Scientists in Israel have apparently been hard at work engineering a stretch of road with embedded piezoelectric crystals, that will generate electricity from cars rolling across its surface. The road will be unveiled in a few weeks by Israeli company, Innowattech.

The technology is similar to that used in Japan recently to generate energy from pedestrian footsteps. The 100m stretch of road is expected to generate significant amounts of electricity as the weight of moving vehicles squeeze the tiny piezoelectric crystals in the surface. This squeezing creates an electric charge which can be sent to the grid or used for lighting.

It has been estimated that if this technology were implemented across Britain, it would generate enough electricity to power 34,500 of the nation’s small cars. The Director of the British Environmental Transport Association (ETA) even envisions “certain vehicles [that] could be powered entirely by the roads on which they drive.” Though plausible, you just know that’ll never happen unless there’s also some way to charge for it.

Sources:
ETA UK and AutoBlogGreen and DailyMail