Tesla Is Officially Developing A Wireless Inductive Charger For Its EVs
Tesla has not had a good December 2023. On December 12, Elon Musk's electric vehicle company recalled over two million Tesla cars due to issues with the Autopilot driver assistance features, specifically that there was not enough care taken to make sure that the driver's eyes were on the road while Autopilot was engaged. This was just 10 months after a recall of over 360,000 cars over issues with Tesla's Full Self-Driving technology, as well. Still, the driverless and driver assistance features remain a priority for Tesla, and it's inextricably linked with something the company has teased in the past: wireless charging.
Wireless chargers for smartphones aren't ubiquitous yet, but for those who have adopted them, they're life-changing. If you're a power user of your phone, being able to charge it by simply placing it on a stand or mat without having to plug it in makes a big difference. So it makes sense that, for Tesla, an eventual wireless charging mat of some kind would be in the pipeline, particularly whenever self-driving cars become a reality so they can charge themselves without human intervention. On Monday, an interview with Tesla Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen and VP of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy confirmed that wireless charging is on the way.
Tesla Design Chief: 'You don't need to plug something in at that point.'
The news came in the Tesla Cybertruck episode of "Jay Leno's Garage" on YouTube, specifically during his test drive of the car with Moravy and von Holzhausen. "Oh, we're working on the inductive charging," explained Von Holzhausen. "So you don't need to plug something in at that point. You just pull in your garage, drive over the pad, and you're charging."
Tesla had previously teased the rollout of a wireless charging mat, but this was the first time that anyone from the company had said anything about it. At the company's Investor Day event in March, the company released a promotional image that showed something that sure looked like a charging mat in a home garage. So far, though, it's just been a slow drip of information, but now that Tesla has talked about it, hopefully, more information will follow sooner than the nine months from the Investor Day image that today's news took.