Good news! Tesla will have the heft to finally push wireless into the mainstream. (I wish more effort had been put into this article as it reads like the author hasn’t been paying attention to the wireless space since about a decade ago. Transfer efficiencies have now basically closed the gap with wired charging. Or at least so close it’s basically a rounding error. This is not theoretical, anyone can buy one and try it themselves.)
Wireless has the most potential to solve level 2 charging in the public space. Tesla fans will, of course, buy anything that Elon sells. But the more rational among us will not see any sort of problem with plugging in their car in their own garage with a cable. However, what about those people who don’t have a garage? Who doesn’t have a private place to plug in? Who relies on-street parking? The idea that in an EV future we’re going to have a bunch of thick cables running everywhere over sidewalks, hanging from utility poles, and a bunch of charge poles sticking up out of sidewalks is an issue that hasn’t been seriously thought out. (Not to mention that all those cables are going to be cut and stolen for copper pretty much as fast as cities can install them). Wireless solves the whole thing. Everything is embedded in concrete. Nothing is exposed. No visual clutter. Theft is impossible without a jackhammer. No poles to dodge when clearing snow. No ports are frozen shut. No frozen cables to manipulate. Just park.
(Autonomous vehicles, industrial mobile robots, and all types of electric vehicles will be able to use wireless charging.)