For the past few years, mobile phone manufacturers are showing off their wireless charging capabilities. The engineers back in Germany noticed this path-breaking technology and one of them said, “Hold my beer” and started working on electric charging pads. BMW, a while back launched the new 530e iPerformance with a wireless charging pad.
Available as an option, the wireless charging pad can be placed indoors or outdoors, depending on your parking space. The pad uses a 220V power outlet. When the car approaches the charging pad, the sensors get activated and display the position of your car and when the car is exactly above the pad, the screens highlight the charging pad with a green circle. There is a primary coil on the charging pad and a secondary coil beneath the car, when the charging gets activated there is a magnetic field produced which charges the car’s 9.4kWh battery in 3.5 hours with 3.2kW of power.
The 530e iPerformance is equipped with a 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine mated with an electric motor together producing 248hp and 310lb-ft of torque, which is enough for the car to hit its top speed of 130mph.
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BMW plans to launch more iPerformance plug-in hybrids like 330e, 740e, X5, i3 and i8 with wireless charging capabilities in the coming years. Although, BMW plans to debut its charging wizardry next year, countries like USA and Canada might receive this technology later as these pads are in a testing phase in both these countries.
With manufacturers placing their bets on electric powered cars for the future, it would be interesting to see how the market responds.