American electric vehicle giant Tesla has officially sold its wireless charging company, Wiferion. According to DIN rail power supply firm PULS, Wiferion is now its new business subsidiary under the new name PULS Wireless.
Interestingly, the Musk-led company will keep the company’s engineers. According to The Robot Report, these engineers will go to Tesla instead of the new owner. It is unsurprising, considering they are highly skilled in high-power wireless power transmission technology.
Objectives
PULS clarified that it has no plans to modify Wiferion’s approach in wireless power system production.
However, its sales, marketing, and support departments will now shift into a new PULS Wireless unit.
PULS expects the new company and its wireless charging technologies to provide superior fleet efficiency.
“As a pioneer, Wiferion has successfully developed inductive charging to maximise the performance of industrial electric vehicles such as autonomous guided vehicles, autonomous mobile robots and forklifts, and thereby gained the leading market position. With the additional capabilities of PULS, we want to make this system the global market standard and will invest significantly.”
Bernhard Erdl, Managing Director and owner of PULS GmbH
Tesla’s takeover
Tesla formally purchased Wiferion in June 2023 for an unspecified amount, EV-a2z reported. However, the American automaker did not shed light on the reasons behind its sudden acquisition of a wireless charging company.
In effect, many speculated that the EV giant planned to develop a new wireless charging technology for its electric cars through securing talents or “acqui-hiring.”
Moreover, an image shared during Investor Day showed a Tesla Model S wirelessly charging through a pad beneath it.
About Wiferion
Wiferion is a German wireless charging startup focusing on inductive charging technology for industrial robots and electric vehicles.
However, Wiferion’s technology does not solve a major problem as it only eliminates the need to plug in the vehicle, an easy and fast process.
Nonetheless, its wireless technology will significantly aid the advancement of autonomous driving cars. These innovative EVs will have no human drivers, so it would also be great for the charging process to complement the autonomous driving feature.
“The flexible and scalable integration of Wiferion products eliminates unnecessary machine downtime and maintenance- and cost-intensive wired charging. Users sustainably increase their utilization and fleet efficiency by up to 32%.”
Wiferion
See Also:
- Electrified roads to alleviate EV charging problem in America
- Ford to develop an in-road wireless charging technology for its electric models
- Tesla finalizes wireless charging startup takeover
- Tesla explores acquisition of wireless charging startup
- Toyota seeks wireless charging tech with new partners
Tesla’s sudden move to sell Wiferion after acquiring it this summer verifies previous speculations that its primary objective was obtaining talent. Tesla may now be planning to develop its own wireless charging technology and solutions for its self-driving cars with the aid of the former Wiferion engineers.
