Qualcomm and Renault to conduct field trials of wireless electric vehicle charging in London

[bananas]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/12/635201/how-wireless-charging-could-speed-up-the-electric-car-market/

How Wireless Charging Could Speed Up The Electric Car Market

By Climate Guest Blogger on Aug 12, 2012 at 8:26 am

San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc. recently announced that it has partnered with the automaker Renault for a field trial of its new wireless electric vehicle charging system later this year in London.

According to Forbes:

<snip>

Lots of interesting links in the article and comments.
Japan has been interested in this, don't know if they have any field trials yet.

[LongTomH]

1. Somewhere.....Nikola Tesla is smiling!

However, if we built electric roadways equipped with Halo-style charging pads, the range limitations of EVs could be addressed.

As EVs equipped with the proper receiving pads passed over electric roadways, they would constantly be charging, thereby eliminating the need to stop and refuel. This innovation would allow for the much more widespread and effective use of current EVs without any major advances in vehicle technology.

Lining America’s roadways with wireless electric vehicle chargers might not be as far fetched as it sounds. We already coat every single road in the nation with long strings of paint to denote lanes, why can’t small pads or cells be embedded in similar dashed roadway lines? Additionally, the pads wouldn’t need to be everywhere, they could be placed in short bursts, maybe a mile or two long, on stretches of road a few miles apart.

[Motown_Johnny]

2. I would love to see numbers on the efficiency of this type of charging.

If it isn't efficient enough then the whole point of having an electric car vanishes.




I do have one issue with the way electric cars are recharged. My friend drives a Volt and they give you a little charging thing with it. You need to plug one side into the car and the other into an outlet.

Why in the world this can't be integrated into the vehicle so you just pull out a cord, on a reel that retracts, and plug it into the outlet?

The very worst case scenario is that you need 2. One for 110 and one for 220. Then all the infrastructure needed is electrical outlets.