UCLA Charges Ahead

California’s first wireless charging road is coming to UCLA, thanks to a $19.85 million grant from the California Transportation Agency’s Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program, a program created by legislation passed in 2014 to issue grants from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. 

The grant will also be used to make the BruinBus fleet fully electric and will fund expanded service from the transit system. The projects are expected to be complete in time for the 2028 Olympic Games, set to be hosted in Los Angeles. 

The university received the grant in collaboration with CALSTART, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing green transportation solutions, and Electreon, a wireless charging provider that successfully built the nation’s first public EV-charging road, which opened in Detroit in November 2023. 

Tony Lucas, the executive director of UCLA Events and Transportation, lists accessibility and minimizing greenhouse gas emissions as top priorities for the school, two areas that the planned transportation projects will address. “This transformative grant will significantly enhance our transportation network, providing a cleaner, more efficient BruinBus fleet that aligns with our commitment to sustainability and innovation,” he says.

Electreon’s innovative wireless charging technology will be installed under Charles E. Young Drive, a road that runs along BruinBus transit routes. It works like a wireless phone charger, but on a much larger scale. Inductive charging coils transfer energy to EVs retrofitted with receivers to charge the vehicles while they are driving over or stationed on the road, which allows the EVs to operate for longer periods of time, since they don’t have to be sidelined while they’re charging. 

The wireless chargers will also be installed under passenger pick-up and drop-off locations and transit depots, including a new transit hub that will connect directly to the L.A. Metro D Line extension. The Metro’s extension is the first direct connection from downtown Los Angeles to Beverly Hills, Century City and Westwood, where the UCLA campus is located. 

“The new transit hub and extension will be a game-changer for connectivity in Westwood,” says Clinton Bench, director of UCLA Fleet and Transit. “It will make it easier for everyone to travel between UCLA and key destinations throughout Los Angeles, especially as the city prepares to host the Olympics, thereby fostering a more integrated and accessible urban landscape.”

In addition, the BruinBus fleet, which currently consists of five all-electric buses and an all-electric passenger vehicle, will expand by another eight all-electric buses through funding from the grant. The vehicles service routes that connect the campus to residential neighborhoods, the Westwood Village commercial district, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, and seven other transit agencies. The buses are free to board for students, faculty, staff, and visitors alike.

The 2028 Olympic Games will be hosted by multiple venues across the greater Los Angeles area, including the Rose Bowl, Intuit Dome, and Crypto Arena, and the Olympic Village will be situated on the UCLA campus. These projects will make EV transportation more accessible to the hundreds of thousands of spectators and athletes visiting L.A. and have the potential to connect all the small towns within a big city.