Coordinating rendezvous points for inductive power transfer between electric vehicles to increase effective driving distance

Battery electric vehicles (EV) average 75 miles on a fully charged battery. This range can be limited by external factors, namely use of battery power while the vehicle is stopped in traffic. Coupled with the time required by a battery to fully recharge and the current lack of charging stations, many drivers have range anxiety which prevent them from switching to EVs. One method to increase interest in EVs and to ease range anxiety concerns among drivers is to offer immediate charging facilities that are available to drivers. A possible solution is to have drivers "share" charge with each other using inductive power transfer to wirelessly transfer charge between vehicles at rendezvous points. We simulate the interactions of this ad-hoc network of rendezvous points between EVs for charge transfer to determine the feasibility of such a system, especially for taxicabs. We use real world data to simulate typical commuting driving distributions for commuters and New York City taxis. Assuming that all users in the system use GPS, we know each cars start and stop nodes. Using fisheye state routing (FSR) with first-come-first-serve (FCFS) methodology for car coordination at rendezvous points, we show that we are able to reduce the probability of refueling to 0% for commuter cars and significantly lowers the probability of refueling for taxicabs traveling more than 75 miles.

I. Introduction

Battery electric vehicles (EV) have an average driving distance of 75 miles [1], [2], [3]. This limited driving range coupled with the current lack of charging infrastructure as well as time needed to recharge a vehicle has discouraged many car drivers from switching to an EV [4]. We model a system in which electric vehicles use inductive power transfer (IPT) to transfer charge between each other at coordinated rendezvous points instead of proposed methods such as placing inductive charging strips on roadways to provide charge for BEVs driving on the street [5], [6]. Through the use of IPT we show that a network of EVs can travel 4 times further than the typical 75 miles that a traditional EV can travel with one full tank of charge. The implicit effect of this extension in driving range widens the market of potential EV users by a significant amount since large metropolis areas such as New York City can have taxicabs switch over to electric vehicles.