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The wireless vision of EV charging is getting a second look, this time for fleets.

Wireless EV charging as a technology seemed to have a moment about ten years ago, as various start-ups scrambled to develop the tech that at the time seemed to be poised to become commonplace in just a matter of years. Why take a minute to plug your car in at home or in a parking lot when you can just park over a special spot with a small rubber mat that could juice up the battery while you aren't using the car?

It was easy to picture this technology becoming ubiquitous if not almost mandatory at the time. Needless to say that future predicted a decade ago hasn't quite turned out that way, and neither have rates of EV adoption, with developers now tending to focus on DC fast-charging tech to bring charging times down to mere minutes for some very large EV batteries.

Volvo is one automaker that hasn't given on the concept of wireless charging, with the company currently testing the integration of the technology into a city center.

Over a three-year period Volvo will test a small fleet of Volvo XC40 Recharge taxis in the city of Gothenburg, Sweden. SUVs operated by taxi company Cabonline, the automaker will use wireless induction charging pads made by Momentum Dynamics installed into the pavement. Charging begins automatically when a compatible EV parks over the installed pad providing over 40 kW of power, which is almost four times faster than a corded 11 kW AC charger as Volvo points out.

The XC40 Recharge taxis will cover about 60,000 miles a year, operating over 12 hours a day, which should certainly give the cars and the charging stations a workout. The purpose of this test is to examine the durability of the system for commercial vehicles.

"Gothenburg Green City Zone lets us try exciting new technologies in a real environment and evaluate them over time for a potential future broader introduction," said Mats Moberg, Head of Research and Development at Volvo Cars. "Testing new charging technologies together with selected partners is a good way to evaluate alternative charging options for our future cars."

Of course, after a decade of development the biggest question with wireless charging is still "Who pays for the convenience of using charging pads instead of corded chargers?" EV station builders are focusing mostly on corded chargers to deliver power even faster, while the aim of home-based chargers has been to cut the price of entry.

Neither of these industry trends seems to favor wireless charging at the moment, which is why we're seeing more and more experiments for this technology for commercial fleets where the convenience just might make sense to fleet operators. Cities, on the other hand, are mostly struggling and failing to provide enough corded curbside chargers, with municipal efforts facing breathtaking costs.

Volvo's experiment has the advantage of testing wireless charging in a relatively small commercial setting with a fleet of identical cars involved, as well as the backing of a city.

Does wireless charging technology have a future in some narrow applications, or will it be overtaken by corded DC fast-charging? Let us know in the comments below.