It has become inevitable that electric-powered cars are the way of the future. We aren’t quite sure how electricity is going to be created to power these cars, but it has been almost universally accepted that batteries and motors are the way forward. Of course, people are lazy and they get concerned about things like charging times, plug variations and charging locations. BMW->ke178 and Daimler->ke21 have teamed up to hopefully make charging as easy and painless as possible with new wireless charging technology->ke1701.

I won’t go too deep into the technology behind it, but think of it as a really large version of the wireless charging technology that some cellphones use. Basically, there is a large conductive coil installed into the bottom of the car that is attached to the batteries. If you park over the top of a second large conductive coil that is attached to a power source, the car batteries will begin charging. BMW has also managed to develop this system to be extremely fast and efficient. They say that this system can fully charge the new BMW i8->ke4622 in less than two hours with the current prototype system.

Another benefit of this system is the ability to build it into any flat pavement. Entire mall parking lots or even highways could theoretically be wired with conduction coils, so your car would actually be charging as you went shopping or drove to work. If electric cars->ke1030 are the future, this is like warping into the age of the Jetsons.

Click past the jump to read more about BMW's new Inductive Charging System.

BMW Inductive Charging System

The new wireless induction charging system is still in its prototype phase, but thanks to some very advanced technology, BMW has made some impressive progress. The current system can transmit energy at a rate of 3.6 kW per hour. To give you an idea of how great that is, at that rate, you could charge an average smartphone in less than one second.

Even better yet, BMW says they can nearly double the efficiency of this system to 7kW per hour. Like the standard BMW chargers available today, you would also be able to monitor the charge and status of your vehicle using a smartphone app.

Why It Matters

Making charging as fast and easy as possible is the best way to get the population of the world to adopt electric cars. For every advancement in making batteries charge more quickly and hold more energy, there is one more person likely to choose an EV over a standard gasoline-powered automobile. Steps like this are going to make the difference.

Effective wireless charging could also lead to a potential future where coil-induction highways provide near limitless energy to cars and then you would only need batteries to make it form the major highways to your home.

There are many paths to get to the future of the automobile, but this seems like one of the quickest and easiest.