No. 327: You do not need a cord to charge your electric vehicle (October 14, 2011)

Nissan Motor announced on 13th that it had developed a noncontact charging system for electric vehicles. You park your EV on the charging equipment installed inside a parking area, and you can charge your EV automatically without connecting it to the charging equipment nearby using cable. The coil inside the electric transmission unit of the charging equipment on the ground creates magnetic force if electric current is applied to it. The created magnetic force makes the coil inside the power receiving unit inside an EV generate electric current. It is possible to charge an EV in eight hours using the household power supply. The new charging system can be installed in a small space.

The company plans to put this system into practical use in a few years. It also unveiled a fuel cell unit for fuel cell vehicles. The new fuel cell has the same output as the unit it developed in 2005, but it is half in size of the old model. It also successfully reduced the production cost to one sixth by reducing the number of parts to one quarter and the amount of platinum. Mitsubishi Motors also started developing a noncontact charging system. Toyota Motor already allied with WiTricity of the U.S. in April of this year. WiTricity is a venture company established with the exclusive license of resonating wireless power dispatching that MIT theorized.