In one sense, Doug Wilson’s story starts in New York in 1901. No, he wasn’t there. But in a photo he likes to refer to, taken of a major street there at the time, almost all the vehicles on the road are horse-drawn buggies. There’s one motor car. Ten years later, another photo of the same street shows the reverse – a lot of cars and one horse-drawn buggy.

That’s the kind of change the Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland senior lecturer wants to see now, on a similar timeframe.

In the 21st century, Wilson, a member of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, wants people to move away from the internal combustion engine, not to it.

His expertise isn’t in building electric vehicles (EVs), nor in wirelessly charging EVs – that’s more the remit of some of his University of Auckland colleagues such as Grant Covic. Still, Wilson is playing an important role in driving the electric car revolution.

Wilson is a transportation engineer and a founding member of the University’s Transportation Research Centre. His expertise lies in areas such as pavement materials, traffic flows, highway safety and driver behaviour. Over the years, UniServices has often helped him find industry partners and government funding for his research. In a world where his colleagues are developing ways for EVs to be charged as they drive, his is a crucial skill set.

Currently, EVs need to be plugged in. They make up only about 0.5 percent of the vehicle fleet in New Zealand, so the fact that they draw a lot of power, mostly when they’re plugged in at night, isn’t a big deal yet. That could be about to change.

A house draws about two kilowatts of electricity per hour, according to Covic. Plugging in an electric car at the slowest charge level also draws about two kilowatts an hour, doubling consumption. If a car arrives home with its battery completely depleted, it could take as long as 30 hours to fully charge at that level. Overnight charging requires around eight kilowatts an hour, which could overload the local transformer if there are many electric cars on a block doing the same thing.

The next step in the EV revolution, which University of Auckland researchers are working on in partnership with the U.S.-based Advancing Sustainability through Powered Infrastructure for Roadway Electrification (ASPIRE), is charging vehicles as they’re being driven.

Dynamic charging isn’t just a cool idea – it’s a necessary part of getting an electric light and heavy vehicle fleet moving around the country, says Wilson. That’s because many trucks are on the move close to 24/7, with any down time being costly. Trucks also need a lot of power. Without the ability to top up efficiently on the move, electrifying trucks – currently big carbon emitters – may never make economic sense.

Simply putting charging pads flush with the road isn’t ideal because their different surfaces may make them slippery and cause crashes. Like maintenance holes, they may also cause road surfaces around them to crack and fail.

Putting charging pads below road surfaces isn’t easy, though, because overlying layers and increased distance reduce charging efficiency. Different road pavement types present challenges too. Concrete, often used in North America, is rigid and durable but expensive to build and repair. Asphalt mix, typically used in New Zealand cities, costs less but is thinner and more flexible than concrete. Because charging pads are rigid, asphalt mix may be prone to cracking around them.

Researchers are working on technical solutions, such as modelling changes to traffic flows and encapsulating charging pads into composite road pavement systems to make them more durable. However, to achieve the big-picture goal – lowering emissions – people’s behaviours must also change. Some of Wilson’s research, with a team that includes Tumanako Fa’aui, Tam Larkin, Andrea Raith, Prakash Ranjitkar, Basil Sharp and Selena Sheng, focuses on encouraging that change.

An important part of lowering transportation emissions is reducing the distance people travel alone by car, says Wilson. That means designing cities to encourage people to live more local and travel more by foot, bike and micro-mobility solutions such as e-scooters. This may necessitate investing in safely designed paths. Another part of the solution is encouraging people to share travel more, which means making bus and train travel more efficient and planning future solutions such as shared autonomous shuttles to effectively connect people with public transit.