Wireless Charging for Infiniti’s Compact EV

December 2nd, 2011 by Zachary Shahan

We’ve written about wireless charging for electric vehicles a few times. While it’s not in broad use yet, it seems like it may be a popular option for future electric cars. The latest car to announce it might go wireless is Infiniti’s planned compact EV (Infiniti’s Nissan Leaf). Here’s more:

Infiniti’s Compact EV May Have Wireless Charging (via Gas 2.0)

Keep up to date with all the hottest cleantech news by subscribing to our (free) cleantech newsletter, or keep an eye on sector-specific news by getting our (also free) solar energy newsletter, electric vehicle newsletter, or wind energy newsletter.

Tags: ev wireless charging, infiniti, infiniti compact ev, infiniti ev, quickies, wireless charging, wireless charging electric cars, wireless charging ev

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

Pingback: Hertz Tests Wireless EV Charging in the United States
Albert Lahey

Now we just need the road to have this…
- Anonymous
  
  Doesn’t make sense. The cost of installing would be very high. That would be an immense amount of infrastructure just to put charge coils in our major highways.
  
  We’re likely to have batteries that will give us 175 mile range and recharge quickly. (We’ve already got 95% recharging in <20 minutes.)
  
  People just don't drive more than 150 miles per day very often. A 175 mile range would make it possible to drive 500 miles with only two short stops for charging.
  - Ceckenroth04
    
    But you’re missing a bigger point. This then, would put thousands if not millions to work right away installing the coils on the highways and intersections
    - Anonymous
      
      If it turns out not to be needed (and only slightly better batteries would make wiring highways unnecessary) then all we would be doing is creating a lot of “make work” jobs.
      
      And we’d be burying a lot of very expensive copper. And ripping up a lot of pavement.
      
      If batteries don’t improve (quite unlikely), we’d likely be better off moving to a battery swap technology.
      
      Remember, we don’t need any sort of range extenders for PHEVs. People who drive longer distances more than once a month or so have an option that would let them drive most of their miles on electricity but not restrict them for longer trips. We need a solution for only those who normally drive shorter (<100 miles per day) distances but need the ability to drive further at times.
Anonymous

Nissan has stated that their wireless charging system is about as efficient as a wired charging system. That makes me think we’ll do it all wireless eventually.

Wireless charging eliminates the need to plug in, it minimizes the potential for vandalism to the system (no cable to cut), it makes charging effortless.

We just need a notification system so each individual car can communicative with the charge point. The charge point is going to need to know how much to charge and where to bill. The driver needs a cell phone alert that charging is just about complete.

And the web needs to know where the empty parking/charging spots are.

It would seem that the charge system would be fairly inexpensive, just buried loops of wire. Several chargers could be connected to a single CPU for billing/controlling.

I wonder if it’s feasible to do V2G sans wire. Seems possible.