New wireless charging technology for EVs will be tested in London in the coming months.

The innovation comes from Qualcomm, a telecommunications equipment company that may just revolutionise the car industry in the near future. WECV, standing for Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging, is a new infrastructure that will allow EVs to be recharged on the road, without the need for drivers to look for power sources to plug their cars in.

This will be possible because of inductive charging, a process which allows the transfer of energy between two disparate objects through an electromagnetic field. Although this process is not as power-efficient as charging posts and other types of electrical charging, it will allow drivers to 'charge their electric vehicle little and often and potentially use dynamic charging to complement local stationary charging, removing range anxiety. This means that batteries could be smaller with the resulting reduction in electric vehicle cost and weight,' according to Qualcomm.

Trials will be carried out in London before the end of the year, possibly in November, by installing charging pads next to Qualcomm's West London premises. The company is far from being the only one testing the waters with inductive charging however as BMW and Volkswagen are among the several others that are, too, working on the technology, waiting to be tested in Germany.

Range anxiety remains the biggest obstacle to the widespread use of EVs. But how much this technology will be practical remains to be seen. Would this mean that we would need to go through specific road paths to re-charge our cars? If so, this might be as cumbersome as finding a charging post. Also, at the moment at least, cars will not be able to get charged on the move but instead, will need to stop on a charging pad and stay stationary during the charging process.

The cost of having this technology in abundance on various road lanes to allow drivers to recharge as they move seems to be far-fetched, at least at this point in time, according to experts. Inductive charging does however allow electric charging without having to plug, and only time will tell how much impact will this innovation have on the industry…

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