When the Roman poet Catullus wrote about devouring the road, he meant it as a metaphor for journeying. The prospect of physically extracting energy from the roadway may just become a reality, though, if the U.K. government pulls off the test run of a promising new tool.

Off-road trials of “dynamic wireless power transfer” technology are expected to start later this year and run for 18 months, Highways England and Transport Minister Andrew Jones announced this week. The government will install the devices under test roads and in vehicles, and determine if the charging could work on Britain’s busiest roadways. Mobile charging would solve one of the biggest hurdles to electric vehicle use—staying charged on long drives.

The U.K. has already tested a bunch of different approaches to this technology and identified versions that work and are ready to manufacture. In basic terms, the system has power lines connected to coils under the surface of a road, which then transmit the electricity through the air to a receiver coil in a car. Simply driving down the stretch of road in a properly-equipped electric or hybrid-electric vehicle will power up the batteries.