Hyundai-Kia Working on Wireless Charging Technology

MANILA: Ever wondered what the next-generation cars would be like? With new inventions taking place every day, it gets people thinking, what new automotive industry has to offer them, to make urban transport a less of a nightmare. We have already witnessed projects dealing with automotive vehicles, that aims to make driving much safer and fun for the driver and now inductive charging seems to make its way into this technology packed industry. Hyundai-Kia America Technical Center, Inc. (HATCI) along with Mojo Mobility Inc., have high plans to develop a wireless charging system for electric vehicles.

The HATCI and Mojo Mobility partnership have an edge over other car-makers like Toyota, Volkswagen, Ford, and Chevrolet who have either started fitting or announced their plans for the fort-mentioned technology. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy have ushered the two giants with a green light to kick-start the project along with a $6 million grant.

This wireless charging technology which has an obvious edge over the conventional charging station, would be tested on the 2015 Kia Soul EV.

It has been claimed, that the whole development process would be segregated into three phases. In the first or what can be said as an accomplished phase, a wireless power transfer system has been developed, with an 85 percent grid-to-vehicle efficiency, also this wireless system has a capacity to transfer 10kW of power to the vehicle. In the second phase, Soul EV would be fitted with a compact system, specially designed for it, and during the demonstration of this full operation, it is expected to record 92 percent efficiency.

Moving to the final phase, five Kia Soul EVs integrated with different energy transmission units, would be tested for the system’s performance and safety.

As for the availability, no official announcement have been made by the duo, but it is predicted that this new technology will be revealed to the world in late 2016.