---
title: "EV-Charging Roads Have Arrived. Here’s Why We Do (and Don’t) Need Them."
description: "EV-charging roads may not be necessary to meet the needs of the average EV driver, but they could be a huge help for those in the transportation business."
date: "2018-04-13"
modified: "2018-04-13"
authors:
  - name: "Kristin Houser"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/kristin"
url: "https://futurism.com/ev-charging-roads-sweden"
categories:
  - "Science & Energy"
tags:
  - "charging"
  - "electric vehicle"
  - "sweden"
---

# EV-Charging Roads Have Arrived. Here’s Why We Do (and Don’t) Need Them.

![](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/eRoads_NCC67688-21.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: \<a href="https://eroadarlanda.com/press-and-media/images-and-materials/" target="\_blank"\>eRoad Arlanda\</a\>\</em\>*

There are lots of things that seem like threats but ultimately aren't something you should worry about. Air travel? Safer than in a car. Sharks? You're far more likely to die from a fireworks accident. "Range anxiety," the fear that your EV's battery will die and leave you stranded? Seriously — [don't sweat it](<https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602174/why-range-anxiety-for-electric-cars-is-overblown/>).

But some fears don't go away even when you tell them to. So for people who are still worried about their EVs running out of battery, EV-charging roads may seem like the holy grail of personal transportation.

Another misconception: they aren't. Still, though, they aren't completely useless.

This week, [Sweden unveiled](<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/12/worlds-first-electrified-road-for-charging-vehicles-opens-in-sweden>) [eRoadArlanda](<https://eroadarlanda.com/>), the first electrified road in the world. The 2-kilometer (1.2-mile) stretch of pavement uses a pair of electric rails to transfer energy from the road to an EV above it via a mechanical arm.

Each kilometer of road cost about $1.2 million. The system keeps track of each vehicle's use and charges the driver accordingly. For now, that's pretty simple — just one vehicle is using the road right now: a truck owned by PostNord, a Swedish logistics firm.

https://youtu.be/VZNHZnyxCm8

So, what are the chances we'll soon have miles of EV-charging roads sprawled across the U.S.?

Probably not very high.

First, they're costly. At the cost Sweden paid, we'd need to spend $4.8 trillion to convert the U.S.'s [6.5 million kilometers (4 million miles)](<https://www.artba.org/about/faq/>) of road. And that's just the upfront cost.

“We seem to have a hard enough time keeping our basic asphalt and concrete roads in a state of good repair, let alone roads with embedded hardware and associated controls." Don MacKenzie, a researcher at the Sustainable Transportation Laboratory at the University of Washington, [told *NBC*](<https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/mach/futuristic-roads-may-make-recharging-electric-cars-thing-past-ncna766456>) in reference to another EV-charging road system.

Second strike: The average person doesn't *need* EV-charging roads.

PostNord's interest in electrified roads makes sense — the company uses big, heavy trucks to transport goods. The bigger the vehicle, the more power needed to move it, which can be a strain on batteries. Likewise, electric roads make sense to power vehicles that move a lot throughout the day, so we could use them along public bus routes or places taxies frequent.

https://youtu.be/Bzth2ItEAbA

Outside of those situations, though, they aren't terribly necessary.

A fully-charged battery in an existing, affordable EV is enough to get [87 percent of American drivers](<https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy2016112>) where they need to go throughout the day. As at-home chargers become more common, that figure could reach 97 percent, according to Erik Fairbairn, founder of POD Point.

“If your car had a full tank of petrol every morning, how often do you go beyond that? For most of us, it’s an extreme case,” he [told *the Financial Times*](<https://www.ft.com/content/ae1b4e74-3569-11e7-99bd-13beb0903fa3>)

Did you catch that? *The chance that you'll need to charge your EV's battery will be an "extreme case."* Even if you *were* one of those extreme cases, you get a low-battery warning telling you to head to a charging station (which are becoming [more and more ubiquitous](<https://futurism.com/tesla-planning-major-expansion-of-its-charging-network-over-the-next-few-months>)).

To sum it up: Don't let the worry that you're going to get stranded stop you from buying an EV.

### Author social links  
[LinkedIn](<https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinjhouser>)