Google Driverless Cars will be Wireless charged as well

At least that is what's Google is experimenting with. Actually here in the Netherlands we already have this ? In the center of city Utrecht there are small busses that charge themselves by induction, each stop has an induction plate and as such the busses get charged and can use much smaller batteries.

Back to Google though, Documents filed at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) suggest that Google is working toward cutting its robocars’ charger cables and beaming power to them instead reports spectrum.ieee.org:

The filings reveal that Google has been testing two wireless charging systems for its prototype electric self-driving cars in California. In February 2015,Hevo Power, a New York–based start-up, received permission from the FCC to install an experimental charger at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Momentum Dynamics, located in the suburbs of Philadelphia, followed in July. The address on Momentum’s filing corresponds to the secretive X division where Google’s self-driving cars are being developed.

Both companies’ systems transfer power from a transmitter embedded in the ground to a receiver on the underside of an electric vehicle, using a principle called resonant magnetic induction. In this process, an alternating current passing through a tuned electrical circuit creates an oscillating magnetic field. That field then induces another alternating current in a second, nearby circuit tuned to the same resonant frequency.

Hevo’s installation at the Googleplex involved a prototype charger, called Alpha, that can deliver 1.5 kilowatts of power from a circular transmitter “embedded like a manhole cover” in pavement. Momentum Dynamics claims that it has developed wireless transmitters with power ratings of up to 200 kW—although the FCC filings did not disclose the specifications of the system Google is using.

Google engineers are now testing multiple chargers from Momentum Dynamics at Google’s HQ in Mountain View, and at the Castle Commerce Center, the former U.S. Air Force base in Atwater, Calif., where Google’s prototype vehicles undergo completely driverless testing.

Wireless charging will be essential if Google’s vehicles are to realize the vision of Chris Urmson, director of its self-driving car program. “We’ve heard countless stories from people who need a fully self-driving car today,” he wrote in December. “We’ve heard from people with health conditions ranging from vision problems to multiple sclerosis to autism to epilepsy who are frustrated with their dependence on others for even simple errands.”

Momentum’s high-power chargers can already recharge electric bus batteries in a matter of minutes, allowing them to be in service virtually 24 hours a day.