BMW is adding to the growing appeal of electric motoring with plans to introduce wireless charging to the i3 and i8 models. The forthcoming X5 is also set to have the same wireless technology.
This inaugural charging technology is currently being developed in partnership with Daimler. This new system is made up of two components, a recharging coil in the floor of the car and a floor-mounted base plate fitted with another coil. How this works is that the driver simply parks the car so that the two coils are positioned directly above one another and electric energy is transmitted via the magnetic field.
BMW says that the efficiency of the system is up to 90 per cent and a full charge takes less than three hours. A full charge from a standard power out let takes between seven to eight hours. This inductive charging system is an all weather system. A Smartphone app will be integrated with it in the future which will show better range and other useful information. The Japanese giant, Toyota is also working on developing wireless charging technology.
