World’s First Electric Highway For Trucks Opens In Sweden

Sweden is testing out the world’s first electric highway for trucks. The two-kilometer (1.2 mile) long electric road has a series of wires hanging overhead that pantograph-equipped trucks can connect and disconnect seamlessly at speeds of 90 kilometers an hour, and allows the trucks to pass in other lanes and continue operating with diesel once they are off the power grid. Report suggests that the technology is similar to light rail with contact lines 5.4 meters over the roadway, and the lines can feed 750 volts of DC to a truck.

Siemens, the provider of the technology in collaboration with Scania, says the eHighway is “twice as efficient” as conventional engines. Since transport accounts for more than one-third of Sweden’s carbon dioxide emissions, the country is using the two-year trial for the eHighway and see if it’s possible for further deployment in the future. Sad to relate, Sweden’s experiment in electrifying its roads, as Inverse points out, is pretty-old-school compared to experiments in countries like South Korea and the United Kingdom. Because South Korea already has a bus lane that charges electric vehicles wirelessly. Same goes to the United Kingdom, the country is on early stage of researching electric highways that would wirelessly charge electric vehicles.