Greetings! (first, important disclosures: I work for Plugless, and we created this accessory independently from Tesla Motor Company). I am here to offer information only when needed and to do my best not to do the hard sell.
Warning TL;DR.
Yes, earlier this week we opened early reservations for Plugless 7.2kW hands-free charging to Tesla owners who had previously asked us about Plugless for Tesla. These Tesla owners had learned about our 1[SUP]st[/SUP] generation 3.3kW system for the Leaf, Volt and ELR. We expect to begin shipping Tesla 7.2kW units in April for RWD models and then later in the year for D “AWD" models.
The video posted above shows an early demo unit from 2014 provided as part of a limited test when we trialed a reseller model (the folks demonstrating are great, independent enthusiasts who were a part of the reselling trial and not part of the Plugless team). That early unit had a navigation issue due to faulty hardware that was corrected when replaced it with a working unit. In Tesla terms, that was our "Self-opening door locks” issue that cropped up in the signature series.
As far as technical specifics on alignment - Plugless allows for ~4-6” of misalignment front, in any direction. On top of that, the Vehicle Adapter for Tesla S is towards the front of the vehicle, which improves the simplicity of alignment for the driver. We expect that many Tesla owners will choose to engage the summon feature, as well, and with Plugless, Tesla will park and charge itself totally hands free.
Actually they say that the Model S version is a 7.2kW charger: "Powerful 7.2kW wireless charging" and "Same charging time as a 7.2kW Level 2 corded charger". They, also, say to put it on a 50A breaker and that it delivers 30A to the car. If it draws at the capacity of the circuit, 40A, then it has a 25% loss.
It will be interesting to see if it will work with summon. (Once they release the AWD version.)
It is correct in that Plugless for Tesla S is a 7.2kW charger and a true one at that, meaning it will charge at the same rate as a 7.2kW charger. However, calculating Plugless efficiency using the same method as a corded charger doesn’t translate to inductive charging.
We prefer to have independent 3rd party testing to point to for our efficiency claims. These tests are not yet completed for our 7.2kW Tesla system – but internal tests indicate we’ll achieve very close to the same efficiency as our 3.3kW system, which we typically express as compared to corded chargers. Our 3.3kW system is roughly 12% to 15% less efficient than equivalent power corded systems. Here is the U.S. Dept. of Energy, Idaho National Laboratory data on the Plugless 3.3kW charger – INL conducted more than 8,700 separate tests on Plugless:
http://avt.inl.gov/pdf/evse/PLUGLESSEvatranStandaloneTestResultsFactSheet.pdf - we'll have similar 3rd-party testing data for the 7.2kW system.
Should you trust me (again, I am with the manufacturer, so grain of salt time...), all of the Plugless customer comments on this page of our site are unsolicited:
https://www.pluglesspower.com/pgls_community_post/plugless-customer-reviews/.
Plugless isn’t about saving a few seconds here or there, because that’s not a reason to go Plugless. EV owners have come to us for a variety of reasons, many park outdoors, some have physical limitations, some hate their cords, some like the cool factor, and yes some are forgetful (or tell us their spouse is). And we’ve learned something from way back in 2014 when we began selling Plugless. Our owners conceptually understand the convenience of hands-free charging, but after a few weeks with Plugless, it becomes more about the capability to forget about “refueling” their vehicle altogether – they tell us all the time that they NEVER want to go back to plugging in.
Our owners conceptually understand the convenience of hands-free charging but after a few weeks or a month of Plugless, it hits them that they find themselves forgetting about “refueling” their vehicle altogether and that blows them away – they tell us all the time, they NEVER want to go back to plugging in. For them, Plugless is the perfect hand-free compliment to the EV lifestyle.
Here’s a "company mission” part of this post which I think Tesla owners get more than most. I wrote “refueling” above for a reason - we are in this to help the massive adoption of EVs. We get regular comments that people bought or became serious about purchasing EVs because we exist. We know nearly all EV manufacturers get consumer feedback that perceptions (right or wrong) of “cord wrangling” prevent more EV sales (the OEMs tell us this) and they all have eyes on one hands-free solution or another.
But you don’t need me to tell you this – it was a topic of discussion on this very forum, just this week:
I worked the Tesla booth yesterday from about 10 am to 5 pm and will be back again on Friday. I spoke to many people yesterday and it still ranges from the curious/skeptical to all-in enthusiasts. Even with long range EVs, the skeptics' concern is mainly about "forgetting" to charge and then getting stranded. One guy I spoke with said he'd only get an EV if he could install an inductive charging unit in his garage so that he can just drive in and forget about it (there is such an
after-market solution available).
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/62171-Model-X-at-the-Toronto-Auto-Show/page5
Should you have any questions, feel free to contact us directly at
[email protected]
