Siemens buys a stake in wireless EV charging company WiTricity

Siemens said it is investing $25 million to acquire a minority stake in U.S.-based WiTricity, a wireless charging technology company for electric vehicles (Eve).

Siemens said the wireless EV charging market is expected to grow to $2 billion by 2028 in Europe and North America. It said its investment seeks to bridge gaps in the global standardisation of wireless charging for electric passenger and light duty commercial vehicles to better enable interoperability between vehicles and infrastructure, as well as support market penetration. 

The companies are expected to collaborate to advance the technical development of wireless charging systems.    

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Siemens will also become a technology license partner. The technology includes a charging pad mounted on or in the ground. The pad uses a magnetic field to transfer energy between the charging pad and the vehicle coil when the vehicle is over the charging pad. The system uses resonant induction between the charger and receiver to provide high efficiency at a variety of ground clearances.                             

“Wireless charging enables a driver to just park and walk away, returning to a charged vehicle, said Alex Gruzen, CEO of WiTricity. 

Siemens said that wireless power transfer would be a “key technology to enable contactless automatic charging” with low maintenance requirements.        

WiTricity Corp. was founded in 2007 to commercialise technology invented and patented two years earlier by a team of physicists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, led by Professor Marin Soljačić. Early investors included Mitsubishi Corp., Toyota, and Intel Capital, among others.

Originally published on power-grid.com