Tesla’s Investor Day teased something we’ve never seen before—wireless charging for the company’s vehicles.
During the Charging segment of the presentation with Rebecca Tinucci, Senior Director of Charging Infrastructure. Near the end of her presentation, she pulled a Steve Jobs “one more thing” thing moment, showing a slide that said “Can’t Forget To Do Cool [Shit]”.
“Yes we’ve got to scale our infrastructure, and yes we want to power it via renewable sources, but we’re Tesla, so we also want to make sure that we’re continuing to focus on providing really incredible charging experiences,” said Tinucci, without saying anything more.
The keynote slide deck then showed two images. One is a render of a Tesla Diner that is slated to debut in Hollywood, California, set to feature two levels and a drive-in movie theatre. We’ve seen the plans but the render of the diner hasn’t been shown before:
The second image shows a Model S parked in a garage with a new Tesla Wall Charger on the wall, while underneath the sedan is what appears to be a wireless charging mat. Here’s a higher-resolution image thanks to Tesla’s Investor Day keynote PDF:
It’s unclear if and when Tesla will debut wireless charging for vehicles. Wireless charging adds convenience but will likely increase the cost of a Tesla and also include added costs for a wireless charging pad. Also there are issues getting 100% efficiency with wireless charging. You can read more about wireless charging summarized for EVs in this article from Green Car Reports.