News hardware Electric cars with unlimited autonomy: Fiat has found a way!
What if the future of electric cars was through wireless induction charging? In any case, this is one of the tracks on which the Stellantis automotive group (Peugeot, Citroën, Opel, Fiat, Chrysler, etc.) is working with a simple Fiat 500, somewhat customized, as its guinea pig.
An electric car that charges entirely on its own? Yes it’s possible
Between the planned end of thermal cars for 2035 and the explosion in sales of electric cars which risks creating a traffic jam at charging stations on the holiday motorway, all manufacturers are already working on THE technology of the future. that will change the automotive world.
We all remember the fantasy of the famous “water engine” (or
even in sea water
), but several decades after this crazy dream, we are still at the same point and we still have the same needs, oil, oil and… oil.
And when you see fuel prices today (more than €2.50/l in some Parisian stations), we understand better why the transition to electric vehicles is so strong and the delivery times so long, which can take up to several months for certain models.
Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer (DWPT) in the spotlight
It is on its private circuit near Chiari in Italy, called for the occasion “Arena del Futuro” (the arena of the future what), that the automotive giant Stellantis, which since 2021 has brought together the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles groups (Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep or even Lancia) but also PSA Peugeot Citroën (Citroën, DS, Opel, Peugeot, etc.) managed to run a “custom” electric Fiat 500, as well as a bus , while allowing them to recharge indefinitely and completely autonomously.
To do this, the group was inspired by a well-known technology on our smartphones in particular, the famous induction charge, but here in a dynamic way, or Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer (DWPT) in English.
Concretely, for this to work, you need both a car and a compatible road, as the group explains to us in a press release:
The DWPT is an innovative system based on loops are placed under the asphalt that transmit energy directly to cars, trucks and buses, thus avoiding them having to stop at stations to recharge their batteries.
This technology is adaptable to all vehicles equipped with a special “receiver” that transfers energy from the road infrastructure directly to the electric motor, extending the range while conserving the charge of the vehicle battery.
After the Fiat 500 and a bus, a Maserati Grecale Folgore?
Rather than recharging a battery, the DWPT system transmits energy from one receiver to another directly to the electric motor, thereby extending range while conserving the vehicle’s battery charge.
If this system already proves to be viable and effective on a small car like the Fiat 500 or a bus, Stellantis specifies that such a device is quite possible on trucks and that it will soon be adapted to a prestige car, namely a Maserati Grecale Folgore.
If it seems difficult, if not impossible, to see this technology being deployed in all the vehicles of the future (we are not going to change all the roads on the planet, etc.), in large cities, airports, bus lanes, circuits, etc., this is quite possible.
