Electrified vehicles will become more mainstream
when they’re more convenient to charge up than fueling a conventional
automobile with an internal-combustion engine. And BMW is taking a big step
towards that goal with the launch of its wireless charging system.
Available initially for the 530e iPerformance PHEV,
the wireless charging matt does away with the plug-in part of the plug-in
hybrid equation. Just park your 5 Series on top of the charger, and the system
does the rest. It works pretty much like a wireless charging pad for a phone or
electric toothbrush, but obviously on a much larger scale.
The system encompasses a GroundPad placed on the
driveway (or wherever the car’s being parked) and a CarPad affixed to the
underside of the vehicle. The two devices create a magnetic field at a distance
of about 8 cm, and charge at 3.2 kW to fill up the
battery in just three and a half hours. No plugs, not even any buttons are required
to be pressed.
Production starts in July. The wireless charging
option is being offered first in Germany under lease, but will soon follow to
the US, UK, Japan, and China. And you can bet there’ll be more models offered
with the system in the near future, too.
The automaker touts this as the world’s first
“factory-fitted, fully integrated inductive charging facility for the
high-voltage battery in a plug-in hybrid vehicle.” This in addition to the
plug-in fast-chargers that BMW’s Designworks studio is designing for the Ionity
joint venture (with Daimler, Volkswagen, and Ford) for implementation across
Europe.
