SPRINT POWER
4. A Sprint Power
engineer at work
Frost aims to develop some Sprint Powerown
technology for niches where there are
currently gaps in the market, particularly
around power electronics, an area where
there are not off -the-shelf solutions.
“Because of this, our customers are
currently forced to bear the burden of
developing bespoke solutions,” he says. “We
want to develop some very generic solutions
and create a portfolio to help our customers.”
Frost considers whether hydrogen will ever
become the core energy storage system for
vehicles, but believes this will not necessarily
be down to what is best technically.
“It’s actually a question of infrastructure,” he
says. “If hydrogen is readily and widely
available, it will become more popular. But if
there’s rapid charge infrastructure to support
electric cars, batteries will win. It will be down
to governments and how quickly and widely
they roll out the required infrastructure.
“In the UK, we are a lot slower than other
countries in developing our infrastructure.
China has been very quick, for example, and
Japan has widely implemented electric and
hydrogen. We are lagging behind. We have
a great transportation industry and have
been a world leader. To continue to be, we
need to continue to invest.”
The future unplugged
Frost believes the future lies in wirelessly
charged systems that will support batterypowered
electrifi cation. As a result, Sprint
Power is currently engaged in three projects
focusing on wireless and inductive charging
and has secured UK government funding to
126 // July 2019 // www.electrichybridvehicletechnology.com
develop and roll it out across the country (see box: Cutting
the cord). “The concept is uses pads. Every time a driver
stops over these pads at a tra c light, at work, at home, or
at a shopping mall, the vehicle is charged inductively,” he
says. This ‘opportunistic charging’ as it is known, aims to
overcome the problem that people don’t want to stop for
half an hour to charge their vehicle.
“Inductive wireless pads will make range anxiety
disappear,” says Frost. “And we know long term that active
charging – charging while the vehicle is traveling – is also
possible. I suspect vehicles of the future won’t even have a
fuel gauge on them. Plus, they will be autonomous. Vehicles
will have to charge themselves, and drive onto a wireless
pad in an energy fi eld somewhere. Wireless energy transfer
is, I think, the future because it solves the infrastructure
issue and the range issue, and is compatible with autonomy.”
He also says that the introduction of autonomy
introduces new levels of safety because “most accidents are
driver-related.” Vehicle safety systems, which include
radars, will mean that the responsibility for ensuring safety
is, to a degree, taken away from the driver. “The more
autonomy that comes in, the safer cars will become.”
Engineers at Sprint Power are working on developing
their own full vehicle platform for an autonomous vehicle.
This will include a full drive system, energy storage system,
and a very novel multiple voltage architecture. “It’s a
revolutionary concept,” comments Frost. “It means we can
delete 75% of the harnessing in the electrical system in a
conventional vehicle, all the fusing and relays. There isn’t
much diff erence between the electrical system on a vehicle
20 years ago and now. We can change that.”
“Wireless energy transfer is
the future because it solves
the infrastructure issue
and the range issue, and is
compatible with autonomy”
Richie Frost, CEO, Sprint Power
4
/www.electrichybridvehicletechnology.com