Tesla Introduces Its Own $300 Version of Apple's Canceled AirPower Charger

Some years ago I had a colleague who had been an early electrical engineer at a company called SplashPower [0], one of the smartest people I've ever worked with. It had spent much of the early 2000s trying to develop exactly what Apple tried to do with an induction charging pad where you could place items anywhere. Ultimately they didn't manage to achieve it and went bankrupt.

In conversation he said that he didn't think it was possible to do, too much power was needed to inductively charge misaligned coils. At the time Apple was rumoured to be trying to do it, he predicted that they would fail.

Ultimately the SplashPower tech was brought by the company that went on to develop the Qi charging standard [1]. The Qi tech doesn't achieve the original vision though.

I struggle to believe that this FreePower tech works as advertised. I suspect from a quick browse they are brute forcing it by having 10s of coils, turning on just the one that most closely aligned with the devices coil.

0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splashpower

1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Power_Consortium

Edit:

SplashPowers main patent expired three days ago! https://patents.google.com/patent/US6906495B2/en?oq=6906495

I am having trouble viewing this as a good use of Tesla’s resources. Am I missing something? It would be one thing if their stock was riding a high.. but this feels like it’s failing to read the room. If Elon wants to mess around with this kinda thing, shouldn’t it be done under a joke company like Boring? That’s how he did the flame thrower.

I can’t see how this would “annoy Tim Cook.” I imagine he’ll just feel embarrassed-by-proxy for the guy who is scraping the barrel for… not sure what.

I was wondering “how do you solve the issue of not having to find the coil? Do you just shove 30 coils into it?” Turns out the answer is: yes.

Why does the article keep saying that creating this charger would be a simple endeavor? It sounds simple at face value, but when you start thinking of it more deeply you have to imagine there could be difficulty with things like cooling.

I assume they’re giving it a shakedown as a consumer device before attempting to slap it in a car.

It looks like the original company is claiming to succeed where Apple has failed in creating a good multi position charger. I’m curious what the delta is between their attempt and Apple’s.

They either did a better job engineering it, or they’re willing to live with flaws that Apple isn’t willing to with. If I was Tesla id be weary of putting it in a car as well- so this offering makes sense to me

I fail to see how this really differs other than saying Tesla vs other products on the market today. It actually seems kinda worse in some regards vs the nomad I own.

The reason Apple had so many problems was it also had to support Apple Watch too, which none of have done thus far, Apple included. Because it turns out having such competing standards packed in such a way equals heat.

I wonder if you could construct the EM field needed for remote charging by using interference across a grid-shaped coil. The Tesla approach seems pretty brute-forced.