Auto companies around the world are touting plug-in hybrid and all-electric vehicles. In South Korea, researchers are working on an experimental alternative they say could revolutionize the way vehicles will be powered. A group of 55 scientists and engineers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology, the country’s top technology university known as KAIST, is working on designs for a shuttle service at a Seoul amusement park where vehicles will be driven with power transferred by magnetic induction from cables buried underground.
The shuttle service, due to begin a test run in November and open for public use next spring, will be the first time the technology will be used for public transportation. Under the university’s plan, electricity-powered cars don’t need to be equipped with heavy and bulky batteries that are too expensive for most consumers.
That’s because electric cars will be continuously charged while running on roads embedded with power strips. “Given the need to cut down emissions, electrification of the power train appears inevitable,” says Cho Dong Ho, director of KAIST’s Institute for Information Technology Convergence, who is heading the project dubbed Online Electric Vehicle (OLEV). Cho claims magnetic induction technology would be “the most convenient and cost-effective” way to usher in an era of electric vehicles. KAIST researchers point out that it also resolves such problems associated with battery-powered vehicles as short driving range and long charge time.
