Third party offering Tesla Model S wireless charging option in April

[deonb]

I do think it's great that they offer this. Not for customers, but for potential buyers.

A lot of people who have never owned an EV has a mental block about: "I have to plug it in at night. I always forget to plug in my cellphone, so I'm going to forget to plug in the car".

Of course once you own the car you see it's not like that at all. Forgetting to plug in your car is much closer to forgetting to close your garage door, than forgetting to charge your phone. Once your car is at home, you don't continue to use it, unlike a phone.


However, it is a mental block prior to the sale. This product will help people overcome it. Tesla can point the people who think they'll forget to plug it in to this thing instead.

Of course 2 weeks into ownership 99.9% of people will see that they don't need it. But it's a good tool in the arsenal to help sell the car in the first place.

 

[MP3Mike]

Of course 2 weeks into ownership 99.9% of people will see that they don't need it. But it's a good tool in the arsenal to help sell the car in the first place.

If they got Plugless installed when they bought their car how would they see they didn't need it after 2 weeks? It could be that other than trips/Supercharging that they never even plug their car in and would never use the UMC.

 

[green1]

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!

You realize the Roomba doesn't use wireless for charging right? it's more like the "rail" system I mentioned earlier.

As for the snake, that's just a completely absurd solution, a proper robotic arm needs 3 motors, that snake had dozens.

 

[martinwinlow]

To all the negative responses to this product here I have only this to say - Public charging facilities.

No cables/posts/boxes to vandalise, car parked for ages so plenty of time for a gentle charge, no standing around in the cold and rain trying to plug in/un-plug (I should sell them!). I'm sure they'll clean up - especially at that price. MW

 

[WarpedOne]

But losses!!!!1111

Seriously ... wider tires, lower profile tires, spoilers, body kits, performance etc, all of them negatively affect the car total efficiency.
It boils down to p/p, what do I get for the price payed. Those 20% higher energy losses mean my electricity bill will go up by 20%. And that is what counts ... how much will the bill go up for the added luxury of not needing to fiddle with gables every single time I come home or go away?

What good is there to autopresenting doors, automatic un/lock, if I still have to manually plug in and out?

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

To all the negative responses to this product here I have only this to say - Public charging facilities.

No cables/posts/boxes to vandalise, car parked for ages so plenty of time for a gentle charge, no standing around in the cold and rain trying to plug in/un-plug (I should sell them!). I'm sure they'll clean up - especially at that price. MW

Additional electricity to charge, 1 car per plugless. Would have to have on-board authentication and authorization to avoid standing around in the rain. Longer term, if PEVs are successful, there might not be much rain, because there's no problem in enclosed spaces. But makes sense for luxury cars since it saves time, and makes sense where plugging in is impractical, such as for taxis at a taxi rank.

As for vandal proof you also need to figure in the effect on paving costs, and understand that if there's anything cheap and easy that vandals could use to interfere with charging, you know that it'll be done.

 

[ElectricLove]

I'm wondering how AP will intereact with the charger. When the vehicle is over the "base" the receiver sends a signal the same way as if the vehicle was plugged in, I'd imagine the "summon" feature looks for that same signal and if it is present (ie. the car is parked over the charging pad) it should not allow summon to activate (ie the car doesn't have anything in the software/firmware to account for a wireless charging option since Tesla didn't develop it). If it doesn't work with summon I'd imagine it won't prove to be very useful, if they figure out a way to teach the vehicle what to do and that it is ok to automatically "end" a charging session when being summoned...