
With a gap of 17 cm between magnet plate to magnet plate there is up to an 85% maximum power transmission efficiency rate that can transfer 20kHz and 100 kW (136 horsepower). The magnet plates under the road take up only 5-15% of the actual road, meaning that roads need not to be completely teared apart to implement the new technology but only small fractions of it. The batteries themselves are only a third of the size of a regular electric car battery so less energy is overall needed.
Gumi is already using this new technology in trams at the Seoul Grand Park amusement park and in shuttle buses on the school campus. In August, Gumi continued their OLEV trial phase with two public buses that actively ran between Gumi train station and the In-Dong district, which covered a distance of 24 km. They continuously want to extend the fleet with implementing ten more public buses by 2015.
Although the OLEV project is the first functioning example of electric vehicles on the move other inductive charging projects have also been successful, such as in Torino, Italy or in Utrecht, Netherlands. Dong-Ho Cho, leader of the team at KAIST says “this is certainly a turning point for OLEV to become more commercialized and widely accepted for mass transportation.” It simply makes sense to equip public buses that take the same roads day by day, always stop-and-go, with a self-sustainable technology.
In collaboration with Unlocked, we explore the future of hybrid space and how the cultural sector and events industry can reap the benefits of this new urban frontier in the post-COVID city.
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