It's not just that; there's a new capability unlocked. You can now have self driving cars charge at remote places and come back without human interaction. Imagine you live in a place with no grid power

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dpark 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I have a robot vacuum that manages to do automated direct contact charging just fine. I don’t understand why wireless would be any easier. It seems more complex and less safe than a direct wired connection.

I also have a lot of trouble believing in the scenario of a neighborhood that has an automated charging station for EVs but no grid. That seems like very misplaced priorities.

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everforward 20 hours ago | parent [-]

Robo vacuum charging is almost inherently safe. They probably charge at something like 12V/2A. Voltage too low to penetrate skin, wattage too low to cause serious injury unless you’re really trying.

You can kind of just leave them exposed and live.

None of that applies to a 220V, 50A (or whatever amperage) charging. That can absolutely kill somebody; jet fuel may not melt steel beams, but 11,000W sure will.

You’d end up needing some kind of recess probably, and then getting cars to connect to it like planes refueling mid-flight is a nightmare. You could try some sort of USB-C like signaling before power is sent, but people are never going to enjoy “exposed 220V contacts that may or may not be live depending on if things malfunctioned”.

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dpark 20 hours ago | parent [-]

The point wasn’t that my robot vacuum is handling large current but that “moving device connects to power” is a solved problem. A car capable of driving itself onto this pad could as easily drive itself to a spot to plug in. Extendo-arm from the car could easily slot into an outlet in the floor. Or vice versa. Or a wall or pole.

Planes refueling mid flight is hardly an apt metaphor given the charging station isn’t moving at all and the car can move as slowly as needed.

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jpc0 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This seems like one of those “reality has a surprising amount of detail” situations.

Surely getting something to autonomously without fail extend an arm and plug in for the lifespan of these vehicles vs just park in this allocated spot you would park in anyway is an obvious tradeoff.

	▲	dpark 16 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It’s definitely a trade off but both options have a lot of real world concerns. If safeguards on the wireless pad fail you could easily cook an animal or start a fire. The bottom of the car now needs to be metal free to allow this to work. Distance matters which means if it charges your Porsche it might not be able to charge a Rivian and certainly not with the same efficiency. I also frankly do not believe the 90% efficiency claim because it seems so much higher than any other wireless charging I’ve heard of. This seems like one of those things that seems cool but is not generally practical. As a convenience for wealthy Porsche EV owners, sure. As a general purpose charging solution? I doubt it.

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everforward 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> A car capable of driving itself onto this pad could as easily drive itself to a spot to plug in. Extendo-arm from the car could easily slot into an outlet in the floor.

Those two things really aren't comparably difficult. Eg in the dumbest case for pads, you could make the pads slightly smaller than axle diameter (to prevent dead shorts) and have the car randomly jostle around the space until it detects current flow. I've seen some amateur systems that work vaguely like this. Some signal that charging is nearby, and then a semi-random search to find exposed contacts.

That's not going to cut it on a recessed outlet. Your odds of hitting it randomly are tiny, and it will probably the damage the port with enough repetitions of ramming it into the floor.

> Planes refueling mid flight is hardly an apt metaphor given the charging station isn’t moving at all and the car can move as slowly as needed.

Change your reference point to the plane carrying the fuel and they get an awful lot closer. The planes are moving a lot relative to the ground, they're moving very little relative to each other. I'm not sure if you've watched them doing it, but relative to each other it's actually a very slow process.

	▲	dpark 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Your odds of hitting it randomly are tiny, and it will probably the damage the port with enough repetitions of ramming it into the floor. Why would it be random? The scenario here is self driving cars. Suddenly we are talking about random jostling instead of actually targeting. > Change your reference point to the plane carrying the fuel and they get an awful lot closer. The planes are moving a lot relative to the ground, they're moving very little relative to each other. I'm not sure if you've watched them doing it, but relative to each other it's actually a very slow process. What is your point here? I’m totally lost. You seem to be trying to hand-wave away the difficulty of refueling mid flight. The specific difficulty there is the fact that it’s happening at high velocity, not the difficulty of plugging a hose into a port. (Traditional mid air refueling is manually directed anyway.) You are probably fully capable of fueling your car at a self serve gas station. Try doing the same at highway speed. Just reach out the window of the vehicle you are in and fill up your friend’s car from a gas can. Should be easy since the cars are “moving very little relative to each other”, right?

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beAbU a day ago | parent | prev [-]

How does wireless charging unlock this usecase? Robot arms exist?

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brunoarueira a day ago | parent | next [-]

I guess if you see the video on the linked post, you'll see what the usecase is unlocked. A neighboor city with a wireless charger station or a road wireless charger station can receive a self driving car above it, charge the car and with some kind of NFC do the payment and goes back.

	▲	dpark 21 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> the video on the linked post The 3D rendered video of a car driving over the pad doesn’t really show anything unlocked. There are a lot of possible ways to build automated charging stations. This is not necessary tech for that scenario.

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solarkraft a day ago | parent | prev [-]

This is a lot better maintainable than a robot arm.