Tennessee researchers achieve massive EV breakthrough as they wirelessly charge a Hyundai Kona Electric

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee, US, just achieved a significant wireless charging milestone with the Hyundai Kona Electric.

EVs are revolutionizing the way we use our cars, but charging infrastructure remains a bottleneck.

Wireless charging makes the whole experience a little easier, but there’s a recurring issue.

And that’s the issue that these researchers may have just fixed.

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This is what these researchers achieved while charging the Hyundai Kona

Wireless charging eliminates the hassle of plugs and cables, so that’s definitely a plus.

But even though it is more energy efficient than any other form of charging, it is still far from perfect.

Translated into simple terms, a lot of the energy that’s used in the process just goes to waste.

At Tennessee’s ORNL, they were able to achieve 96 percent efficiency while charging the Hyundai Kona Electric at 100 kW.

This is a big deal. Firstly, because it means that most of the energy used actually powers the car instead of being wasted away, and also because it means charging to 50 percent in 20 minutes.

Not as good as the Zeekr 001, but still impressive.

And it gets better because that’s the real-world test, but top researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory also did a lab test and achieved 97 percent.

One of the key issues with battery tech for EVs

There are still several problems when it comes to battery tech, one of which is energy efficiency.

Ideally, you’d want 100 percent of the energy you’re paying for to replenish your battery.

In practice, 10-15 percent of the energy is wasted during electric vehicle charging.

Home charging is generally the cheapest way to charge a vehicle, but also the least energy efficient.

By contrast, public chargers like Tesla’s Supercharger are more energy efficient, but also more expensive.

Wireless charging is theoretically the most energy efficient method of them all but, at the time of writing, it is only available for a few production vehicles, including the upcoming Porsche Cayenne Electric.