Wireless electric cars about to hit the road
SAN DIEGO — Imagine charging your electric car as easily as you charge your electric toothbrush.
Or, your car charging itself as it drives down the road.
Those scenarios are not as far-fetched as you might think. Indeed, a group of tech gurus who gathered last month in San Diego discussed how a wireless electric vehicle is about to become a reality.
“This is definitely coming,” said Jesse Schneider, chairman of the wireless task force for the Society of Automotive Engineers, or SAE, an international group working to develop common standards to make sure the sector’s competing technologies work together.
Car buyers are familiar with plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles, but companies such as Qualcomm seek to jumpstart the transition from internal combustion to zero-emission cars with “inductive” charging.
Instead of charging a vehicle with a plug or cable, the driver using a wireless system aligns the car over a charging pad and an electromagnetic field does the rest.
The technology has been talked about for years but, starting with the hybrid version of the 2018 Mercedes-Benz S550e, wireless vehicle charging technology will make its debut. The German automaker reached an agreement with Qualcomm to use the San Diego-based company’s Halo technology as a feature on the luxury car, which has a base price of $96,600 US.
A slew of other car makers are about to enter the wireless-charging market as well.
In addition to his work for SAE, Schneider works for BMW, which has its own plans for wireless charging in some of its models.
And in addition to Qualcomm, tech companies such as Evatran, Momentum Dynamics, Witricity and Wireless Advanced Vehicle Electrification offer versions of wireless vehicle charging.
But the ultimate goal is to take vehicle charging beyond the parking space — and put it on the road, literally.
What’s called dynamic charging foresees a future where vehicles charge themselves as they drive. Using coils embedded in roads, EVs would refuel as they stay in transit, creating their own self-perpetuating electrical loop. It’s similar to the way some mobile devices get charged.
“What we could potentially see with the wireless power transfer is incredibly exciting,” said Andrew Hoskinson, the EV Infrastructure Planning and Development Strategist at San Diego’s Center for Sustainable Energy, which hosted the SAE forum.
The most likely introduction of dynamic charging figures to come from buses travelling on public transportation routes equipped with charging coils. Delivery trucking firms also figure to have an incentive to exploit the technology.
And that could accelerate the use of autonomous vehicles.
“You’re going to have a vehicle that is self-parking and after taking occupants wherever they needed to be dropped off, the vehicle immediately parks and beings to charge automatically,” said Hoskinson. “You end up with something that can be a real game-changer.”