What are the limitations to inductive charging? Why can’t we charge mobile computers or even electric vehicles like this?
In: Physics
We can it’s just more expensive for the electronics needed for high power switching, and very sensitive to alignment and distance. And if you put a piece of metal in the way you get an inductive heater instead of a charger which makes it harder to build around. That and they are a bit inefficient especially when misaligned. Inefficiency at high power means a waste of power for one, but also potentially kilowatts of heat being generated somewhere. Though there are different research projects working on the alignment problem.
Like overall inductive charging is -less- convenient than wired charging, and more expensive. If you have something that needs sealed it makes sense, but for phones and laptops it’s more of a gimmick. Like sure you can just place your phone on a charging pad, wich may make sense in a car phone dock but what do you do if you want to still use your phone while it’s charging?
So we’re getting closer, but it’s just not quite at the point where it’s useful enough and cheap enough to be widely supported and standard enough that having a wireless charging dock in your car will be as common as having usb ports are nowdays.
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