Scania tests fast wireless charging in urban traffic

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Scania Group Press Release  /  December 7, 2016

The Nordic region’s first bus service featuring wireless (inductive) bus stop charging is now starting. A newly developed electric hybrid bus from Scania will be operated in regular urban traffic in Södertälje, Sweden, as part of the efforts to identify new more sustainable solutions for public transport in urban environments.

This is the first time the technology is being tested in the Nordic region and both the bus and bus stop solution are part of a research project where Scania, the public transport operator for the Stockholm region SL, Vattenfall, Södertälje Municipality and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) are cooperating to develop a silent and sustainable public transport system. The project is partly financed by the Swedish Energy Agency.

Silent and invisible charging

For the first time ever, this type of technology is also being tested for a more extreme climate, which this type of infrastructure must also cope with to be relevant in more northerly parts of the world. Wireless bus stop charging means that the bus parks over a charging segment located under the road surface at the charging station, where charging occurs automatically. The design of the inductive technology has been adapted so as not to disturb existing urban environments and is essentially invisible. Seven minutes of wireless charging is enough to cover the entire 10 km-long route, which the bus will operate in Södertälje.

“The electric hybrid bus in this project demonstrates a technology track for a more sustainable transport solution. The inductive charging technology is both silent and invisible. The field test in Södertälje is important ahead of the choices facing both society and the automotive industry with regard to eliminating emissions and reducing noise from traffic in sensitive urban environments,” says Hedvig Paradis, who is a project manager at Scania and responsible for the company’s participation in the research project.

Solutions for sustainable city transport solutions

The cost of the Wireless bus stop charging project amounts to just over SEK 38 million, of which Scania is investing SEK 22 million. The Swedish Energy Agency has granted almost SEK 10 million in research funding, which will be divided among the Royal Institute of Technology, Scania and SL.

“This is one of several projects Scania is conducting in order to find solutions for future sustainable transport services in cities,” says Anders Grundströmer, Head of recently started Scania Sustainable City Solutions. “We are working on identifying the needs of cities and on creating systems for eco-friendly, fast, secure and cost-effective transport solutions, which are based on locally-produced alternative fuels including electrification.”

Several options for electrification

Electrification of the transport sector will demand various technologies and solutions – both in terms of where and how vehicles are charged. Charging can either occur when vehicles are stationary at depots and bus stops or during operation. For charging during operation the alternatives are conductive charging via a pantograph or inductive charging – or a combination of these techniques.

The choice of solution depends on what transport task will be performed. The size and weight of the batteries, which can be carried on board the vehicle, for example, determines how much of the charging must occur while in service.

The bus that Scania will test in Södertälje’s urban traffic is a hybrid bus, i.e. featuring technology, which means that the bus’s batteries are also charged during operation by utilising braking power. Charging may also occur using the bus’s combustion engine, which operates on fossil-free fuel.

Technical facts about the bus

Model: Scania "Citywide" LE4x2
Powertrain: Parallel hybrid, integrated with the gearbox (GRS895)
Electrical engine, capacity: 130 kW
Battery: Li-Ion 56 kWh
Combustion engine: 9-litre 320 hp diesel engine (operates on biodiesel)

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“Electric buses – part of the switch to fossil-free transport”

Scania Group Press Release  /  December 8, 2016

More public transport and more efficient forms of it are key factors for reducing emissions in cities. And electrified buses will play a decisive role in making the transition to becoming a fossil-free community.

These were the thoughts of the Swedish Minister for the Environment, Karolina Skog, at the inauguration of the Nordic region’s first wirelessly charged electric-bus line last Wednesday. The ceremony took place, fittingly enough, at the Tom Tits Experiment science museum in Södertälje where the new 755 bus line has its terminus.

Scania’s newly developed electric hybrid bus will operate in regular city traffic as a part of the company’s efforts to drive new and more sustainable public transport solutions for use in urban environments. The bus is rapidly charged using wireless inductive charging at its terminus. The process takes just seven minutes and the bus then has sufficient energy to complete its 10-kilometre route.

