Volvo surges ahead with wireless charging – in your garage
Volvo have always been innovators; think back to the three-point safety belt in 1958, padded dashboard in 1956, first central high-mounted rear stop light in 1986, side airbags in 1995, and trust me, the list of safety innovations from the Swedish born marque is exhaustive and far too long to list in this news piece. Nothing seems to have changed, despite being owned by the Chinese Geely Corporation.
It seems Volvo think that charging your electric car should be via wireless system, which means no industrial size plugs, power sockets or charging cables. That’s all too hard according to Johan Konnberg, project manager from the Special Vehicles division of the Volvo Car Corporation who says,
“The aim is naturally that it should be as convenient as possible to own and use an electric car.”
‘Inductive Charging’ simply means that energy (electricity) is transferred wirelessly to the car’s battery via a charging plate in the garage floor, or on the road surface, which the car parks above to receive the charge.
Belgian Technology experts Flanders’ Drive is developing the system with Volvo and have just been handed a Volvo C30 Electric, which will be modified to accept the wireless charge.
Once prepared, the C30 Electric with 24 kWh battery pack can be fully charged in eighty minutes. But that simply means pulling up in your garage over the charge plate and going to work the next morning with a full charge without so much as a second thought.
It’s simple but quite ingenious and if perfected, must surely have a massive impact on the useability and ownership of electric cars.
There are other companies that are working towards road systems that incorporate wireless charging into the road surface itself so that the EV is never without a full charge. No doubt that kind of technology is a long way off.
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