---
title: 'Porsche Actually Solved Wireless Charging'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=aeMQfA45LN8'
video_id: 'aeMQfA45LN8'
date: 2026-07-28
duration_sec: 1342
---

# Porsche Actually Solved Wireless Charging

> Source: [Porsche Actually Solved Wireless Charging](https://youtube.com/watch?v=aeMQfA45LN8)

## Summary

The video debunks common skepticism about wireless EV charging by presenting Porsche's implementation, which achieves up to 92% efficiency and costs only marginally more than wired charging. The host explains the technology, compares real-world efficiency and costs, and highlights safety features and future autonomous driving applications.

### Key Points

- **Initial Skepticism** [00:01] — The host believed wireless charging was inefficient, slow, and costly based on iPhone charging tests showing 35% efficiency.
- **Porsche's Claim** [00:30] — Porsche Cayenne electric offers wireless charging with claimed peak efficiency of 90%.
- **Real-World Efficiency** [04:38] — Porsche engineers state real-world wireless charging efficiency ranges from 89% (worst case) to 92% (best case), with a minimum 85% required by the standard.
- **Charging Speed Comparison** [06:19] — Level 2 wireless charging delivers 11 kW, slightly faster than level 2 wired at 9.6 kW, resulting in about an hour quicker charge time.
- **Efficiency by Level** [06:48] — Level 1 wired charging is only 60% efficient; level 2 wired is 96%; level 2 wireless (worst case) is 89%.
- **Cost per Full Charge** [08:00] — At $0.173/kWh, level 1 costs $31, level 2 wired $19.46, level 2 wireless $21 — a negligible $1.54 difference.
- **Lifetime Cost** [09:10] — Over 200,000 miles, level 1 costs $20,760, level 2 wired $12,973, level 2 wireless $14,000 — only $1,027 more for wireless.
- **High-Power Wireless Charging** [13:15] — Oak Ridge National Laboratory achieved 270 kW wireless charging at 95% efficiency using a Porsche Taycan.
- **Safety Features** [14:13] — The pad has radar for living objects, metal object detection, and temperature sensors, automatically shutting off if needed.
- **Durability and Installation** [15:31] — The pad can be driven over, is weatherproof, weighs 50 kg (floor) and 15 kg (vehicle antenna).
- **Autonomous Driving Application** [17:56] — Wireless charging enables self-driving cars to charge without human intervention, simply by parking over a pad.
- **Cayenne Electric Charging Performance** [18:49] — The vehicle supports 800V, 400 kW peak; maintains >350 kW up to 50% SOC and >300 kW up to 70% SOC, enabling 10-minute stops.
- **Cayenne Turbo Performance** [20:10] — The Turbo model produces over 1,100 hp, does 0-60 in 2.4 seconds, and runs the quarter mile in under 10 seconds.

### Conclusion

Wireless EV charging, as implemented by Porsche, is nearly as efficient and cost-effective as wired charging, with added convenience and safety. The technology is particularly promising for autonomous driving and future high-power applications.

