I bought my 2015 Nissan Leaf used back in 2017. When I bought it the people at the dealership knew basically nothing about it, and in the trunk I found a wireless/plugless charger from this company: https://pluglesspower.com
I’ve never used it, because it requires a 240 volt outlet and my garage doesn’t have that. Instead I just plug in and trickle charge every night, which works just fine. Now we are moving to a new house and having some other electrical work done and I found this thing sitting in my basement and wondered to myself whether I should install it and use it.
The cost would be whatever it costs for my electrician to put a 240V outlet in my garage (I don’t have a quote on that yet). The only benefit would be saving me the minor hassle of having to plug my car in every night. I also worry about it being less efficient than the trickle charger that came with my Leaf, but I’ve seen conflicting info on that. Also (please tell me if this is crazy) I have some fears about a giant magnetic field in my attached garage giving me cancer, like living under a high tension power line.
Anyway, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
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That website looks terrible lol
The magnetic fields are not going to have health effects, that’s just fear mongering with no basis in fact.
I however wouldn’t install it because of efficiency. From their own website, you lose about 12%, that is you pay 12% more for electricity for the privilege of using it. Doesn’t seem like something I want, it would cost me nearly $15/mo to use it…no thanks
I don’t buy the 12% efficiency. Maybe for the wireless transfer itself. But 12% implies 97% efficiency in the signal generator, rectifier and wireless link each. No way.
“… cancer, like living under a high tension power line.”
There have been several studies on high tension workers who work on those things for hours for days for decades and there is no increased cancer rate of those workers over the general population. I don’t know where this belief comes from.
I don’t know where this belief comes from.
As the great philosopher Agent Kay taught us: “People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it”
People are scared of things they don’t understand and they look for more tangible rationalizations than “shitty luck” when bad things happen.
People also claim wind turbines caused their cancer and/or alzheimers, etc.
There is no reputable scientific evidence that the magnetic fields from power transmission are unhealthy. That means that if they *are* unhealthy, the effects are too small to be readily observable, so I personally wouldn’t worry about it much.
The efficiency varies based on the technology used. Plugless claims it’s only 12% less efficient, but I would take that as nothing more than a marketing claim – with a huge grain of salt. Maybe you can find other Plugless users online who have done real-world efficiency measurements.
I presume the vehicle would have to be modified to support wireless charging. Did they install the coil & wiring on the car?
If so, I’d go for it. Low frequency magnetic fields are everywhere…the earth is a magnet afterall.
If you have an electric stove, you know it’s 240V, right? Your clothes dryer? 240V. You AC? 240V. Your electric service panel? 240V (they split into two phases of 120V).
Meanwhile, high voltage lines are like something like 750,000V…so, not even remotely similar.
A L2 charger can be a game changer. My Prius Prime has only 25 usable miles on the battery. For the first 2 years I only used a 120V charger. During that time, I’d get about 1000 to 1200 miles per tank (10 gallons or so of gas). Now, with my Level 2 charger, I’m getting anywhere from 1800 to 3000 miles per tank of gas. The difference is that on weekend (or evenings), I can plug in a very quickly add a meaningful amount of charge. In just 20 minutes I can go from 0 miles to say 6 to 8 miles, so enough to go run an errand and not need gas.
If you can, make the update.
No interest. Wireless charging is much much less efficient than wired charging, and at the scale of vehicles it really adds up. I think this tech is bad for the grid and for carbon output.
Holy shit no, I would not use it. If your cat had 50kWh battery and you used this thing to charge it, it would consume almost 3 times that just to charge the battery. Wireless charging wastes so much energy.
No, I hate wireless charging for my phone, I’d definitely hate it for my car.
The cancer argument is of course complete nonsense - but keep in mind that „wireless“ Distribution of electricity is extremely inefficient. You are looking at 50% more power draw here.
having level 2 charging is a nice convenience. Higher voltage is actually more efficient than lower voltage.
Worrying that the 240v wiring in your house is going to “create a giant magnetic field and give you cancer” is an absurd thing to worry about, whether you have a car charger in use or not.
Doug Demuro did a video on a Mclaren that used This! technology. He found that he had to park very precisely for it to work and it took up loads of room in the car if you needed to go away in the car.
Pretty cool to have it in the garage but I think I would want to have a regular EVSE next to it so if I stuff the parking I can plug in anyway.
Charging tech that has sat for a while can be unreliable so get it tested before paying for the install.
I have a magnetic induction cooktop, it works very well it’s better than gas.
I have no idea how well that charger will work but I hope you will tell us.
I mean, if it’s free and the vehicle has the receiver already installed then yeah might as well try it out to see if it’s something you’d like using. My main concern would just be how sensitive it is to line up, 2017 seems like a while ago in terms of this type of technology so it’s probably not really the most mass market user friendly solution.
Only reason I wouldn’t use it is that there will be increased heat loss and overall reduced efficiency with induction charging rather than just plugging in directly, plus plugging in will always work regardless how I park.
Personally, I would love to have it! I primarily charge my phone using wireless and would love to do the same for my vehicle; provided it supports bi-directional