This marks the first time that wireless induction technology has been tested in the Nordic region.  Both the bus and the bus stop charging-solution are part of a research project in which Scania, Stockholm Public Transport (SL), energy company Vattenfall, Södertälje Municipality, and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology are working together to develop quiet and sustainable public transport. The project is financed in part through the Swedish Energy Agency.

“Electrification is a decisive part of creating a fossil-free community and in reducing emissions and noise to provide a better quality of life in cities,” said Karolina Skog. “Engaging forms of public transport will play a key role in this. Public transport will handle the growth in traffic that we are seeing in the world’s cities.”

The Minister for the Environment was one of several dignitaries who pressed a button at the bus charging station to mark the start of the project, as journalists and guests from the realms of politics, academia and business looked on. Other partners in the project were also present when the bus almost silently glided away on its first circuit. These included Anders Grundströmer, Head of Scania Sustainable City Solutions, Magnus Hall, CEO of Vattenfall, Göran Finnveden, Vice President at KTH, Kristoffer Tamsons, Traffic Commissioner for Stockholm county, and Boel Godner, the Mayor of Södertälje. Magnus Henke from the Swedish Energy Agency was also involved.

”We are today demonstrating the power of good cooperation between the public, research and business sectors,” said Skog. “It is this kind of systematic work that will enable us to make the transition to becoming fossil free. It’s a great feeling to be here today.”

Kristoffer Tamsons och Boel Godner used the inauguration ceremony to emphasise that they had high expectations of the new technology.

“Stockholm county wants to be at the forefront in terms of environmentally friendly and engaging public transport, and we know that environmental factors are important for our citizens,” Tamsons said. “We have long been a pioneer when it comes to renewable fuels. Ten years ago two out of ten buses in Stockholm were operated on renewable fuel. Today, it’s nine out of ten. And my goal is to have 100 percent operating on renewable fuel within two years.”

Godner believes the wirelessly charged electric bus will have great significance for Södertälje as a municipality. “We want to be a sustainable municipality and this is an important part of achieving that goal,” she said. “I hope that this helps us to entice even more people to use public transport.”

Scania hosted the event and Anders Grundströmer says there were good discussions between the various partners. “This type of arrangement, where the business, political and academic sectors work together, is what is required to drive the coming shifts. Scania is pushing the boundaries within sustainable solutions for urban environments and the project that we are now implementing together here in Södertälje will be an important demonstrator for cities around the world to follow.”

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Wireless charging J2954 testing to 11 kW in 2017 for LD, HD starting up to 250 kW; autonomous charging and infrastructure proposal for California

Green Car Congress  /  February 13, 2017

SAE International is working to ensure that electric vehicle wireless power transfer systems from diverse manufacturers will interoperate seamlessly with each other to prepare for commercialization in 2020. The SAE TIR (Technical Information Report) J2954 provides guidance to ensure performance and safety of Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) Systems provided from one vendor as well as interoperability when parts of the system are provided from different vendors.

SAE International is engaged with the Idaho National Lab and US Department of Energy (DOE) in bench-testing of WPT 3 (11 kW) levels in 2017, said Jesse Schneider, chair of the SAE J2954 task force, in his presentation at the SAE 2017 Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Technologies Symposium last week in San Diego. In addition, eight OEMs have light-duty vehicle testing planned to begin in third quarter for WPT 1-3 which is scheduled to be completed in 2018.

In December 2016, interoperability between the so-called Double D (DD) and Circular Topologies was demonstrated between 3.7 to 7.7 kW (WPT 1 and WPT 2 power levels) with efficiencies exceeding 85-90% under aligned conditions. (Earlier post.)

The Recommended Practice SAE J2954 will also contain guidance for vehicle alignment methods and determine a common location for the wireless charging ground assembly. Currently, magnetic field alignment through triangulation using the existing coils and alignment using an auxiliary antenna are being evaluated for this decision.

The goal is to provide one methodology to align in order to be able to charge with high efficiency all SAE J2954 stations. This is for both manual (self-parking) and autonomous (automated) alignment possibilities. It is important to know that the only way to charge an autonomous vehicle automatically is to use wireless charging and SAE J2954 Recommended Practice will standardize this.

