Inductive wireless charging has become the norm for smartphones, but is still largely absent from another popular mobile device. While it’s been proposed many times, the technology has yet to be widely adopted for electric cars.
Porsche is planning to launch a system for its new electric Cayenne, and Tesla is working on one for the Cybercab, which will simplify autonomous charging, but that’s about all that’s on the near horizon.
A key hurdle is that induction charging efficiency drops off steeply with distance between the transmitter and receiver.
Unless a pad is tailor-fit to a particular vehicle, the system won’t be optimized, and it needs to stand proud of the ground to reach the receiver.
One potential solution is to design a receiver that extends from the vehicle down to the pad, and Ford has devised a way to do that on electric trucks by killing two birds with one stone.
The automaker has applied for a patent on a “Power Transfer Enabled Winch System” that turns the spare tire carrier under a truck into an inductive charging system receiver.
The heavy spare tires are supported by a hoist system used to raise and lower them from under the bed or cargo area. The patent explains how the receiver can be installed in the hub and the infotainment and navigation systems used to align it with the pad. Ford’s trucks already offer a feature that can autonomously align hitches with trailers, so this part doesn’t pose much of a challenge.
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A winch would then lower it for charging and raise it when done. This comes with the added benefit of adding a power winch to the system, as the spare tire hoists are typically operated by a hand crank.
This setup would help preserve the vehicle’s ground clearance and allow the receiver to come into close contact with charging pads of various sizes and heights.
Ford hasn’t announced any plans to put this type of system into production, and the patent drawings illustrate it on what appears to be an F-150 Lightning, which has been discontinued with no immediate plans to replace it. However, Ford is launching the all-electric compact Fathom pickup next year, which will be loaded with yet-to-be-revealed technologies, and there’s no telling what will be hiding underneath it.
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Of course, the irony of this is that many electric cars aren’t equipped with a spare tire at all in order to save weight or provide more room in the chassis for the battery pack.
