New Tesla Wi-fi Charging Patent — Could Characteristic At 10/10 Tesla Robotaxi Occasion – CleanTechnica – TechnoNews

Join each day information updates from CleanTechnica on e-mail. Or comply with us on Google Information!

Tesla filed a wi-fi EV charging patent earlier this 12 months that was simply printed by the World Mental Property Group (WIPO) on September 6. This was noticed by SETI Park on X (previously generally known as Twitter), and whereas the final idea is de facto nothing new, it implies that a part of what Tesla is engaged on for robotaxis and will reveal at its upcoming robotaxi occasion on October 10 is a wi-fi charging answer for them.

Once I say the final idea is de facto nothing new, that’s as a result of that is nonetheless an inductive charging system (the most typical kind) and only a fundamental continuation of wi-fi EV charging, which I’ve been overlaying for greater than a decade and has absolutely been round for for much longer than that. Additionally, Tesla purchased a wi-fi EV charging agency a few 12 months in the past, which I wrote about simply earlier than it occurred, and we had coated that firm for years previous to the acquisition. The system is much like what one other firm supplied for Chevy Volt drivers a decade in the past. I feel I first coated the corporate in 2011, a mere 13 years in the past.

So, once more, whereas Tesla simply filed a patent that innovates on the thought in some delicate approach, the takeaway right here is much less in regards to the patent than about Tesla’s robotaxi ambitions. However, to start out with, if you wish to discover the patent, it’s proper right here. That is the summary: “The present disclosure relates to systems and methods for estimating one or more parameters associated with a converter to configure wireless charging settings for a wireless charging system. In some embodiments, a method includes: perturbing a first coil that is inductively coupled with a second coil; estimating one or more circuit parameters of a converter that comprises the first coil and the second coil based on the perturbing; and configuring one or more wireless charging settings of a wireless charging system based on the one or more circuit parameters, where the wireless charging system is configured to charge a battery pack of a vehicle based on wireless transfer of power between the first coil and the second coil.” Once more, nothing breakthrough right here, but it surely reveals that Tesla continues to work on wi-fi charging.

A number of years in the past, Tesla was engaged on a “snake charger” that Elon Musk tweeted (this was lengthy earlier than he purchased Twitter). It was thought for a very long time after that, and had seemingly been the plan, that Tesla would roll out these type of robotic chargers to cost automobiles, significantly robotaxis. Nonetheless, it appears that evidently thought has been useless for some time, and wi-fi EV charging definitely looks like the simplest, most dependable, most sturdy, and most rational method to cost up self-driving robotaxis.

The essential factor, nonetheless, is whether or not Tesla can enhance its FSD (Full Self Driving) tech sufficient to deploy robotaxis. There are two key parts to this. The {hardware} and software program have to be at a stage the place 1) Tesla could be assured sufficient with it to take legal responsibility out of the fingers of Tesla house owners and settle for the legal responsibility itself, and a pair of) regulators would really feel snug approving fully self-driven robotaxis on the roads these regulators are answerable for (whether or not that be the streets of California, Texas, Florida, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, China, or Mars).

Nobody is aware of when Tesla will get to these milestones. Tesla FSD has improved massively previously 6 months, after not enhancing a lot in any respect for a number of years. Nonetheless, I’m nonetheless not sure how a lot Tesla can get previous “The Seesaw Problem,” which I first wrote about in 2012. Possibly it could actually, possibly it could actually’t. Current updates to FSD have once more been rolling out rather more slowly than Elon Musk had forecasted earlier this 12 months or perhaps a few months in the past. After about 8 years of huge overestimates of how briskly the corporate will obtain robotaxi functionality, it’s unattainable to know when Elon Musk and Tesla may be on the house stretch versus treading water. We’ll see. Within the meantime, you may watch a video of my newest testing of FSD model 12.5 with David Havasi right here: