Maybe electric cars are the brilliant, cleaner future, but keeping them charged is still a quagmire involving a tangle of cables and long stops for charging along the way. Going cordless?with wireless (inductive) charging?is one way to manage this bothersome reality. And as one of the technology leaders for wireless charging, Qualcomm, has just shown, you could charge just as rapidly without even taking a break from driving.
Qualcomm this month demonstrated the newly developed dynamic version of its Halo wireless-charging system, which could be deployed on more test sections of road in the next several years and in useful sections of some public roadways within 10 years. At 20 kW, it can provide enough power so that an efficient compact or mid-size vehicle could maintain its charge at 75 mph?or potentially add charge at lower speeds. Just as with Qualcomm?s static wireless system?and all inductive charging in devices like phones and electric toothbrushes?the dynamic system uses an energized primary coil?s surrounding magnetic field (within a base charging pad) to produce electrical current in a secondary coil (within the vehicle?s charging pad) across a gap, with no physical connection.

Although the basics of the technology are the same, in the translation from static to dynamic the company?s team has made some changes to the coil geometry and configuration. Dynamic charging uses an 85-kHz frequency?chosen so that it can be deployed globally without technology change...