Toyota wants to pull the plug on its plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and pure electric vehicles (EV), but it’s not what you think; the Japanese carmaker is in the process of developing a new wireless battery charging system for vehicles that use some sort of electrification with a future market launch in mind.
The automaker said verification testing is to begin later this month through a program that involves three plug-in hybrid cars used by homes in Japan’s Aichi prefecture. Their goal is to assess user satisfaction, ease of use, misalignment rates and charging behavior, including how often and for how long charging takes place.
This technology, which has been suggested by other electric carmakers as well, will allow EV and PHEV drivers to recharge their car’s batteries simply by parking it in alignment with a coil set into the surface of the ground with no cables involved.
Toyota’s system transmits electricity using magnetic resonance created by changes in magnetic field intensity between a transmitting coil in the ground and a receiving coil in the car. The company states it has been designed in a way to reduce “any loss in power transmission efficiency caused by misalignment or height differences between the coils”.
Since the car will have to be aligned correctly for the recharging to taking place, Toyota has also added a function to its Intelligent Parking Assist system that shows the position of the transmitting coil in a parking space.
No specific time has been given for the public release.
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