A Powerful Pair

Clever hardly begins to describe them. University of Auckland Professors John Boys and Grant Covic pioneered inductive power transfer technology. Basically, that’s electricity without wires. It’s used in electronic and medical equipment and for factory automation, among many other applications – and is now taking electric vehicles (EVs) to another level of efficiency and convenience.

Applied to EVs, inductive power transfer involves power in the ground in a coil or a pad, under a vehicle which also has a coil or pad – generating a magnetic field that the EV pulls from, either when it’s parked above it or, ultimately, as it drives over it.

Yes, it sounds a bit magical. And many people have been sceptical over the years it has taken to develop this particular application. “For a long time people thought our work was impossible. Even two or three years ago, people said it couldn’t work,” says John.

But two things happened. The oil shock stimulated new focus on the importance of electricity-run vehicles, and the professors made an important breakthrough. John Boys explains:

“We had trialled inductive power transfer technology in electric people movers at Whakarewarewa in Rotorua. You couldn’t use fossil fuels there because of the delicate environment, and traditional electric vehicle batteries made them too heavy for the thin crust of earth. So, we developed low-weight vehicles with low-mass batteries that were recharged regularly, using inductive re-charging technology.

“It was successful – but it was limited because of height and width tolerance for charging the batteries. The distance between the vehicle and charging point had to be quite close.”
Developing the technology went off the boil because of that distance issue. But, when the car industry’s need for a solution became more urgent, the engineers turned their attention back to it.

“We looked again at the magnetic designs and made a breakthrough on the control height and tolerance,” says Grant. “It was a bit of a slow eureka moment!

“We started with something that didn’t work efficiently and worked on it until it did.

“If something’s really hard to do, it’s worth doing because it puts you ahead of your competitors and you have to be a step ahead to get intellectual property rights and patents and so forth. Without the IP rights, no one will invest in it.”

But they did and they have and investors have, too. Parked charger technology, as opposed to energy being transferred on the fly, has been accepted by car manufacturers as the way to go.

John and Grant are now working on the next stage, developing in-road charging which they believe will make electric vehicle use genuinely viable.

The men concede that being isolated from the rest of the world has been an issue. Project development, establishing commercial partnerships and securing investment has meant a lot of travel for both of them. But they’ve stayed based here, well-supported by the University of Auckland, which has helped with investment and taking care of IP rights and licences, as well as providing a steady stream of smart young brains.

Communication with their many overseas contacts has been crucial, but easy, thanks to the internet. They concede: “Twenty years ago, it would have been tougher to do this, to make this progress”.

Last year, that phenomenal progress was acknowledged when the men won the top Prime Minister’s Science Prize. “It was fantastic to be recognized,” John says.”We can make some real progress and also do blue sky stuff with the prize money.

“And, it’s great to know that, in future, people driving EVs will know that their cars have technology developed in New Zealand.”

Reported by Kathryn Webster for our AA Directions Spring 2024 issue