Sweden has opened the world's first electrified road! The road recharges batteries of cars and trucks driving on it. While the electric rail has been embedded only in a public road near Stockholm, the government plans to expand it across the country. They have already drafted a national map for future expansion.

On the electric track, energy is transferred from two tracks of rail in the road through a movable arm attached to the bottom of a vehicle. If the vehicle wants to overtake, the arm gets automatically disconnected. The electrified road is divided into 50m sections in which an individual section is powered only when a vehicle is on it. The current is disconnected when a vehicle running on it stops.

The system can calculate the vehicle's energy consumption, which lets electricity costs to be reduced per vehicle and user. The vehicle to drive on the electric road was a former diesel-fuelled truck owned by the logistics firm, PostNord.

The Guardian quoted Hans Säll, chief executive of the eRoadArlanda consortium working on the project as saying, "Both current vehicles and roadways could be adapted to take advantage of the technology."

Sweden has roughly half a million kilometres of roadway, of which 20,000km are highways, Säll said. He added saying, "If we electrify 20,000km of highways that will definitely be enough. The distance between two highways is never more than 45km and electric cars can already travel that distance without needing to be recharged. Some believe it would be enough to electrify 5,000km."

Electrifying one kilometre of road costs Rs 8 crore and is said to be 50 times lower the cost required to construct an urban tramline.

Säll cleared about the question on the roads causing electric shocks by saying, "There is no electricity on the surface. There are two tracks, just like an outlet in the wall. Five or six centimetres down is where the electricity is. But if you flood the road with salt water then we have found that the electricity level at the surface is just one volt. You could walk on it barefoot."

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 13, 2018 08:50 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).