—Jesse Schneider

Further, SAE International has made a proposal to Electrify America to start a build-out of multiple hundreds of Light Duty Wireless Chargers starting in 2019 in public locations in California and ZEV states in three stages. The first stage, for light duty vehicles, creates an infrastructure based on J2954 (for example in malls, large workplaces, condominium complexes, etc).

SAE also proposes 100 Heavy Duty Chargers in 2020 based on SAE J2954/2 (for example public transit agency, truck stops for anti-idling, etc.) in 2021 to create a wireless charging infrastructure with alignment communications for autonomous vehicles (for example, taxi fleets).

This will also help independent organizations or government organizations to quantify how much wireless charging may increase the eVMT (electric Vehicle Miles Traveled) for wireless charging (inductive charging) vs. plug-in (conductive charging) electric vehicles. This could also be quantified in the form of a CO₂ reduction potential by implementing wireless charging both in the home and in public locations.

In addition, this could also provide some data to help to understand the potential of wireless charging to reduce the pulse in criteria pollutants emitted with the engine cold start of a range extender engine. (The last, noted Ryan Hart from the California Air Resources Board (ARB) in his talk at the SAE symposium, is not a negligible problem.)

With a coordinated preliminary rollout of this technology, statistical information to gauge customer acceptance of both this new charging methodology as well as increased acceptance of the electric vehicle (for instance with convenience less or no range anxiety using wireless charging) can be gauged.

Additionally, the heavy-duty wireless charging standardization initiative SAE J2954/2 is kicking off on 10 February in San Diego following the SAE symposium to standardize wireless power transfer at 50 kW-250 kW. This is to address opportunity charging at bus stops (similar to the Scania testing in Sweden, (earlier post).

In addition, the meeting will launch an investigation of the optimized wireless charging power level to offset idling for heavy duty trucks at truckstops (and address the anti-idling laws).

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US Researchers Studying Wireless Transfer of Electricity to Vehicles

Transport Topics  /  June 29, 2017

Scientists at StanfordUniversity have succeeded in wirelessly transmitting electricity to a nearby moving object, the wide-ranging implications of which could affect the recharging of electric cars and trucks, robots and cellphones, university officials said.

The research was published first in the June 15 issue of Nature.

Some transportation experts envision an automated highway system where driverless electric vehicles are wirelessly charged by solar power or other renewable energy sources, the Stanford, Calif.-based university noted. The goal would be to reduce accidents and dramatically improve the flow of traffic while lowering greenhouse gas emissions, university officials said.

“In theory, one could drive for an unlimited amount of time without having to stop to recharge,” Shanhui Fan, a professor of electrical engineering and senior author of the study, said in a statement. “The hope is that you’ll be able to charge your electric car while you’re driving down the highway. A coil in the bottom of the vehicle could receive electricity from a series of coils connected to an electric current embedded in the road.”

Currently, however, the power levels being tested would not be enough to support an electric Class 8 truck, Fan told Transport Topics. “At present, the experimental demonstration is at a power level that is far lower — several orders of magnitude lower — compared with what is needed to charge a truck,” he said. “The principle we demonstrate should be scalable to higher power, but we have not done that yet.” He noted, however, that the speed of a Class 8 truck traveling a highway would not be an issue.

The researchers at Stanford built on existing technology developed in 2007 at MIT for transmitting electricity wirelessly over a distance of a few feet to a stationary object, the university said.

In the new work, the team transmitted electricity wirelessly to a moving LED lightbulb, it said. That demonstration involved only a 1-milliwatt charge, whereas electric cars often require tens of kilowatts to operate. The team is now working on greatly increasing the amount of electricity that can be transferred and tweaking the system to extend the transfer distance and improve efficiency, according to Stanford.

The research also may “untether robotics in manufacturing, which also are on the move,” Fan said. “We still need to significantly increase the amount of electricity being transferred to charge electric cars, but we may not need to push the distance too much more.”

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