Genesis is working on wireless charging for EVs

Wireless mobile phone charging in cars really is witchcraft, isn’t it? Okay your phone can get a little warm while it’s sat in its little tray, but that’s a small price to pay for not having to remember to bring umpteen different cables with varying connectors every time you leave the house. 

So, wouldn’t it make sense to upscale that to charging electric cars? Think of how much time and effort you’d save. Well, Genesis is the latest brand to run a trial with 23 wireless charging stations now active across Korea, and TG has had a go.

In reality the experience is rather underwhelming, but that’s surely a positive, no? If your car is equipped with the wireless charging receiver underneath, you simply line it up with the floor-mounted inductive charging pad using the parking cameras and some helpful lines on the infotainment screen.

Once you’re perfectly parked and the car is switched off, it’ll automatically start charging in a matter of seconds. No messing about with cables and no faffing with contactless credit cards – all of the payments are handled by the car. 

Just 22 cars (a mix of GV60s and Electrified GV70s) have been modified to take part in the pilot project so far, but Genesis is apparently looking at introducing wireless charging as an optional extra down the line.

However, the chargers on trial right now have a power output of 11kW, meaning a full top-up in a GV60 takes around eight hours. Volvo’s wireless charging trial that it announced in 2022 uses pads that can charge at more than 40kW.

Still, the Genesis/Hyundai trial seems to be running smoothly having kicked off in February 2022, and with a planned end date in June this year wireless charging may become a reality sooner than we’d expected. What do we think, folks?