Driving down the highway is always quite fast. So was the development of an eHighway variant. An irritated look out of the window while driving, has raised many question what the long and high lines have to do here. Much too high for conventional electric vehicles, so what is the function behind it?
Explanation of eHighway
It is a technical transition in electric mobility for trucks. The idea of the eHighway is to establish an almost lossless, direct power supply for the vehicles via overhead lines and to provide both the energy for traction and charging from renewable sources. The system is similar to the power supply in train traffic. Batteries can be charged during the journey in order to bridge routes that have not been developed.
The reason behind it
The reason behind this is that the batteries of electric trucks are subject to a completely different order of magnitude. Due to the immense weight of the vehicle, a greater amount of energy must be expended to move, which is compensated for by the size of the battery. Accordingly, the charging capacity of such giant batteries is larger, requiring way more resources leading to great costs. Due to the long driving distances requires an efficient charging and energy management process. eHighway transfers allow the batteries to be charged while driving, reducing the time required for charging, or by replacing it completely.
The future goal
Currently, the eHighway is undergoing a field trial in Germany. It is a pilot project in Schleswig-Holstein with a 10 km test track. The aim is to evaluate this system technically, ecologically, economically and from a traffic point of view in order to provide politics, industry and academia with a basis for decisions on possible expansion. The main areas of research include the analysis of the network quality under the influence of the rectifier substations as well as the development of network expansion strategies.
Currently, an average of 1.3 million trucks travel on German highways every day. The vast majority of these trucks are still powered with fossil fuels. This results in a very high emission load, which should be converted to using green energy as quickly as possible in order to reduce the ecological footprint. Through the further development of eHighway, the effort of moving an electric truck would be reduced and the attractiveness of switching to this alternative form of transportation would really take off, because the road to success is rarely a straight highway, but a constant evolution leading in uncertain directions.