Continuing growth of urbanisation and sprawl will increase the demand for individual mobility and the increase of traffic density will produce many adverse impacts that have direct effects on the quality of life for people living in cities. To lead Europe into a sustainable, efficient, and competitive future, novel innovations are essential especially in the transport sector. Vehicle electrification and autonomous driving are two promising new technologies that have disruptive potential for individual mobility whilst giving support towards an energy-efficient, decarbonised transport sector. Sales of electric vehicles (EVs) tend to meet high resistance primarily due to high cost, range limitations and long refuelling times thus slowing down the expansion of electro-mobility. Though these arguments may have been valid until the recent past, new battery and charging technologies are increasingly compensating for the disadvantages of EVs compared to those with internal combustion engine.
Matrix Charging automates the charging process, eliminating the need to manually connect and disconnect a cable, achieving a high level of operating convenience and thus creating the basis for autonomous driving. Compared to competing technologies, Matrix Charging offers decisive advantages in terms of charging performance, efficiency, manufacturing costs, as well as outdoor application and the possibility of installation in public spaces. Matrix Charging is barrier-free, weather-resistant, can be driven over and is therefore a key technology for the development of a comprehensive urban charging network as the basis for a successful transition to electromobility.
An area-wide automated charging network enables charging along the route chain during each parking stop. In this way, not only the range anxiety of e-mobility users can be eliminated but the whole charging behaviour will be revolutionized. A maximized connectivity time of EVs with the grid will facilitate the use of renewable energy and smart charging applications. In many cases a maximized connection time will even allow for a battery size reduction of EVs conserving economic and ecological resources.
Objectives
• Automate electric vehicle (EV) charging by eliminating the manual process of plugging and unplugging a charging cable to make the charging process most convenient and prepare EVs for autonomous parking and driving.
• Revolutionize automated EV charging by being the first fully automated conductive charging technology that has most simple mechanics in the vehicle and no moving parts on the parking lot, allowing for a fast area wide automatic charging infrastructure rollout to facilitate the transition to a decarbonized transport sector.
• Address the challenges of EV charging with an innovative standardized solution that meets the requirements of all stakeholders, is suitable for all vehicle segments and is working in all environments: indoor and outdoor as well as private and public.
• Transform the charging behavior to an intermediate charging of vehicles along their route chain (picking up range at every stop) and therefore maximize the connectivity time of the vehicles to the grid. This will compensate for customer range requirements (reduction of range anxiety) and allow for more efficient, economical charging cycles and support the use of renewable energy and smart charging applications.
• Compared to the competitors deliver a more cost-effective automated charging solution with a higher transfer efficiency and greater charging performance.
