√Tesla acquires German wireless electric-car charging company

A German start-up has been bought by electric-car giant Tesla, and it could help accelerate wireless home charging for its cars.

US electric-car company Tesla has reportedly purchased a business which specialises in the development of wireless charging technology for electric vehicles.

According to publication Teslamag (and spotted by InsideEVs), the German company Wiferion – founded in 2016 under the name Blue Inductive – was acquired by Tesla in a $US76 million ($AU115.6 million) deal, and now operates under the name Tesla Engineering Germany GmbH.

Wiferion is understood to have been working on wireless, inductive charging pads for electric vehicles – the same kind of technology used for wireless smartphone chargers – which it says can be scaled up to be mounted in the ground or the floor of a garage.

It’s understood the wireless charging is already used to power autonomous robots used in some new-car factories, including on the production line at a Lotus manufacturing facility.

The technology would allow owners to simply park over the top of their charging pad on their driveway or in their garage, with potentially automated charging beginning without the need to plug into a wall charger.

MORE: The road that can fast-charge electric cars

At its Investor Day presentation in March 2023, Tesla teased an image of what appeared to be a wireless home charging system for its electric vehicles.

Wiferion already has a wireless charging product on the market, which it claims can recharge “industrial electric vehicles and mobile robots” at up to 3kW.

For comparison, charging an electric vehicle through a 240-volt domestic outlet provides approximately 2kW of charging.

To fully recharge an entry-level Tesla Model 3 with its 60kWh battery pack, it would take about 20 hours using a 3kW wireless charger from zero to 100 per cent.

However, Australians drive an average of 43 kilometres each day – or less than 9 per cent of the Model 3’s driving range, meaning a top-up would take less than 5.5 hours using the theoretical 3kW wireless charger.

The post Tesla acquires German wireless electric-car charging company – report appeared first on Drive.