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Plug FREE Charging

4K views 11 replies 9 participants last post by  stresstool 
#1 ·
#2 ·
I am interested in trying it out. They will be launching to one or more regions later this year for home installations, and this will be after they start their program for organizations like Clemson University and Hertz. It looks like they will pay for your electricity used to charge your plug-in vehicle for a few months if you are one of the first 500 to sign up (more at http://www.pluglesspower.com/reserve/). A pretty nice deal I think.
 
#7 ·
Is it as efficient? Would charging time increase? In 2+ months I have never forgotten to plug in, and the cable is not in the way.

IMO, A better use of this technology would be charging at intersections automatically. Imagine what that could do to the range of electric cars if they would charge while driving....

Of course there would need to be infrastructure for billing for the charge, etc.
 
#9 ·
Neat device, but not sure private home demand will call for the $4K + installation price tag.

However, I see a BIG PLUS for business fleets. I already saw how AAA-South here in Orlando has a Volt and the employees NEVER plug it in. They grab it and drive, always without battery power. The two employees I talked to who drove one to a EV meeting basically have never experienced it 'electric'. So I would think corporate fleets would really benefit from this technology.
 
#10 ·
Inductive charging has energy loss and its probably in the 5-15% area. So the convenience would have to outweigh the additional energy usage. One of the larger car rental agencies announced a deal with Evantran. That makes sense to me, but for the home user its much harder to justify. The EV1 and RAV4s that used the inductive paddle to charge were 86% efficient according to wikipedia. I'd rather see some type of automated charge connection machine that makes a wired connection and saves the 1.5+KWh per full charge.
 
#12 ·
Don't the losses vary with the square of the distance between the transmitter and receiver? Or is it they vary by the cube? It seems to me one would want the transmitter and receiver to nearly touch lest there'd be lots of wasted juice.

And yes, it seems to me all that EMF not captured by the receiver would have to influence things around it. Probably not influence them well. Maybe you'd get a bonus that all the nearby florescent lamps would illuminate while charging?
 
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