The State of Electric Road Systems

Electrification of road transport is crucial to limit global warming. Since 2020, dynamiccharging via electric road systems (ERS) has received much less attention in scientific literature and in public debate than battery electric vehicles with stationary charging. The future role of ERS in low-carbon road transport is also much more uncertain. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the collected knowledgeand research gaps on ERS.The paper is based on fivedigital seminars that were arranged in 2024 and 2025 with presentations from leading researchers, policy makers, and companies in the field.
There are strands forfurther research on ERS, both related to policymaking, system perspectivesand technical issues,although one should not require all issues to be solved before making decisions (in that case no technology would be accepted). Overall, we have sufficient knowledge about ERS: the technology has been proven viable in real-world driving and the corridors for further roll-out are known. Yet, the technological uncertainty about which ERS technology to use, the high upfront investments required, and the neutrality or partial opposition of OEMs remain major challenges. Still, current knowledge is sufficient to take the next step and decide about an ERS roll-out(Plötz, et al., 2024).
The revision of AFIR will be an important event for the future of ERS in Europe. Our recommendation is that ERS should not be mandatorysince there is no support for that in the member countries. However, we do recommend that ERS is included as an option that can be usedto lower the requirementsfor stationary charging and hydrogen.