Can wireless electric charging roads work for electric motorcycles?

It can charge “cars, vans and buses” — but curiously, electric motorcycles and scooters are left out of the press releases. Are they left out as an afterthought, or is there something technologically speaking that prohibits two-wheel electric vehicles from also charging on these wireless-charging roadways?

Electreon, the manufacturer behind the wireless roadways, explains that copper inductive charging coils allow vehicles equipped with receivers to charge up their batteries while driving, idling, or parking above the coils. Inductive charging isn’t exactly a breakthrough technology. You can find it in consumer goods such as electric toothbrushes and wireless charging docks for cell phones. What Electreon has done is basically scaled up that system of charging to a new order.

The Electreon system has four components to it: the copper coils installed inside the road to transmit energy, the receiver installed in the electric vehicle to receive the charge, a management unit on the side of the road that is receiving electricity from the grid, and cloud software that monitors the three hard components of the system. The cloud software is what will ultimately control the state of charge and how the charging will be billed to users.

Two issues appear to be obstacles to electric motorcycles using wireless charging roadways. The first is the size and orientation of the copper coils in the roadway. A motorcyclist would need to intentionally ride directly above the coil line to ensure charge is reaching the receiver, whereas a car only needs to drive as usual in the lane without much extra attention. Obviously, the motorcycle would also have to be fitted with a receiver.

The size and weight of the receiver could be another issue. Examples of the receiver seen in news videos look quite large, and whether the receiver can be scaled down to fit a motorcycle remains to be seen.

I contacted Electreon to ask about these two issues and they declined to provide any details about the feasibility of motorcycles using these roads. "Currently, we are only focusing on four-wheel vehicles. Cars, trucks, buses, etc.,” a company spokesperson said.

In the same way that electric motorcycles and scooters have been excluded from tax incentives for electric vehicles in the United States, it would appear that they are also being passed over for new charging technology like the Electreon roadways. If electric motorcycles and scooters are to succeed in the marketplace, manufacturers and enthusiasts will need to advocate more heavily for inclusion in the future.