Kalmar has announced a strategic partnership with Swedish clean tech company Elonroad to develop and build a 200 m electric charging road at its innovation centre in Sweden, which will allow electric vehicles to be charged as they are moving.

Kalmar says the pilot dynamic EV charging innovation will “reduce the need for large batteries onboard the vehicles and grid capacity, while improving vehicle uptime”. 

Kalmar technology manager Per-Erik Johansson explains the technology has been explored and evaluated by the materials handling equipment manufacturer for the last few years.

“The project, supported by the Swedish Energy Agency, will initially retrofit a reachstacker and a terminal tractor from Kalmar, followed by a verification phase to test charging efficiency and uptime improvements on the electric road,” Johansson continues. 

“In the second stage of the project, the technology will be tested in a real-life port environment with pilot customers.”

Karin Ebbinghaus, CEO at Elonroad, adds: “By collaborating with Kalmar, we hope to contribute to solutions that are not only better for the environment, but also improve efficiency and reduce costs worldwide.”

“This is the future of industrial infrastructure – smart, sustainable and economically viable,” Ebbinghaus adds.