Part 1: Wireless Charging for Vehicles // Everything You Need to Know

Wireless Charging Series Part 1: Basic Architecture, Cost, and Efficiency
At the Cybercab event, Tesla showed that the vehicle would charge wirelessly. This two part series will share everything you need to konw about wireless charging for vehicles.

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*Timeline*
00:00 Introduction
01:54 The General Architecture
05:07 Power Station Details
06:27 Power Pad and Vehicle Pad Details
07:41 Battery Adapter Details
08:45 End-to-End Efficiency
10:46 Surprising Efficiency
12:37 Unexpected Cost Savings
15:50 Going Larger than 11kW
21:18 Summary

Intro Music by Dyalla: Homer Said

[Man_VS_Housework]

Great video, one small issue, putting the cooling towels on the supercharger handle just cools down the sensor, making it think it can charge faster. It’s actually dangerous and they said never to do it.

[WillProwse]

Those efficiency figures are mind blowing. I had no clue they were this high. I wonder if the vehicles coil can lower down to the stationary charging coil to decrease distanc between the two. Pretty crazy to imagine how much power is being transmitted! Im sure we will see increased performance in wireless phone chatgers in due time.

Great video as always!!

[TomTom-cmoq]

Can’t wait for the next video! Great stuff!

[Viking]

I was going to have a Tesla charger installed in my garage this past year for a Tesla vehicle I am probably going to purchase this year 2025 but now this is what I am going to install! For about 2k CAD with the ability to feed back into the grid it is worth it in my opinion!

[peterwilliams]

This topic is huge thank you for an excellent review. In terms of customer acceptance wireless charging is the difference between “I’m not sure” to ‘’yes please”. The obvious refinement would be self driving being able position the vehicle over the charging pad

[markplott]

Jordan - HAPPY NEW YEAR !, and than you for doing this video.
its a FUN note, that the gm EV1 had early INDUCTIVE charging w/ a insertable Paddle charger.
and could MAX charge up to 240v AC.
this was safe to use outdoors in the rain or snow.
however this was very early simple Inductive charging, and not MORE advanced RF based Inductive charging.

[klauszinser]

Well done. While watching several questions came up:
1. The EV1 (a long time ago) had a wireless charging stick. (There was no galvanic contact). What was the efficiency. (Charging rate was definitely low as it was at a time when there were not even Lithium vehicle batteries).
2. Is Tesla not working anymore wit the Freiburg/DE acquired company?
3. Wireless Charging (latest with FSD) requires less stalls as the vehicles can move themselves from waiting for charging, to charging and when ready to waiting for pickup (or go directly into Taxi Service)
4. Are there sightseeing places, ferry waiting places etc where stalls are not possible but wireless charging directly integrated into the street could make sense.
5. How will payment be done? (Most realistic planned for the upcoming video).
6. Very important will be adaption with competitors. Maybe Tesla should define a standard as they partially did with the 48V system in the Cybertruck.

[robkeshav]

Excellent presentation! I love how you present complex issues in a simple manner.
I am getting a new CT on January 8th and was thinking about getting a Tesla gateway so that I could use the CT for power backup during outage. Will wireless charging be a better/cheaper solution?

[martinivan]

Just a small point on the theft resistance of wireless pad, a hard epoxy will burn up easily leaving the potential thief with the copper itself, just like burning of old copper wires will clean them of plastic. So you might have to bury them all into concrete after all

[peterzerfass]

I think the "3 minutes saved per charging session" is *wildly* optimistic.
I timed charging time lead ups (getting out, grabbing the cable/pushing the button and plugging in as well as pushing the button, unplugging, hooking up the cable and getting in and that is 3 seconds and 4 seconds respectively (even if you're snail-slow you are *well* under 10 seconds for each).
Handshake will be the same for wireless charging as for wired charging.
While I do see the additional comfort of wireless charging the savings really only play out for autonomous (i.e. not having to have an attendant), as 11kW charging sessions are hours long a saving of a few seconds is not relevant.
Comparing the wireless to a superchargers is nonsensical as one is 11kW and the other is 250kW+.

