Photo: BMW
Announced with great pomp and circumstance in September 2017, the BMW Wireless Charging system will enter production in July 2018. In the first instance, the product will be available for the 530e iPerformance. Availability, on the other hand, is isolated to Germany, the UK, U.S., Japan, and China for the time being.
The “factory-fitted, fully integrated inductive charging facility for the high-voltage battery in a plug-in hybrid vehicle” is an integral part of the NUMBER ONE > NEXT strategy that will see BMW break new ground in the realm of electrification.
In a similar fashion to the Plugless Power system available for the Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt, BMW i3, and Tesla Model S, the Wireless Charging system from BMW generates an electromagnetic field to transmit electricity from the base pad to the one attached to the vehicle’s underbody. These elements are called GroundPad and CarPad according to BMW. The base pad is the element that generates the magnetic field in question, while electric current is induced by the underbody pad.
With a charging power of 3.2 kW, the 530e iPerformance plug-in hybrid sedan can be charged from zero to the brim in three-and-a-half hours. Not bad for a system with an efficiency rate of around 85 percent, but on the other hand, wireless charging still has a long way to go until it can actually challenge the good ol’ cable.
The two pads sit at a distance of about eight centimeters (three inches) from one another, and for a change, no buttons are required to be pressed for the charging process to start. On the other hand, the vehicle’s Control Display guides the driver into the correct parking position. Once that is done, pushing the start/stop button initiates the charging process. The two pads “can deviate from the optimum position by up to seven centimeters longitudinally and up to 14 centimeters laterally.”
Given time, other plug-in hybrid BMW models sold under the iPerformance badge will be adapted to the Wireless Charging system. The 740e full-size luxury sedan – or should we say 745e iPerformance for the 2019 model year – is one of them.
In a similar fashion to the Plugless Power system available for the Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt, BMW i3, and Tesla Model S, the Wireless Charging system from BMW generates an electromagnetic field to transmit electricity from the base pad to the one attached to the vehicle’s underbody. These elements are called GroundPad and CarPad according to BMW. The base pad is the element that generates the magnetic field in question, while electric current is induced by the underbody pad.
With a charging power of 3.2 kW, the 530e iPerformance plug-in hybrid sedan can be charged from zero to the brim in three-and-a-half hours. Not bad for a system with an efficiency rate of around 85 percent, but on the other hand, wireless charging still has a long way to go until it can actually challenge the good ol’ cable.
The two pads sit at a distance of about eight centimeters (three inches) from one another, and for a change, no buttons are required to be pressed for the charging process to start. On the other hand, the vehicle’s Control Display guides the driver into the correct parking position. Once that is done, pushing the start/stop button initiates the charging process. The two pads “can deviate from the optimum position by up to seven centimeters longitudinally and up to 14 centimeters laterally.”
Given time, other plug-in hybrid BMW models sold under the iPerformance badge will be adapted to the Wireless Charging system. The 740e full-size luxury sedan – or should we say 745e iPerformance for the 2019 model year – is one of them.
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