Wireless Charging

[AndrewBissell]

They must have defeated the mechanism that stops the car driving with the charge port door open. Personally I'd prefer a robot arm that opens the door and plugs in a conductive charger. I could see that working. And no loss of efficiency.

 

[dsm363]

I don't get it. What's the point of routing the cable like that?

 

[Doug_G]

Anti-theft, I assume.

 

[doug]

Fulton Innovation blows our minds with eCoupled wireless Tesla, inductive cereal boxes - Engadget

... The model on display here is an obvious retrofit, a coil stuck between the front wheels that runs to an AC/DC converter and then, quite inelegantly, to a cable running out a vent and into the input on the car itself. This is an obvious retrofit but it was done with purpose: to show that without modifying the internal systems of the car wireless charging can be done -- and reasonably efficiently, too.

This form of charging is 80 percent efficient, but the company estimates that with a more integrated system (mainly deleting the converter) they could get to 89 percent efficiency. The wired charger? It clocks in at 96 percent efficiency, meaning for any given voltage the charging time would only be about 7 seven percent slower going wireless -- a potentially small price to pay for the ability to turn an entire parking lot into a charging station without having to worry about wires or vandalism or semi-inadvertent electrocution of curious people who decide to see what happens when terminals get licked....

 

[dpeilow]

Cool - but no one with a pacemaker could go in there :smile:

 

[Doug_G]

I know you're joking, but there's little chance of the field affecting pacemakers. These systems would use quite low frequencies. In fact, they'd probably run below 9kHz to avoid having to be FCC certified as an intentional radiator.

At least this explains the weird plug installation...

 

[dpeilow]

They should've got Tomsax to do the plug mod. Much neater.

 

[vfx]

The 140 mile misquote of Tesla's 240 range removes a bit of credibility.

The idea of these being good for high crime areas is good but this would be equally cool in front of a high end restaurant or hotel parking spots as well.

 

[doug]

The 140 mile misquote of Tesla's 240 range removes a bit of credibility.

That's a simple error. What removes more credibility is the "able to charge in the same amount of time as if it were plugged in" quote (repeated by Engadget), which is deliberately misleading.

 

[vfx]

That's a simple error. What removes more credibility is the "able to charge in the same amount of time as if it were plugged in" quote (repeated by Engadget), which is deliberately misleading.

Good point.

It does look cool though.

 

[TEG]

For VFX:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi_XLOBDo_Y

 

[dsm363]

With alternate lyrics "Not plugging in, not with my charger...." etc.

I think something this has some good uses as perviously mentioned. Pulling into a mall parking spot or shopping center for an hour or so and getting a short charge might be nice but the loss of efficiency is less than ideal of course. If it has that 'cool' factor and gets more people interested in electric cars then maybe it's worth it.

 

[dwegmull]

It looks like one of the guys at Hooniverse.com actually spent some time talking with them and got some good answers: http://hooniverse.com/2011/01/12/ces-2011-ecoupled-induction-charging-for-evs/

 

[vfx]

...The system was also rigged to charge at a level roughly equivalent to plugging into a 110V outlet, so if you were to take this concept unit as-is and try to charge your Tesla’s massive battery completely, it’d take about 50 hours. That being said, the Fulton representative said there’s no significant barrier to a 240V-type charging system, more in line with what an EV actually needs. If and when an eCoupled vehicle system comes to market, it’s likely to be the 240V-equivalent type.



The other interesting part of the device on display was that it was a “piggyback” type – that is, there were no modifications to the Tesla’s charging or management systems. A receiver bolted under the car fed power to an inverter in the trunk or some such place, which then fed power through a wire to a plug that went into the standard Tesla charging port. As far as the Tesla was concerned, it was plugged into the wall as per normal. This is probably the aftermarket application of the device – another option is to wire up a car at the factory to natively charge inductively. That would mean you would park the car over the inductive coil and walk away, with greater efficiency to boot (as shown in the graphic above). Both the piggyback demonstrator and the hypothetical OEM installation can be monitored remotely via a smartphone application or a web interface, much like the big manufacturers were rolling out with their EVs....

 

[Kevin Sharpe]

SAE TIR J2954: “Wireless Charging of Electric and Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles”

http://projectgetready.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/SAE-J2954-Wireless-Charging-Dec.-2010_2.pdf

 

[suxxer]

Video of ecoupled charging Tesla Roadster:

 

[zack]

Fulton Innovation blows our minds with eCoupled wireless Tesla, inductive cereal boxes - Engadget

The Roadster has so little clearance to begin with... that thing under the car looks damned vulnerable, too. Where I live, one pothole and that thing is toast. And if it's damaged and shorted out and you park it over the glowing blue ring? *shudders*

If I was in charge of issuing aftermarket warnings for Tesla, I'd be sending out one immediately about this thing.

 

[doug]

The Roadster has so little clearance to begin with... that thing under the car looks damned vulnerable, too. Where I live, one pothole and that thing is toast.

I guess I'll give them a pass on the clearance issue since this is just a proof of concept (you're not going to drive around like this, either). Of course, though, you also want to be as close as possible to minimize losses (which is why I think you might as well have an automated conductive contact if you're going to go this route).

And if it's damaged and shorted out and you park it over the glowing blue ring? *shudders*

One assumes/hopes that there is some kind of system check and a handshake before charging commences.

 

[Doug_G]

Don't worry, it would be trivial to detect a shorted loop.

 

[WarpedOne]

Of course, though, you also want to be as close as possible to minimize losses (which is why I think you might as well have an automated conductive contact if you're going to go this route).

Losses are not that big problem. If you're willing to spend $120k on a car and aditional $???k on Wireless charging upgrade, you are not really worried about 50% higher cost per mile driven.
Automated conductive charging is problematic because you must be sure contacts are not dirty and exactly positioned. Tricky bussines.
Automated wireless charging (WC ? on the other hand is simple, reliable and safe.