Recently, Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla's head of design, revealed in a test drive of the Cybertruck that Tesla is developing a wireless inductive charging platform that can be charged without plugging or unplugging any connectors, just parking the car in the garage and driving through the charging floor.
The principle of wireless inductive charging of electric vehicles is similar to that of mobile phones, using resonant electromagnetic induction to transmit current, and the magnetic coil in the charger will be installed on the charging floor to transmit the current to the magnetic coil under the car. When the two sets of coils are aligned, charging starts automatically.
This is not the first time that Tesla has said that it will provide inductive wireless charging for electric vehicles, at the shareholders' meeting in March 2023, Tesla showed off its wireless home charging solution, and a ** of Model S appeared on the screen, and the car was wirelessly charged in the garage. But at that time, the official did not make much publicity about wireless charging, and it was only a flash, and it is only now that these news have been confirmed. It is worth noting that Tesla acquired the German wireless charging company Wiferion in the middle of this year, and in October it made its **. However, Tesla has retained Wiferion's engineers, which could mean that they were assigned to work on the wireless charger project.
The wireless charging system simplifies the steps of charging operation, and the owner only needs to park the car on the dedicated charging floor. But anyone who has used wireless charging on mobile phones should know that this charging method is not very efficient, and it is obviously slower than wired charging. And the installation of the wireless charging system is not easy, the coil induction device should be embedded below the ground, and there are certain requirements for the surrounding environment, and it is not formed by pulling the wire to stand a pile.
Of course, the wireless charging system is also relatively expensive, the coils buried in the ground need to be connected to the wall-mounted charger, and the vehicle also needs to be equipped with an inductive receiver, which will definitely add weight. In my opinion, the wireless charging solution just saves the time of plugging and unplugging the connectors, and it looks a little more neat visually. If the cost is not lower, it is difficult to promote it in the market, and the charging efficiency is not high, which means that the supercharging network cannot be replaced in public places.