SAE Developing Wireless Charging Standard for Electric Vehicles

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Car & Driver  /  May 31, 2016

Saving the environment can be exhausting, especially if you own an electric vehicle that requires you to physically plug and unplug the charger into and out of the charging port.

Fortunately, wireless charging for your electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle is all but certain to become ubiquitous, and the automotive-engineering organization SAE International is currently working on creating a standard for these charging systems.

First presented at the Conference on Electric Roads and Vehicles (CERV) in Logan, Utah, in mid-May, but published today, SAE TIR J2954 lays out this groundwork in the name of consumer safety and convenience.

Calling for a common frequency band of 85 kHz (81.39–90.00 kHz), SAE is proposing four classes of wireless power transfer levels that result in slower or faster charge times: 3.7 kW, 7.7 kW, 11.0 kW, and 22.0 kW.

SAE notes that additional, quicker power transfer levels may be added in future iterations of the standard.

Because the SAE standard will encourage the vehicle industry to design wireless charging systems around a set frequency band, consumers will be able to charge their electric vehicles wirelessly at any number of locations without worrying that a specific wireless charging station won’t be compatible with their car or truck.

Although the standard has been written to create a norm for stationary wireless charging systems, SAE is looking toward the future and acknowledges within the published document that it is open to creating standards for wireless charging systems that work while the vehicle is in motion.

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