During its Investor Day, which was held on March 1, Tesla multiplied the announcements, including one that had hitherto gone a little unnoticed. Elon Musk’s firm is said to be working on an induction charging system, allowing the battery of its electric car to be filled at home without any cables.
A few days ago, on March 1 more precisely, Elon Musk organized his long-awaited Investor Day. A major conference in which the leader made numerous announcements, including those relating to the Master Plan Part 3 and the construction of its Gigafactory in Mexico. If two mysterious vehicles have been mentioned, no trace, however, of the Model 2 and the restyled Model 3.
Innovative technology
During this event, during which the businessman also confirmed the arrival of the Tesla Cybertruck this year, several executives of the brand took the floor to talk about the new features specific to their various divisions. Among them, Rebecca Tinucci, in charge of charging infrastructure development from the now Texas-based manufacturer.
During this presentation, this former student at the University of Virginia notably returned to the efforts of Tesla to make DC and AC charging accessible anywhere. The opportunity to learn about the very low deployment costs of Superchargers compared to competitors, when it takes around $40,000 for a station in New York State, compared to $170,000 on average for rivals.
But if these data are obviously very interesting, it was not the biggest surprise of this announcement. Because this one arrived a little later, as the site explains. Electrek. Before leaving the stage, Rebecca Tinucci wanted to end her presentation with a final slide, “ one more thing like Steve Jobs did at Apple. While recalling that so we also want to make sure that we continue to focus on amazing charging experiences“.
If the image shows above all the Tesla Diner project planned in California and taking the form of a vintage American restaurant, it is the 2nd part that interests us the most. This indeed shows what very much resembles a home induction charging system. Which may seem surprising, while the manufacturer has so far never communicated on the arrival of such a solution.
Several barriers
So is this a teaser from Tesla, which will give more information later on this technology? Everything seems to believe it so. But it will be better to take your troubles patiently, because we know that the American company, which broke a sales record in 2022 with one million cars delivered, is struggling with deadlines. We think in particular of the Cybertruck, unveiled in 2019 for a marketing planned in 2021 and which is still not there.
Especially since the firm will have to face many difficulties to develop its home induction charging solution. Indeed, this technology, which can be very practical thanks to the absence of cumbersome cables, is less efficient than a conventional load. Not to mention the installation cost, which would also be very high, because you have to install a charging pad on the ground in addition to a terminal.
Many difficulties to simply avoid having to go out for a few seconds to plug in your car. Is it really relevant? However, several companies are working on the development of this technology, including Volvo, which carried out full-scale tests in March 2022 on its XC40 Recharge. London EV Company Limited (LEVC) has also partnered with Nissan to experiment with this solution.
In 2015, Tesla also released a video showing a unique recharging system in the form of a “robot-snake” able to connect autonomously to the car. This solution had again been talked about in 2020, but since then, radio silence from the brand. It is currently working on the development of its V4 Superchargers as well as its Megachargers designed to supply the Tesla Semi.
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