Mercedes S550e : Qualcomm Wireless Charging

[Otispunkmeyer]

http://arstechnica.co.uk/cars/2016/10/mercedes-ben...

Well, this is nice. I am not sure wireless charging will ever be as efficient as wired, but you can't argue with simply driving into your garage and leaving the thing to charge up on its own.

The system they're going to sell with the S550e will do 3.6 kW, good enough for small battery packs. But Qualcomm do say the system will do 6.6 kW (guess its not quite ready yet) which puts it closer to the typical wired BEV charging we currently have.

[onedsla]

How long until this can be built into the motorway network..?

[FastNReliable1]

onedsla said:

How long until this can be built into the motorway network..?

A long time imho. I think it'd require superconductors to be commercially viable and even then the distance between the road conductor and the car's pick up pad to be efficiently and reliably managed (I'm surmising this would be post driverless car revolution as then the attitude and direction of the cars would be predictable to some degree).

In my opinion this will more likely remain as a destination charging solution and powered roads will never happen although the notion of combining electricity distribution with a powered road infrastructure and involving personal vehicles for both charging and meeting peak demand is very interesting.