The Motor City is working on solutions to keep your electric car motoring.

The city that claims the first paved stretch of road in America added another first to its list: On Wednesday, Detroit became home to the first road in America that can charge electric vehicles as they drive.

Of course, this technologically advanced bit of 14th Street near Ford’s new innovation hub in the Michigan Central Station complex comes with a few caveats: The bit of road that can charge EVs is only a quarter-mile long, and it can’t charge just any EV—it has to be an EV specially modified to pick up the charge from copper coils embedded in the pavement. It also didn’t do a ton of charge, providing 16 kw to a test van traveling at 9 mph. Still, Ford says it’s a small step towards a sustainable EV future. From the Detroit Free Press:

“It may seem small now, but it’s a huge step” in getting this to scale, Joshua Sirefman, CEO of Michigan Central, the Ford subsidiary running a “mobility innovation district” in Corktown, said before the demonstration began. “The implications are truly staggering.”

Not just any electric vehicle can pick up a <strong>charge</strong> just yet on 14th Street. The van was equipped with a special receiver to take the <strong>charge</strong>. The coils themselves are underneath the road surface, but a small section of the road was left unpaved to show how the coated coils would lie flat underneath. Two large boxes were positioned on the sidewalk to manage the coils.

The endeavor represents one piece of a public-private partnership aiming to show how this type of EV charging infrastructure could work in practice, and it follows up on an announcement by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in September 2021 that the state planned to launch the first wireless-charging public road project in the country.

    This system is already in use in buses in Israel, but it isn’t used as a primary charging system. The electrified roads are there to extend a vehicle’s battery life, not completely <strong>charge</strong> it. But such a technology could allow automakers to build cars with smaller batteries, saving on vehicle weight and resources needed to make our electric future a reality. 

    How well the charging road will hold up remains to be seen of course. Israel does not have the intense freeze-thaw cycle the American Midwest goes through every year. Still, as a big fan of automotive innovation and the “Death Stranding” video game, I am very much excited to see charging roads become a reality. It would take a monumental shift in how roads and EVs are built, but the potential is staggering. Besides, with our garbage infrastructure, adding charging to roads is a great excuse for actually fixing the goddamn roads.