Formally opened in May, Germany's first "eHighway" is designed to provide continuous electrical power to hybrid trucks. On the busy A5 motorway in the central state of Hesse, 5km of power masts have been installed on the right lane in both directions.
It's one of the first in the world, following similar stretches of highway in the US and Sweden, while Italy also plans to introduce its own electric highway.
"Clearly, we need a system that runs throughout Europe," said Achim Reusswig from Hesse's local transport authorities.
While it's normal to see these kinds of overhead lines used by trains and trams in cities, seeing it on a motorway takes some getting used to.
But the idea is certainly quite convincing. If a compatible battery-powered truck enters the road, the cables connect up and begin recharging the batteries while powering the truck's engine.
This means the truck can then later continue driving with a fully-charged battery. When the batteries finally run out on a normal, primitive stretch of road without continuous electric power, a hybrid engine with diesel kicks in.
By 2022, five trucking companies want to participate in this first test. The goal is to test whether this overhead power line technology is suitable for transporting goods by road in a climate and noise-friendly manner.
It's only the first such highway in Germany, and further tests will be carried out in other German states.
Costing around a million euros (RM4.7mil) per kilometre, this isn't the cheapest initial investment, however. If it proves successful, Transport Ministry officials estimate estimates it could cost a billion euros (RM4.7bil) to lay the necessary 1,000km of track needed to power trucks travelling through Germany.
"We must invest in innovative solutions" in an attempt to manage pollution and excessive traffic, German lawmaker Rita Schwarzeluehr-Sutter - a senior official in the Environment Ministry - said.
The Environment Ministry has already financed the test project with a budget of 14.6 million euros (RM69mil).
Schwarzeluehr-Sutter said a further 15 million euros (RM70mil) would flow into the project by 2022 for collecting and processing data that could be relevant for rolling out the system throughout Germany.
