The CES 2011 (Consumer Electronics Show) was the perfect scene for another stunning presentation: the first wirelessly powered Tesla car.
Fulton Innovation, a company dedicated to “creating technologies that not only affect the way devices interact with each other, but how cultures interact with their environment” is behind the wireless technologies which made this possible. They are also the ones responsible for projects like Splashpower, eCoupled and Alkemi-Insights.
The Tesla car, powered from an eCoupled-enabled pad has a range of 180 miles when fully charged. The Fulton Innovation vision reflects an all-wireless future, with wireless pads paved into roads, parking and private garages.
The first step in accomplishing this has already been made: “This is the first time in history that we’ve been able to wirelessly power a high-powered device,” declared a Fulton Innovation official.
Nikola Tesla had first tried and succeeded transmitting power wirelessly, but his experiments had been stopped by his sponsor, J.P. Morgan. Nowadays, various companies all around the world and the energy industry are trying to reinstate this technology, since it can now be used more efficiently and billed correctly by the user with digital equipment.
It’s funny (and I think Elon Musk knows) that a company bearing the same name of maybe the world’s greatest inventor of the 20th century is the first to commercialize the first commercially-successful electric car with a wireless charging system attached.
