Officials from all three entities met at the Michigan Central building in downtown Detroit on Wednesday to unveil the new quarter mile stretch of 14th Street. Imbedded in the road are inductive-charging coils that, when driven over by cars equipped with Electreon receivers, will charge the cars. Dr. Stefan Tongur with Electreon says that there has already been a great amount of interest in the project from the public.
“We already got a lot of people from the public asking us, ‘Can I charge my Chevy Volt on your road? Can I charge my Ford 150 Lightning? Can I charge my BMVW I7 on your road?’ Because they have an issue with charging today, with battery range, with cost. And we’re looking forward to telling all these people, ‘Yes, you can charge on our roads. Not only this one, but others.’”
The project was widely touted by Governor Gretchen Whitmer who announced the initiative in September of 2021. Since then, MDOT and Electreon have entered a five-year commitment to develop an electric road system using Michigan roads as the canvas. Deputy Mayor Todd Bettison says the city of Detroit is the perfect place to begin this process.
“The wireless charging roadway aims to further functions testing site with local and national businesses, entrepreneurs to explore how in
the real world environment, this will be our own proving ground in the city of Detroit.”
The road will be used to test this wireless charging technology in a real-world environment with the hopes of perfecting it and expanding it to the public over the next few years throughout Michigan.
