The Robotaxi is already a driverless, steering wheel-less, pedal-less vehicle that aims to revolutionize transportation. Used as a ride-sharing platform, the Robotaxi will eventually transfer riders from Point A to Point B without any human needed.

However, more than just the vehicle operation will be fully autonomous.

Tesla will also use a wireless charging pad to create a full-fledged, completely autonomous driving and ownership experience. Instead of manually plugging in the Robotaxi when it is time to recharge, the vehicle will slide over a wireless charging pad, much like the one it unveiled at Investor Day in 2023.

Tesla teases mysterious “wireless” home charger on Investor Day

Tesla shared the video of the Robotaxi pulling over the charging pad and gaining range without any human intervention needed, truly creating an autonomous experience from top to bottom and start to finish.

Check out the video below:

Robotaxi wireless charging

No hands required pic.twitter.com/XL746DkGhb

— Tesla (@Tesla) October 18, 2024

The video does note a charging power of just 25 kW.

It would be nice to have some sort of information regarding whether this tech will be available for retrofit, especially considering many owners are curious as to whether Tesla will push the wireless charging capability to the rest of its lineup in the coming years, something that has been speculated since the automaker purchased Wiferion a few years back.

In reality, the charging rate does not truly matter to anyone because the vehicle is designed to take care of the rides and the riders on its own. There is no real reason for the charging rate to be of any concern.

The Robotaxi experience, from an ownership perspective, is truly like a long-term investment. It aims to make people money by giving rides through a dedicated ride-hailing app, which Tesla also teased in recent memory.

Credit: Tesla

From a rider’s perspective, everything from the temperature to the music will be customizable. It truly caters to both the owner and the rider.

Please email me with questions and comments at joey@teslarati.com. I’d love to chat! You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

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Tesla is set to unveil its design for a Robotaxi, a fully autonomous vehicle that will operate as a ride-hailing service, on October 10 at Warner Bros. studio in Burbank, California.

Although it was originally scheduled for August 8, Tesla pushed the event back, and Elon Musk revealed the company would make one design change to the vehicle. The additional time would also allow Tesla “to show off a few other things,” Musk said.

We might have an idea of what one of those things might be, as a new patent, labeled “PARAMETER ESTIMATION FOR WIRELESS CHARGING,” was filed by Tesla:

Parameter Estimation for Wireless Charging

Tesla’s WO2024182372 patent introduces an innovative system for estimating and adapting to variations in wireless charging systems, improving efficiency and safety. ?

[FIG. 1A: Illustrates an example wireless charging environment with… pic.twitter.com/cwy5tRJ4mp

— SETI Park (@seti_park) September 7, 2024

It appears Tesla plans to utilize a wireless charging pad for the Robotaxi suite, which makes sense. If the vehicle is going to lack any sort of true human operation and be autonomous past the point of driving, it will need to be self-sufficient with charging as well.

Pulling into a garage or other structure with the wireless charging pad on the floor, as long as the vehicle also has an induction coil, would eliminate the need for a human to come plug the vehicle in. Of course, Tesla fooled around with the idea of a robotic “snake charger” that would automatically plug into the vehicle:

Tesla “snake charger” wasn’t just a creepy one-off, suggests Elon Musk

However, Tesla started teasing a wireless charging pad in early 2023 at its Investor Day. This pretty much eliminated any need for the “snake charger” and ultimately catalyzed a lot of rumors for the automaker and its development of a wireless charging pad.

The automaker then made a company acquisition, as it so commonly does when it gets into a new venture to streamline its product line. Tesla completed its purchase of Wiferion in July 2023. It then sold the company but kept many of its engineers.

Tesla sells wireless charging unit firm Wiferion, but keeps its engineers: report

What this patent essentially means is that Tesla is preparing to automate the entire Robotaxi operation. It could end up using this technology on other vehicles, but that remains to be seen.

We predicted that Tesla would unveil some kind of wireless charging technology at the Robotaxi unveiling event in an article yesterday.

I’d love to hear from you! If you have any comments, concerns, or questions, please email me at joey@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @KlenderJoey, or if you have news tips, you can email us at tips@teslarati.com.

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