[CrankyTim]

As Elon said, there is always an inductor somewhere in the charging system. However, the inductors are normally coupled with an iron core as in a transformer. This charging pad couples the inductors with air. So I’m a bit skeptical that the peak efficiencies being quoted are going to be seen in real life conditions.

[marklefler]

Would love to see why they think 350 kW inductive charging would only cost $7 compared with Tesla's $40k wired chargers. You would still need rectifiers to convert the AC to DC and cables, plus inverters, the coil units and electronics. You would only seem to save on the pedestals, cable cooling and maybe the charge cable itself. I just do not see where the $7k is justified.

[budgetaudiophilelife-long]

🤗 THANKS JORDAN💚💚💚 JEREMY, and your supporters were excited to see. Thanks again.

[rogercolberg]

At 25 kW charge of about an hour would be perfect for cleaning and inspection.

[rfbrost]

Cyber cabs can take passengers greater distances by using them like in a relay race. Two Cyber cabs meet somewhere (maybe a supercharger location) and the passenger gets out of the depleted battery cab into a fully charged one to continue their trip. Then the original cab charges and returns to its home location if no drives are needed where they are.

[steverobbins]

I'm a retired EE, and I've long been mystified by wireless charging, and the claims of high efficiency. The main issue, as I see it, is leakage flux.
The primary winding produces a lot of magnetic flux, and SOME of those flux lines link (pass through the center of ) the secondary winding on the vehicle, inducing current flow. Bot if the gap is large -- and to me a large gap is a millimeter -- then a lot of those flux lines DON'T link the secondary winding. This is called leakage flux. For example, if half the flux lines link the secondary, then you have a coupling coefficient of 50%. But with a gap of a few inches, I'd expect a coupling coefficient of only 5%, maybe less.
Normally, you would use a magnetic core to guide the flux lines where you want them. The core material typically has a reluctance (in a magnetic circuit, reluctance is analogous to resistance in an electric circuit) that is thousands of times lower than the reluctance of air. The flux lines will follow the path of least reluctance, so the vast majority stay within the core. Sometimes you put a small gap (a few thousandths of an inch long) in the core to limit the flux density to avoid saturating the core. Even such a small gap typically has a lot more reluctance than the rest of the magnetic circuit in the core.
Some will claim the key ingredient is resonance, but this sounds very fishy to me. We're transferring a LOT of power through the transformer to a very power hungry load, which is equivalent to a VERY lossy resonator.
So I just don't get how they achieve any reasonably high system efficiency, UNLESS they close the gap. Perhaps the floor unit rises up, or the receiving coil on the vehicle is lowered down, so they basically touch each other with the smallest possible air gap in between.
If there are any other EEs out there who can explain this better, please do. Because I'd really like to know what, if anything, I'm missing.

[danburkland]

Great video, already looking forward to the next one!!

[davidgunther]

Super fast inductive charging with 5% loss would be a lot of heat.
Resonant transformers can be very efficient. I think when you need a wide output range the efficiency drops.

[briannewman]

The cost and efficiency numbers given in this video for wireless charging look rather optimistic.
There are other ways for automatically charging vehicles that are likely to be cheaper than a solution that has an air gap between inductor pads.

[ronaldgarrison]

This actually looks quite exciting, for several reasons. We may be able to get rid of all those tombstones, and handle all the UI through the car or a smartphone. No cables, no issues of which direction to park, no problem leaving quickly in an emergency, no long cables to handle, no exposure of the driver to weather, and less exposure of charging to vandalism, user-generated mishaps, and exposure to the elements. Probably other advantages also.

Connecting and disconnecting could be quick and simple enough that you can charge much more frequently. We should be able to handle several times as many charging points, and have them much more dispersed. They could be essentially invisible, except to software used to direct drivers to them. Batteries could be smaller and cheaper, and range anxiety would fade away.

And this shift could actually happen quite rapidly.