What is thought to be the world’s first trial of public EV inductive charging has been installed in Marlow, Buckinghamshire. The contactless technology enables electric vehicles to be charged automatically without need for cables or any driver interaction with a charge point.

Instigated by charging company char.gy, the new inductive innovation allows a decluttering of the residential kerbside in urban areas and provides a solution accessible to all drivers.

By integrating charging infrastructure into the road surface and an induction charging pad installed in the electric vehicle (either as original equipment or retrofit), it simply requires the driver to park the vehicle over the charge plate. The absence of cabling removes one of the problems that is otherwise inherent to on-street charging, removing trip hazards for pedestrians and allows less mobile, elderly or disabled drivers to avoid navigating kerb drops between road and pavement in order to plug in cumbersome charging cables.

This very first public trial has been launched in Marlow under the auspices of Buckinghamshire Council, using a low-power inductive charging installation provided by technology partner IPT Technology and adapted vehicles that are available for public hire through the hiyacar.co.uk app and website. Members of the public have been invited to hire the adapted EV for periods of up to three days and provide feedback on their enhanced experience of streamlined EV charging.

char.gy’s Marlow trial is part of a wider series of evaluations being conducted in different geographies in the UK with Office for Zero Emission Vehicles and Innovate UK funding to help realise the Government’s 2035 delivery plan to transition to zero emission cars and vans. The next stages of the project will see the scheme extended to a variety of different urban contexts and geographies as a precursor to the test of the second-generation inductive fast charger which has been developed by char.gy’s partner, Warwick Manufacturing Group.

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