Renault joins EV wireless charging trial

Californian cell-tech giant Qualcomm has high ambitions in a new sphere of business: wireless charging for electric vehicles. It spent 2011 strengthening its position with a couple of key acquisitions. Then it co-opted London’s civic authorities into running a Wireless Electric Vehicle Charging (WEVC) field trial program. Now, with the trial going ahead, it’s signed a deal inveigling Renault to participate.

The program will involve what Qualcomm’s statement calls “a cross section of stakeholders from government departments and agencies, to commercial and private sector enterprises”. The aim, it says, is “to evaluate the commercial viability of wireless EV charging and gain user feedback on the use of WEVC enabled vehicles.” To that end, Renault will also join the program’s steering committee and supply a fleet of vehicles to be fitted with the technology.

Renault VP Energy and Environment Advanced Projects Director, Jacques Hebrard, said in a statement that the French maker’s participation in the trial complements its own European R&D work aimed at demonstrating that wireless inductive charging is effective and safe in a public environment. "The deployment of wireless inductive charging requires inter-operability between cars and ground systems within common European and, hopefully, worldwide standards,” he said.

Qualcomm has long been an established player in the global mobile phone industry, mainly through licensing its own technologies to other manufacturers. This represents a determined lunge into the auto industry, via a technology still in its embryonic phase but showing plenty of promise. It’s gained a leg-up with two acquisitions in 2011. First came wi-fi equipment manufacturer Atheros Communications for US3.1 billion. Then, at year’s end, came a hefty intellectual property and assets transfer deal with wireless charging specialist HaloIPT, a startup joint venture between Auckland University and engineering multinational Arup. The value of the deal remains undisclosed.

Although it’s not new (Tesla – the man, not the electric car company – showed it off in 1891), wireless charging was, until fairly recently dismissed with eye-rolls and yeh-rights. In 1995, it was the subject of a full-page broadsheet April Fools joke by PC maker Compaq. Now, you can find wireless charge mats for mobiles and tablets at any Harvey Norman.

Qualcomm simply wants to see the same idea writ large and rolled out into parking spots, public and private. It works by leveraging the natural magnetic fields surrounding every object, which gain strength with electrical charge. Inductive coupling harnesses the electromagnetic field between two charged objects in close proximity as the medium for transferring energy between them. The mat sends energy to a vehicle receiving unit, which collects it and stories it in its batteries.

On paper, it has much going for it. With the charging station taking the form of a mat integrated into a parking spot, it’s less vulnerable to interference than the electric “bowser” we’ve come to see to date. And because it works on magnetism, it’s deemed safe (so far, anyway).

It’s also still rather inefficient compared to leads – getting its efficiency up to 90 per cent, to match wired systems, is the subject of intensive research, drawing commensurate funding, including from Qualcomm. Another problem lies in ensuring the send and receive coils align with sufficient precision when parking the car. Part of the attraction of the HaloIPT technology was that it helps overcome this, Qualcomm’s European R&D head, Andrew Gilbert, told Forbes.

Mr Gilbert said the acquisitions form part of a larger plan to accrue a wireless technology suite it was betting would become integral to the cars of the future. “What we hope to do is to work into the smart grid and power grid communications with our Atheros acquisition and smart phones,” Gilbert to the business magazine of the HaloIPT investment. “Consumers will find smart phones to be a significant part of their relationship with their electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids — to manage their charge rates, efficiency and connectivity.”

That plan is now taking shape with the London trial. Part of what drew Qualcomm into wireless vehicle charging is the neatness with which it dovetails with its existing interests in mobile communications.

Companies like Chargepoint and Better Place have already put smartphone apps in place to make life easy for EV drivers, helping them find charge stations, operate them remotely and pay, all while giving access to usage and billing records.

Qualcomm and its counterparts are betting on increased integration between cars, phones, charge networks and grid in the future, turning cars into what Forbes recently described as “wireless communication hubs”, giving occupants access to all the content and comms services they now find on their desktops and mobile devices.

Picture shows Renault Zoe EV at this year's Geneva Motor Show.

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