A Stanford University research team has designed a high-efficiency charging system that uses magnetic fields to wirelessly transmit large electric currents between metal coils placed several feet apart.
What advantage does this provide?
It seems to me it would cut the cost of an electric car, as the battery size could be drastically reduced. It would need batteries, but only for times when it was not driving on an electrified road. This puts the costs out of the car, and into the generating plants and transmission lines. I believe those are more efficient than automobile efficiencies, either gasoline or current electric. It would increase the cost of building roads, but the actual coils added to the roads appear to be pretty low tech. I haven't seen any study on all costs of driving in this model vs. gasoline, but so far it seems more feasible than other technologies.