The economics of wireless charging on the road

Abstract

To accelerate market penetration of EVs, installing a proper charging infrastructure is necessary. The total cost of operating electric vehicles includes vehicle cost, infrastructure cost, and energy consumption cost. We compared the total cost associated with plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and On-Line Electric Vehicles (OLEV), i.e., plug-in versus wireless charging. Because of the high cost of the battery, OLEV is more cost efficient in a mega-city where many vehicles can share the roadways' wireless charging infrastructure. As battery costs fall, EVs with larger batteries will become more cost competitive. Even then, the infrastructure for OLEV can be used as charging infrastructure for PHEVs or PEVs by adding onboard pickup devices to the vehicles.