Even if electric vehicles (EV) didn’t continue to improve, they're still good enough right now to become Americans' car of choice, says
San José State University Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering Mohamed Badawy, Ph.D.
But EV will get better, of course.
A lot better. Specifically, “customers are looking for shorter charging periods compared to what we have right now,” notes Dr. Badawy, who says in the near future a family may decide to buy different kinds of EVs—one for trips closer to home and another with a longer range for, say, a long work commute.
One of the most exciting developments Badawy has seen is wireless charging. “Imagine that there’s a parking lot and all you have to do is just park your car, go get your groceries and come back and find your vehicle has been charged,” he says. “So I don’t need to connect the cable to my vehicle, I don’t need to go to a charging station ... underneath my parked car there’s a transmitter coil that’s going to keep charging my vehicle.”
If that's not next-level enough for you, how about this: dynamic charging. “The idea is very similar to wireless charging, but with wireless charging you need your car to be stationary at a certain point so it gets charged,” explains Badawy, who directs SJSU’s
Center of Power Electronic Converters Laboratory and will soon start research in this field. “The idea of dynamic charging is that chargers are
underneath the road, so that while you’re actually moving, you’re charging your vehicle. It’s more like San Francisco cable cars, but without the cable.”
“It’s going to take more years to see it implemented,” he adds, “but the possibilities with a technology like that are endless: You don’t need to stop to charge your car, and you can make the vehicle lighter. I don’t need to build a battery with a 300-mile or 400-mile range because I’m always charging them as long as I’m on the highway.”
San José State has given Badawy and his colleagues the chance to pursue cutting-edge research, he says. "The university and our college specifically are pushing for more advancements with electric vehicles from a global initiative because they can see that this is the future and there is a real need.”
“The idea of dynamic charging is that chargers are underneath the road, so you're actually charging your vehicle while you drive."
— Dr. Mohammed Badawy, Director, San JosÉ State's Center of Power Electronics convertors laboratory