Hypothetical: How long until wireless car charging?

[stonelance]

I'm not talking about wireless charging of your phone in the car, but actually wirelessly charging the car itself. I imagine in theory you could place a pad in your garage and then when you park over it your car can automatically charge wirelessly. It looks like they are working on wireless charging standards up to 2400W, which would probably be enough to top off overnight for most daily commutes. There are already videos of Tesla working on devices for automated plugging in a car (for autonomous driving I'm assuming), but it seems like it would be much simpler if the car could just drive and park over top of a charging "hotspot".

Will this be feasible in practice and how long do you think until it happens?

 

[DOCAL]

I've seen these people at events...

https://www.pluglesspower.com/

 

[stonelance]

Ahh interesting! Thanks for the link. Looks like a 7.2kW lab\demo unit is $13k

 

[wdolson]

Wireless charging can't be as efficient as wired charging which means it will charge slower and cost more. I also wouldn't want such strong EM fields irradiating up from my garage floor. That is not proven one way or the other, but even if I'm not directly exposed, the cats will probably lie on it.

Compared to the hassle of refueling an ICE plugging in the car when I get home is so trivial I'm not complaining.

 

[RandyS]

Qualcomm is marketing their Halo brand wireless charging technology...

Qualcomm Halo™ technology | Qualcomm

 

[ewoodrick]

There are options, there aren't great options.

 

[forkee]

i wonder if i put my smartphone on there to charge it, will it blow up lol

 

[Kirby64]

I'm going to guess never. Unless there's some major break-through in wireless charging tech, we're not going to get nearly as good of efficiency. Consider that the Qi chargers (for phones) only have MAYBE 70-80% efficiency. And they charge much slower.

Even assuming we get to 90% efficiency (which would require a leap from where we are today), that means that if you're charging at 7kW (standard 240V/30A charging), you're dumping 700W of power into the charging base or the car.

I get that Qualcomm is advertising 6.6kW charging, but do you really want to cut efficiency that much vs. just a cable? You're telling me I need to install some expensive electronics/cables, AND it's going to increase my electric bill? No thanks.

 

[David99]

Plugging in isn't a big hassle and costs very little in equipment. That means wireless charging has very little margin to become the preferred option. Or looking at it from the other side, it is trying to solve a problem that really isn't one.

 

[TT97]

The only way wireless charging could make sense if they have the charging on the go. If there could be an EV lane on the freeway where your car gets charged as you are driving (or more likely, the car is driving you), you will never need to stop to charge. I'm not holding out hope for this happening any time soon.

As far as home charging, for those that find plugging in too time consuming, we just need Tesla to start selling their robotic snake charger.

Tesla unveils futuristic robotic snake charger for electric vehicles

 

[Jedi2155]

I'd rather have a snake charger than the efficiency loss of wireless charging. come at me bro!

 

[jboy210]

It takes me 2-3 seconds to plug in. Unless the cost is near zero and reliability near 100% I will continue to plug in.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

For typical days, plugging is 1 out-in cycle and no big deal.
For in-and-out (think office+frequent site visits, or taxi ranks) wireless is beneficial.
And it's not like fiddling with a USB cable. Car parked in predictable place, plug in predictable place. Grab big plug. Put in big socket.

While wireless charging is convenient, one thing it isn't is _flexible_:
- it's limited to a single parking spot
- more challenging on a driveway than in a garage.

I see commercial applications more than personal applications.

Multiple companies working on it. Will happen when there is a commercial plug-in market that fits with the technology.

 

[Trevor B]

 

[Nocturnal]

50+ years. We will need to be at the point where we have "free" electricity to make that feasible.

 

[moridin2002]

SAE has already released recommended practices for this under J2954. It is now a matter of adoption by industry to accept those practices and run with it.

 

[NeverFollow]

One great advantage is the protection against vandalism, if you park and charge your car in the street.

One issue is that some cars have the receiver coil on the front, some on the back, and other in the middle.

So basically in the case of a street charging, you will need to use two parking spots with a transmitter in the middle
to accommodate the different combinations, unless you install two, or even three, transmitter coils under each parking spot.

There is also the possibility to recharge while waiting at a traffic light, or even while cruising on a freeway.

Beside street parking situation, or the keep of mind from forgetting to plug your car,
I imagine that future autonomous vehicles will require some kind of wireless or plug-in robot mechanism.

I wonder in fact how Tesla plan to re-charge a car during the first cross country self driving trip.

 

[Tslrsx]

I think automatic cables that plug itself in Will Be the better options the comming years. More efficiency and cheaper to make, also easy for high current. Maybe in the Future somewhere when wireless is more efficiënt.

 

[ecarfan]

It takes me 2-3 seconds to plug in. Unless the cost is near zero and reliability near 100% I will continue to plug in.

... and the efficiency loss is equal to what we experience now with the charging cable.

I see no real future for inductive EV charging. It’s a gimmick that makes no sense from a cost and efficiency point of view. It takes me less than 2 seconds to plug/unplug my car at home or at a Supercharger.

 

[wdolson]

One great advantage is the protection against vandalism, if you park and charge your car in the street.

One issue is that some cars have the receiver coil on the front, some on the back, and other in the middle.

So basically in the case of a street charging, you will need to use two parking spots with a transmitter in the middle
to accommodate the different combinations, unless you install two, or even three, transmitter coils under each parking spot.

There is also the possibility to recharge while waiting at a traffic light, or even while cruising on a freeway.

Beside street parking situation, or the keep of mind from forgetting to plug your car,
I imagine that future autonomous vehicles will require some kind of wireless or plug-in robot mechanism.

I wonder in fact how Tesla plan to re-charge a car during the first cross country self driving trip.

The fact that Tesla demoed the charger snake about the same time they started talking about the cross country trip indicated to me they planned to put the autosnake on at least some superchargers for the event.