GM Partners With Boston Startup WiTricity To Develop Wireless Charging Technology (electrek.co)

Earlier this week, General Motors announced a partnership with Boston-area startup WiTricity to develop wireless charging pads for electric vehicles. Their goal is to develop a wireless "charging pad" that can be installed beneath a layer of concrete or other garage flooring material so that cars would simply need to be parked over the pad to automatically start charging. Electrek reports: "The electric vehicle has been recognized as central to the future of mobility, and GM has been a leader, making EVs accessible to the broader market. The convenience of wireless charging will help accelerate adoption even further," said Alex Gruzen, CEO of WiTricity, about the alliance. "Wireless charging for EVs, based on industry standards, is inevitable as we move toward a future of self-driving and autonomous vehicles, and this project brings us one step closer to realizing our vision of a world powered wirelessly." GM agreed to allow WiTricity to conduct tests on a Chevrolet Volt hybrid vehicle, "to show how well it would work integrated into a real car," according to Gruzen. Witricity claims that their system can achieve over 90% efficiency, which would make it at least as efficient as a plug-in charger. "Wireless charging is a technology that our customers have told us they are interested in," GM's executive chief engineer of electrified vehicles, Pamela Fletcher, said. "By testing the WiTricity prototype system, we can ensure that wireless charging systems will comply with proposed industry standards, which benefits the entire industry and consumers." The company has high hopes for their product. Gruzen envisions a future in which EV owners can send autonomous cars to charging stations remotely, a future that would only be possible with wireless charging stations.

Comments

Why is wireless necessary for autonomy?

[Mal-2]

If we as a civilization have figured out how to dock spacecraft, and refuel planes in flight, surely we can figure out how to connect an autonomous car to a contact charger. It could be a port at bumper height and the car drives very slowly into it. It could be simple robots at the station itself. I'm not saying wireless charging doesn't have its place, but it is not a requirement for an autonomous vehicle infrastructure.

Re:What a waste

[donaldm]

wireless charging is a waste ofenergy how long does it take to plug something in

And wasting energy is particularly bad when we have climate deniers in charge of the govt

Wireless or inductive charging can be as efficient as charging via cable but there are also allot of gotchas as well. One of those gotchas is a fundament law of physics which simply states that if you want efficiency you must couple the magnet field of the charging coil with the receiving coil and the greater the air gap the less efficient the charging will be. Anyone who has done transformer design should know that.

Charging mats for your mobile are not that efficient but they are convenient and the loss in monetary terms is small so most people won't care, but if you upscale inductive charging to a car the losses are going to be much more evident and this translates to extra costs for the consumer which will far outweigh the convenience.