An article on the website TruthDive suggests that cars could, in the future, be powered by electrified roadways, thus eliminating car batteries.
Taking a page from slot car racers, Masahiro Hanazawa at Toyota’s central R&D Labs in Nagakute, Japan, and Takashi Ohira at Toyohashi University of Technology, are developing a system that transmits electric power through steel belts placed inside two tires and a metal plate in the road.
"Our approach exploits a pair of tires, which are always touching a road surface," Hanazawa said. To test how much energy would be lost as electricity traveled through the tires’ rubber, Hanazawa and Ohira set up a lab experiment in which they put metal plates on the floor and inside a tire. "Less than 20% of the transmitted power is dissipated in the circuit," Ohira said. Work is ongoing but both scientists admit that a practical system is still a long way off. (Tyres & Accessories)