Hello Future Tesla 3 owners! First congrats on your reservations and for those of you who are new to EVs, welcome to...well, changing the world. A few disclosures, 1st - I work for Plugless 2nd - we are an after-market accessory (READ: not working with Tesla on this). So bear with me as I share a few things that might benefit the discussion and note I am discussing the current state of Plugless, not how things will be when you get your 3s.
WARNING: TL;DR.
First thing to know about us - we are the only company that has sold, installed and serviced wireless EV charging units to real EV customers (read: consumers) ever...in the world. We trialled our system beginning in 2011 at lil' joints like Google, Hertz, U.S. Dept. of Energy and others - learned a lot, made some refinements and began selling the Gen1 Plugless 3.3kW systems in 2014 to Volt, LEAF and Caddy ELR owners (all North America - FYI). Fast-forward to today and we're at well over 1/2 million charge hours and taking reservations on our 7.2kW for Tesla Model. (here's what we have learned in that time
Plugless Wireless Car Charging - Lessons Learned After 500K Hours).
Efficiency:
Plugless is roughly 7% less efficient than corded level 1 charging (that's 110V home outlet charging - start thinking now about how you will not be stuck with level1 charging...seriously, stop reading this thread and figure
that out). Plugless is roughly 12% less efficient than corded level 2 charging. For perspective (AND with the disclaimer that this range of numbers is using all sorts of national averages) that equates to roughly $.28 (USD) to $.33 of extra electricity per typical nightly charging on EVs. We make our efficiency claim based on the extensive testing of the U.S. Dept. of Energy's Idaho National Laboratories who did more than 8,700 separate tests on Plugless. Here is a data sheet on that testing:
https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/evse/PLUGLESSEvatranStandaloneTestResultsFactSheet.pdf <--- that right there, that's another first for Plugless, published 3rd party data on wireless EV charging.
Higher Power WEVC:
First thing to understand - Plugless is for home charging or dedicated parking space charging at work (for now). For Model S owners, Plugless will give them 20-25 mile of range per hour. That is
PLENTY of juice for the VAST majority of typical daily driving habits when you consider the miles driven per day and all the hours the Tesla is parked (overnight and/or at work). You'll see all sorts of comments about how long it takes to recharge at XX or YY charging rate - remember those are nearly always expressed in terms of a fully depleted battery pack to fully charged. Who does that every day? Very, very few people. You won't (and really shouldn't) be using your EV like that. Superchargers are blisteringly fast b/c the use case is minimizing time charging when users are presumably traveling.
But what about 20kW, 50kW, 200kW wireless EV chargers I've heard about? Yup, super possible (we are part of a team at Clemson that has a 20kW system...if you are curious - we are the Evatran in those announcements). But for home/work charging - the costs of supplying electricity to these units would be massive, astronomical. (BTW, have you thought through how you will supply the electricity you'll need to charge your 3? If not...again stop reading this and go figure that out, it may include moving).
Mechanical Hands-Free Charging:
We would love competition of any kind. EVs have been around a while and no mechanical hands-free charger has been sold and to date only one manufacturer has had any movement on mechanical hand-free charging - of course, the snake. The most recent discussion about the snake was an early iteration of a supercharging solution first and it was some time away for even that. The majority of the EV industry is working toward WEVC. Again, we'd love to see competition as we know all the things that need to be solved for from suppling electricity, integrating into the parking space and into the EV.
Why Wireless EV Charging:
We don't really sell against saving a few seconds here or there (not really a reason to go Plugless and our customers really don't buy for that reason). We do quite well selling to EV owners and converting ICE to EV drivers with the promise of forgetting to refuel altogether. Some people come to us b/c they are forgetful, some don't like wranglin' cables, some have physical limitations, others have awkward garages, yes, some of our customers are early adopters, some outdoor chargers have one rain, snow or sleet-storm too many and still others like seamless, frictionless technology. We 100% get it, if you are a hypermilier and/or thrifty this is not the charger for you - it's a premium charger that cannot be compared to commodity corded chargers (Plugless is about 85% more materials and complexity than a corded charger). However, our customers can't imagine going back to the plug, they don't have to think about charging. This is the magic power that we have experienced helps ICE owners consider EVs and why nearly all the EV manufacturers are pursuing wireless EV charging. The manufacturers tell us that perceptions (right or wrong) about the hassles of cords suppresses EV sales
We have had other Tesla Model S questions that we answered in this post, note when your EVs are delivered it'll be a whole new world:
Plugless Charging for Tesla Model S Questions Answered
Charge on.
