Effectiveness of Wireless Charging for Electric Transit Buses

Under direction from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), CALSTART studied the effectiveness of wireless charging for electric transit buses as an alternative to conductive, or wired, charging. The result of comprehensive research and interviews with transit agencies and manufacturers, this report identifies several key points, including funding, technology readiness, and education, that may inform implementation recommendations to reduce barriers for transit agencies to adopt this technology.  

Based on this research, important benefits that wireless charging provides include: 

• High-power wireless charging has the potential to resolve space constraints at depots where plug-in charging may not be an option.  
• Wireless charging minimizes the ground-level infrastructure footprint in bus depots and transit facilities.  
• Reliable en-route charging may be necessary for battery-electric buses to be viable one-to-one replacements for fossil-fuel buses.