Researchers at ORNL are taking cleaner transportation to the skies by creating and evaluating new batteries for airborne electric vehicles that take off and land vertically.
A team of researchers at ORNL demonstrated that a light-duty passenger electric vehicle can be wirelessly charged at 100-kW with 96% efficiency using polyphase electromagnetic coupling coils with rotating magnetic fields.
Electric vehicles can drive longer distances if their lithium-ion batteries deliver more energy in a lighter package. A prime weight-loss candidate is the current collector, a component that often adds 10% to the weight of a battery cell without contributing energy.