Highways will light up and even charge your electric car

The roads of the future are paved with possibilities.

And, if you believe Dutch design lab Studio Roosegaarde, they glow in the dark, too.

As Salon reports:

According to Studio Roosegaarde the highways of the future are safer, cleaner and more environmentally sound. The lab has developed solar powered glow-in-the-dark roads that charge during the day to illuminate your evening drive, dynamic asphalt paint that transforms in response to road conditions like ice and sleet, and car lanes that double as electric car chargers by using magnetic fields under the asphalt.

A press release from Studio Roosegaarde explains how it all works:

The pathways of the Glow-in-the-dark roads are treated with a special foto-luminising powder making extra lighting unnecessary. Charged in day light, the Glow-in-the-dark road illuminates the contours of the road at night up to 10 hours. Dynamic Paint, paint that becomes visible in response to temperature fluctuations, enables the surface of roads to communicate relevant and adequate traffic information directly to drivers. For example ice-crystals become visible on the surface of the road when it’s cold and slippery.

The Dynamic Paint and Glow-in-the-dark roads are being implemented in Holland later this year. We can only hope that the car-charging magnetic fields are not…too far down the road.

 

Photo: Studio Roosegaarde

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  1. Jessica Appel
    Reply
    on January 6, 2013
    This is Brilliant!!!!!! So cool!!!! I hope we ever reach this level of "engin-uity" in the states!

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