Wireless EV Charging is Here

The adoption of EVs is tied to the proliferation of a charging infrastructure. Without the ability to put electricity into a vehicle when convenient, most people have no interest in trading in their gas-powered vehicles for EVs. 

One of the key benefits of an electric vehicle is that a majority of the time it charges while the driver is doing something else. While at home, the vehicle charges while the driver sleeps. At the mall, it charges while the driver shops or enjoys a hot dog on a stick. But to make that later scenario more of a reality there needs to be an increase in AC charging at destinations like malls, restaurants, supermarkets, and colleges. 

Building out that infrastructure not only requires power, but also charging stations and cables. At least it did until recently. With the SAE standard J2954 being updated with the standardized alignment of a vehicle and the charging pad, AC charging a vehicle on-the-go could be as easy as pulling up over a black square in the parking lot. 

A quick reminder that AC charging is not as quick as DC fast charging. AC charging is best utilized in scenarios where the driver is not in a hurry and instead carrying out another task like shopping or eating at a restaurant. The J2954 standard sets the stage for up to 11kW of electricity delivery at up to 10 inches. If you're driving a vehicle with a 100kWh battery pack, the wireless system could charge a vehicle by more than 30 percent over the course of nearly three hours of shopping. 

The benefit of AC charging is that the infrastructure is cheaper to roll out and again, it's the charging that happens while the driver is busy with other tasks. 

Wireless charging takes the ease of rollout to another level by removing the need for a piece of machinery with a cable sticking out. Cables can be left on the ground and damaged which requires a maintenance crew and a parking spot going offline while it's being repaired. Wireless charging pads remove that issue. 

In addition to making it easier to deploy AC charging infrastructure at scale and simpler to maintain, the J2954 standard also includes the ability to link a charging pad to a payment system that recognizes a vehicle. A car pulls up, the pad recognizes the vehicle, and payment is taken care of without the driver needing to whip out their credit card or app. 

All the work that went into the standard and more details about its technology can be found here. 

Before all this can happen, automakers need to adopt wireless charging into their vehicles. This would be in addition to the traditional charging ports already found on EVs. With the current standard, the guesswork about how to implement wireless charging has been erased. Now it's just down to which automaker will be the first to take the plunge and when. Once that happens, expect to see more block squares in parking lots ready to charge EVs without dealing with a cable.