The carmaker has teamed up with Belgian technological and development specialists Flanders' Drive as well as bus manufacturer Van Hool and tram manufacturer Bombardier to develop systems and methods charge up a car's battery via a charging plate buried in the road surface.

In inductive charging, a charging plate is buried in the ground, for instance in the driveway at home where the car is parked. The charging plate consists of a coil that generates a magnetic field. When the car is parked above the plate, energy from the plate is transferred without physical contact to the car's inductive pick-up. The energy that is transferred is alternating current. This is then converted into direct current in the car's built-in voltage converter, which in turn charges the car's battery pack.

Under the CED (Continuous Electric Drive) project, a Volvo C30 Electric will be modified for inductive charging. It's expected that it will take 80 minutes to charge the car's 24kWh battery pack if the battery is entirely discharged. This compares to the 7-8 hours that it currently takes electric vehicles to charge from empty to full using a domestic power socket.

'The aim is naturally that it should be as convenient as possible to own and use an electric car,' said Johan Konnberg, project manager from the Special Vehicles division of Volvo Car Corporation.

'One aspect of this project is to integrate this technology into the road surface and to take energy directly from there to power the car. This is a smart solution that is some way into the future,' he added