The development of wireless inductive charging could eliminate the major obstacles to EV acceptance.
Widespread forecasts suggest that electric vehicle sales could account for 50 per cent or more of the market by 2040, if not before.
But buyers are not yet flocking to EVs at anything like the rate needed to make such predictions realistic. Based on full-year 2017 figures, fully-electric vehicle sales account for less than 1 per cent of the market in Canada, and the inclusion of plug-in hybrids in those figures doesn’t bring them much above that mark.
If that predicted level of acceptance is to be achieved, two significant roadblocks still must be overcome — range anxiety and recharging time and convenience.
Bit by bit, automakers are addressing the former, with driving ranges of 300 km or more now common as new entries come to market. And a recent announcement by BMW highlights a technology that might quell much of the concern re the latter.
There are three major irritants related to recharging. One is the time it takes, typically up to several hours to achieve a full charge. Another is the hassle of dealing with plugs and cables virtually every time one stops, just to forestall the onset of range anxiety.
The third is simply finding a charging station that’s not already in use, unless one has the luxury of a home-charging station. And even then, it’s a problem if the destination is further away than half the vehicle’s range.
The development of wireless inductive charging immediately addresses at least one of those problems and has the potential, if fully implemented, to eliminate all three.
This July, BMW will begin production of a Wireless Charging option on its 530e iPerformance models available for lease in Germany — a factory-fitted, fully integrated, inductive charging system for that plug-in hybrid’s high-voltage battery system.
Think of it as a hugely magnified version of the wireless technology used to recharge cell phones, now available in many cars. Instead of setting a phone on a designated charging pad, in this case the car itself is parked above a designated charging pad. No plugs or wires required.
Instead of setting a phone on a designated charging pad, in this case the car itself is parked above a designated charging pad. No plugs or wires required.
The BMW Wireless Charging system, which is scheduled to become available in the rest of Europe and North America at some later date, as yet unspecified, employs the same inductive charging principle. Pricing for the option has not yet been released.
Its primary benefit, BMW says, is its ease of use, as drivers no longer have to hook up their vehicles with a cable to replenish energy reserves. Instead, as soon as the car has been parked in the correct position above the inductive Charging Station — a process guided by its on-screen parking feature — a simple push of the Start/Stop button initiates the charging process. Once the battery is fully charged, the system switches off automatically.
The package includes an electric pad, to be mounted to the floor of a garage or an outdoor parking space and connected to a source of electric power, along with a corresponding vehicle pad that is factory-mounted to the vehicle’s underside.
According to BMW, it will take about 3.5 hours for the 3.2-kilowatt charging system to fully recharge the car’s 9.2-kwh lithium-ion battery pack.
It’s a concept that will work well for those with a home-based garage or parking space. But it will also mesh with the adoption of autonomous vehicles, particularly those in ride-hailing service, as they will be able to seek out charging stations and replenish their charge on their own, simply by parking over a designated pad.
While BMW may be the first to offer inductive charging, it is not the only automaker pursuing the concept. Mercedes-Benz has announced plans to introduce its own system this year and Nissan is known to be developing similar technology for its all-electric Leaf.
Perhaps even more exciting for future prospects, auto-industry supplier Qualcomm is working on a Dynamic Electric Vehicle Charging technology that would recharge vehicles while traveling on a 100-metre test track at speeds up to 110 km/h.
While the infrastructure cost of adapting highways for such technology may be prohibitive, at least for now, it’s not unreasonable to consider that possibility for limited city areas, or even just at stop signals. With enough such recharging pads close enough together, it might be possible to keep an EV going indefinitely without the need to stop for a recharge.
However incremental such steps might be, collectively they all pave the way for greater acceptance of electric vehicles. Maybe 50 per cent by 2040 isn’t such an unrealistic prediction after all.
