Manholes in NYC will be Electric Charging Stations

According to Computerworld we will see some manhole covers in New York City doubling as wireless-charging stations for electric vehicles equipped with wireless receivers as soon as next year. These wireless vehicle charging pads have first been developed by Delphi, auto electronics giant, and now they are working on an electric vehicle that all of the auto industry can use.

Here in New York City HEVO Power, the city's own startup company, will be piloting a program for wireless charging manholes around Washington Square Park next year sometime in early 2014.  HEVO, which stands for hybrid and electric vehicle optimization, has partnered with New York University, plans to use two wireless Smart Fortwo electric cars to test the practicality and efficiency of the manhole charge. HEVO's manhole will work by vehicles simply parking over the automated charger in parking spaces that are designated "green zone" allowing cars and trucks to recharge. This would enable the hybrid and electric vehicles to remove the charging wires by making a magnetic connection between charging coils in the car and the manhole.

HEVO hopes to use this technology to power commercial electric fleets owned by companies such as Frito-Lay and Pepsi.   The cost of these manhole covers will be competitive with the market value of $3,500 to $5,000.  The one glaring setback is the length of time it takes to recharge vehicle batteries.  The recharge time for Electric Vehicles is about 4 hours for a 24 kilowatt-hour(kWh) capacity battery.  This can be power a standard size economy car, like the Nissan Leaf.

Also in 2014 Toyota will test a wireless charging Prius in Japan, Europe and the U.S.  The electric car and the wireless charing stations are something hot to look for and its right around the corner!

                                                               2014 Toyota Prius