Is Tesla Charging Going Wireless?
What does Tesla's $76 million acquisition of a German wireless charging company mean?
If we've said it once, we've said it a million times: For EV adoption to succeed, the charging infrastructure needs vast improvement. The Tesla Supercharger network is by far the best EV charging solution right now when comparing reliability, quantity, and ease of use to other networks. Granted, the Supercharger network was exclusive to Tesla vehicles for most of its life, but that its slowly starting to change with Superchargers using Magic Dock adapters so that non-Tesla vehicles can access them. Some automakers have even entered agreements with Tesla to use NACS charging ports on their vehicles starting in 2025.
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The fact is, Tesla is kind of killing it right now in the EV charging game, but it looks like the automaker isn't going to rest on its laurels. ATesla news site in Germany (viaCarscoops)is reporting that Tesla has just acquired German wireless charging tech firm Wiferion for $76 million. Generally speaking, one or both parties in an acquisition this size would release a statement about the purchase, but in this instance both companies are staying relatively quiet. The only outward indicator is a short line at the bottom of Wiferion's website that reads "Tesla Engineering Germany GmbH." The $76 million acquisition price was not disclosed directly, but matches up with a figure listed under "Business Combinations" in the latest Tesla earnings report.
Could Tesla's acquisition of Wiferion mean that wireless charging is coming to the Tesla Supercharger network? Possibly, but there might be other implications. For starters, wireless charging for EVs is still in the early stages and can't exceed level 2 charging speeds yet, so at the moment they wouldn't be an improvement on the wired superchargers. Secondly, Tesla hasn't even rolled out the Magic Dock to all of its chargers yet, so it will be quite some time before it could even begin to install wireless charging pads.
We suspect that Tesla's focus for Wiferion is to revamp its home charging units. This is something Tesla already teased back in March during its investor's day presentation when the automaker displayed an image showing a Tesla parked over a wireless charging pad inside of a garage. Currently, the max power of a wired Tesla wall charger at 240 volts is 11.5 kW. Some wireless EV chargers can go up to 20 kW. There is real potential for Tesla to develop a more powerful and more convenient at home charging solution through Wiferion.
As previously mentioned, both companies are staying fairly quiet on the acquisition, so we don't have any official details yet about Tesla's plans for the company. We expect Elon Musk will share more at next year's Tesla Investor Day, if not sooner.
Andrew Beckford’s passion for cars started as a middle schooler when his friend Richie explained how an internal combustion engine works. He was bitten by the bug and the rest, as they say, is history. He dug deep into the tuner scene and eventually wrote for Turbo Magazine, Import Tuner, Super Street. He covered car shows, feature builds, and reviewed racing games for those magazines in addition to covering motorsports including Formula Drift, Indy Car, and F1 for his personal blog. Eventually Beckford joined MotorTrend to cover the daily automotive news beat. Besides being a gearhead, Beckford has been a gamer since the ’80s and is a huge fan of the arcade racing games of the ’90s like Daytona USA, SEGA Rally, and Ridge Racer. Beckford’s a movie buff as well, especially comic book films from DC and Marvel. When car culture crosses over with gaming and entertainment, rest assured Beckford is aware of it. In addition to serving as a consultant on a “triple A” racing titles, he’s reviewed major racing games such as Forza Motorsport, Need for Speed, Gran Turismo, F1, and more. He’s also interviewed blockbuster directors including Steven Caple Jr. (Transformers: Rise of the Beasts) and Neill Blomkamp (Gran Turismo). His biggest profile to date was with Robert Downey Jr. on his love affair with cars and his show Downey’s Dream Cars on MAX. Beckford’s profile of Downey Jr. was the first print cover story written by an African American in MotorTrend’s history. Along with KJ Jones, Andrew Beckford also heads up MotorTrend’s celebration of Black History Month by spotlighting diverse voices in the automotive industry and motorsports. Beckford’s first car was a 1982 Nissan Stanza affectionately named “Stanley” by his late mother.
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