Toyota Joins with Tech Company WiTricity To Develop Wireless Charging

WiTricity has not an iota to do with Kennewick, Pasco, and Richland, Washington. Nor is it the county-fair touring incarnation of Quad City DJs, formed after they failed to follow up “C’Mon N’ Ride It (The Train)” with another smash hit. Rather, the Massachusetts company is following up on Nikola Tesla’s promise of supplying electricity via thin air. Using magnetic fields to carry juice, WiTricity claims their technology is scalable from milliwatts (for say, a wireless mouse) to kilowatts (appropriate for, oh, you know, EVs.)

WiTricity has already done work for several automakers and suppliers, partnering recently with Delphi for a wireless charging system that the latter displayed at the SAE World Congress this past month. Now, WiTricity and Toyota have announced that they’ll be working together as well, collaborating on developing wireless charging systems. Aside from the gee-whiz factor for salesmen—“…And you never have to plug it in!” tech like WiTricity’s carries implications for wider charging infrastructure in public spaces. Buff the mind’s eyeball with a virtual third rail. Imagine life-size, virtual Scalectrix.

While we doubt the system will be ready to hit the market in time for the upcoming plug-in-electric Prius—which, perhaps, would need to be called the park-over-the-mat-electric Prius—we imagine that once wireless charging hits the EV scene, nobody will reminisce fondly about the days of plugging your electric car into an extension cord.