop an electric-road system to test the technology in the state, including another three-quarter mile stretch on Michigan Avenue mostly in Corktown. The project includes a $1.9 million state grant and $4 million in funding from Electreon and its investors.

"One of our big roles here is ensuring that we can build out the necessary network," MDOT Director Bradley Wieferich said. "It's our job to create the environment and help development the technologies that are going to ease that."

Electreon's wireless charging technology uses inductive coupling between copper coils installed below the road surface and a receiver installed on an EV. Like a large wireless phone charger, the road transfers electricity through a magnetic field when coils are activated by the presence of a receiver when a vehicle is parked or driving over them. That energy then moves to the vehicle's battery. Construction digs deeper into the ground to set the coils in place, though otherwise the road-building process is the same.

Tongur said initially the focus is on commercial use cases, highly frequented corridors and places where vehicles might do a lot of idling, such as delivery locations, bus terminals and queues for crossing a bridge. Electreon installed technology in roadways starting in 2019 in Sweden and since has expanded to Germany, Italy and Israel. It's also working on forthcoming projects in Utah.

A bus fleet manager in Israel pays a fee to use the EV-charging roadways. Tongur says the revenue model can be a subscription, based on how much energy a vehicle consumes or more like a toll road. There also may be opportunities in monetizing the technology to offset lost gasoline taxes from EVs.

The receiver isn't commercially available and isn't expected to be widely available for another two to three years, Tongur said. Electreon is working with automakers like Ford Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp., Stellantis NV and others on integration as well as retrofitting. The Detroit project is meant to test the technology's performance in real-world conditions and how to scale it.

Electreon worked with DTE Energy Co. to install several "management units" that provides the electricity through underground wires to each of the coils. Each one powers 60 coils.

The electric road is safe for drivers, pedestrians and wildlife, according to the project leaders. There are two Electreon static inductive charging stations in front of the Newlab at Michigan Central Building, which is adjacent to the former train station. The charging stations can charge parked EVs equipped with receivers.

A light-duty vehicle might pick up 20 to 25 kilowatts of charge compared to 30 to 35 for a heavy-duty vehicle. They also can have more than one receiver to increase the charging benefits.

The stretch of road on 14th Street runs alongside the Newlab at the Michigan Central Building. Newlab houses more than 60 tech and mobility startups, including Electreon. Michigan Central Station is expected to open to the public in spring or summer of 2024.

"This is what Michigan Central is all about, not only convening key partners across the public and private sectors to fuel innovation and create jobs and investment in Detroit, but also providing the environment to safely test and hone technology like Electreon in real time and in the real world," Michigan Central CEO Joshua Sirefman said in a statement. "It is through this collaboration and advancement that Michigan Central is helping to tackle global problems and fast-track solutions to many of our greatest mobility challenges."

Remaining work along 14th Street is expected to continue through the end of 2023. More testing of the inductive charging technology using an E-Transit van provided by Ford will begin in early 2024.

Also in 2024, MDOT will seek bids to rebuild part of U.S. 12 (Michigan Avenue). It will include inductive charging as well. The corridor also has been pegged for a connected and autonomous vehicle roadway from downtown Detroit to Ann Arbor under a project with Cavnue LLC.

In addition to the first wireless charging public roadway, the Motor City also had the first mile of concrete road and the first three-way traffic signal.

bnoble@detroitnews.com

@BreanaCNoble