I just saw this very interesting, how will this compare to the robotic arm charger.....
Tesla Model S will get wireless charging option in April
Tesla Model S will get wireless charging option in April
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
mikeash
Active Member
More discussion here, including a good amount of information from someone with the company making it:
Plugless Power for Model S wireless charging
(Not criticizing, just pointing it out for those interested.)
Plugless Power for Model S wireless charging
(Not criticizing, just pointing it out for those interested.)
green1
Active Member
Glad Tesla is not providing this. It's a gimmick, and a huge waste of a lot of electricity for almost no gain.
Wireless charging is horribly inefficient, and with the amount of electricity needed for an EV, efficiency matters.
Wireless charging is horribly inefficient, and with the amount of electricity needed for an EV, efficiency matters.
Petra
Member
Their current systems are 87% efficient over the air gap, so you're taking a 12% efficiency hit vs. physically plugging the car in for the sake of a little more convenience. Not worth it, if you ask me...
Gizmotoy
Active Member
I mean, we frequently point out that getting into an ICE can be frustrating because you have to press a button (or turn a key) to turn the car on and off instead of it "just working," and that only involves moving your finger around a little bit. This seems pretty similar to me. You drive the car into the garage and it charges. The end. Sounds nice.
That said, the losses are still higher than I'd personally tolerate for that convenience.
I see no use for this product for myself, and until wireless charging gets as fast as wired charging (it's getting closer), I wont be using wireless charging for any of my devices (car included).
I mostly agree, but sort of disagree. I think there is a market share for this type of application, as I see a problems that need a solution -- a person continually forgets to plug in. This way you don't have to think about it, pull in and you'll start to charge immediately. There are other (cheaper) ways of tackling this problem, but there is a problem.
I mostly agree, but sort of disagree. I think there is a market share for this type of application, as I see a problems that need a solution -- a person continually forgets to plug in. This way you don't have to think about it, pull in and you'll start to charge immediately. There are other (cheaper) ways of tackling this problem, but there is a problem.
green1
Active Member
And this is the biggest issue. We have all sorts of ways of providing wired power without needing to plug in, various docking station type solutions are more efficient, more reliable, and cheaper than wireless charging. A robot arm is more efficient, possibly equally reliable, and likely cheaper than wireless charging.
Wireless charging sucks. I've never seen an application of it for any device that would be better than a properly designed wired solution. But people love it because it's "cool"....
mikeash
Active Member
This device costs $2,500. An HPWC is $750. Can a robot arm that can plug in an HPWC for you really be made for less than $1,750? I'm rather skeptical. The simple fact that wireless chargers for EVs exist today, while robot arms to plug in EVs can't be found anywhere outside of Tesla videos, speaks for itself.
If you're already spending $70,000 or more on a Tesla, another couple thousand to make it so you never even have to think about charging could be nice. This is especially true when combined with the new Summon stuff, since wireless charging removes the major limitation of being unable to Summon the car when it's plugged in.
I don't think it's worth it for me just to avoid spending five seconds plugging the car in. But I can see where it would be well worth it to some people. Please don't think your own personal lack of need or desire means the product itself is bad. Even if I'm not buying it, I'm really glad there are companies like this out there, making sophisticated third-party hardware for our cars.
If you're already spending $70,000 or more on a Tesla, another couple thousand to make it so you never even have to think about charging could be nice. This is especially true when combined with the new Summon stuff, since wireless charging removes the major limitation of being unable to Summon the car when it's plugged in.
I don't think it's worth it for me just to avoid spending five seconds plugging the car in. But I can see where it would be well worth it to some people. Please don't think your own personal lack of need or desire means the product itself is bad. Even if I'm not buying it, I'm really glad there are companies like this out there, making sophisticated third-party hardware for our cars.
12% loss is pretty good, I use about 15-20 kWh a day for charging (@ 10 cents), adding in the 12% loss, I would be paying another 27 cents a day times 365 days equals less than $100 per year loss. Big deal. Since I had $450 credit on my annual SCE bill for the last 12 months I wouldn't sweat it.
Roamer
Member
Add that 13% loss to the 15%-20% line loss and you're losing almost 1/3 of your power! No thanks.
benf
Member
While the losses/inefficiency aren't great, the only real reason I see for wanting this is to make Summon actually useful in your garage. The idea of standing around and watching your car slowly pull itself in to your garage (10 times slower than you do yourself) only for you to have to wait for it to finish so you can plug it in kind of defeats the purpose. If you could actually summon the car in to the garage and forget about it, that would be pretty cool.
$2500 + 13% loss cool? Probably not. But still cool.
$2500 + 13% loss cool? Probably not. But still cool.
green1
Active Member
I agree that a hands free connection would be great, it's just that wireless is the worst possible way of doing that. The robot arm would be a better solution, but the best solution would probably be a sort of rail system under the vehicle, no/few moving parts, little charging loss, cheap to build.While the losses/inefficiency aren't great, the only real reason I see for wanting this is to make Summon actually useful in your garage. The idea of standing around and watching your car slowly pull itself in to your garage (10 times slower than you do yourself) only for you to have to wait for it to finish so you can plug it in kind of defeats the purpose. If you could actually summon the car in to the garage and forget about it, that would be pretty cool.
$2500 + 13% loss cool? Probably not. But still cool.
Quite! But I think the application here is not one for laziness but rather for convenience. The Summon feature is great but it doesn't charge the car. With this you would have a real summon option. I see this being helpful for people with tight garages.
Additionally - this will be helpful when our cars are truly autonomous. Maybe not in this generation but you have to start developing the supporting technology at some point. Roomba wouldn't be worth a dime if it didn't go home and recharge itself when it needed to. When our cars become Roomba's they will need to be able to do the same. This seems like a better option to me than the scary snake. I'd imagine efficiency will improve as well. If it is already 87% that's a great start!
Gizmotoy
Active Member
My Roomba just drives up on two little posts to recharge itself. All we need is a really, really, big Roomba charger. :biggrin:
Edit: Oh no! Beat to the Roomba joke by 3 minutes!
$2500 + 13% loss cool? Probably not. But still cool.
How about $2,500 - $750 (federal infrastructure credit) - $750 (Oregon infrastructure credit) = $1,000 + 13% loss cool?
Similar threads