## Transcript

wireless charging of electric cars doesn't make any sense. And the reason why it doesn't make any sense is because it's inefficient. And because it's inefficient, it means it takes a really long time, it requires a ton of power,
and it costs a lot more. And so, why would you want wireless charging? So, Porsche Cayenne electric, offers wireless charging, I thought, "Who cares?" And then, I read that the wireless charging for this Cayenne
wireless charging for this Cayenne electric can be as efficient as 90%. But, okay, if that's just the peak number, real world, I'm sure it's way lower. And so, again, I don't need to be excited about wireless charging on this
car, right? It's probably not actually achieving 90% most of the time. Well, I engineers, and they answered all of them. And it turns out I was wrong about pretty much everything. Wireless
pretty much everything. Wireless charging is incredible. So, let's talk up and get to why I thought wireless charging was a bad idea. So, the way wireless charging works is you have a pad that's mounted on the ground, and
that pad has a bunch of wire coils in it. So, wireless charging is in fact using quite a bit of wires, probably more than wired charging. But, regardless, there's no physical connection between car and the charger.
So, this wireless pad has this wire coil in it, which, if you put a current through that wire coil, well, that creates a magnetic field. Well, if you put an alternating current through that wire coil, then it creates an
alternating magnetic field. So, if you then bring an antenna and you place it over that alternating magnetic field, well, it induces an alternating current within that wire coil that you've placed over it. So, then you can use that
battery in your vehicle. Well, the problem is that this process is not very efficient. So, you have these losses, especially if you increase the gap at charging pad to the receiving antenna is. If you increase that gap, you
efficient. So, I found a test that looked at wired versus wireless charging of an iPhone. And they found that the charging efficiency when it was a wired connection was about 70%. And then they tried three different wireless chargers
on the iPhone, and they found that the efficiency ranged from about 35% to In fact, the the worst charger was actually a Tesla wireless charger. Anyways, the worst one was at 35%
efficiency, about 35%. So, think of that. 35% versus 70, that's half the efficiency. It means you need twice as much power or twice as much time, uh and it's going to cost you twice as much, right? So, it's just silly. At an iPhone
not that much energy, it's not that much time, it's not going to be that big of a deal. But at a car level, it's a ton of energy. And so, it is going to be a big deal. So, why would you possibly use wireless charging when you know you're
Especially when you consider people are already concerned about the power draw saying, "Okay, with these wireless chargers, you're going to have to even ramp up that power draw even greater to get them at regular charging speeds."
So, because of seeing tests like this, I thought, "Yeah, wireless charging put it in context of a vehicle like this. So, we start with our power from our circuit breaker or outlet, and we've got 48 amps at about 240 V.
And so, with that, we're putting that power and we're going to convert it from getting from the wall, and we're going to convert it to a direct current, DC. AC to DC. Wow, look at this cool tunnel. Wow, this is incredible.
Way to be, Spain. Then, with that DC current, we're going to convert it to current, we're going to convert it to high-frequency AC current. So, 85 kHz AC current within that antenna. So, you've got this really high-frequency
alternating current within your floor pad. That, of course, is creating that alternating magnetic field, which is inducing an alternating current in the antenna, which is on the vehicle. So, then we're taking the AC current on the
vehicle, and we're converting that DC. And then, with that DC, we're finally charging our battery pack. So, as you can see, that's quite a few steps. And if you were to just convert the AC from the wall to DC, and then charge your
battery, hey, that's way fewer steps. So, that's going to be more efficient. All right. So, how much difference in efficiency is there actually between wired and wireless charging with, for example, this car? And so, I already
mentioned, yeah, Porsche said it can achieve 90% charging efficiency with the wireless charger. Now, I asked them, what is the actual range that you're going to see in real-world conditions on the high end and on the low end as far
as charging efficiency? They said, on the high end, if you have this car down a little bit, so it gets closer to that charging pad, you can achieve 92% charging efficiency. On the low end, they said, if it isn't perfectly
positioned, it still achieves 89% charging efficiency. What? Now, perhaps you don't believe me, and that's fine. But, Porsche says the charging standard that this wireless charger falls under requires that it has a minimum charging
efficiency of 85%. And again, they're able to beat that. They're at 89% minimum. Now, this does mean there is a specific position you want the car in in order to achieve that efficiency. So, Porsche enables you to have left to
right plus or minus 100 mm, or about 4 in, that you can position the car, and forward and backward plus or minus about 75 mm, or about 3 in from that center point where you're
efficiency. But as long as you fall within that range, you get that 89% and Porsche also said, which I thought was interesting, that the state of charge of the battery and the ambient temperatures don't actually play in very much as far
as charging efficiency. It's really all about positioning. All right, so as a bit of a thought experiment, let's compare level one wired charging versus level two wired charging versus level two wireless charging. And so if you
look at the power, actually the mobile connector for Porsche in the US is at connector for Porsche in the US is at about 9.6 kW versus the 11 kW with the wireless charger. So the wireless charger is actually the faster option in
level one, you're only charging at about 1.44 kW, so very slow rate. It would 1.44 kW, so very slow rate. It would take about 125 hours to charge this car fully with level one. The crazy thing about level one though is it's very
inefficient. These are numbers directly from Porsche. Level one wired, 60% charging efficiency. Level two wired, 96% charging efficiency. And then we're just going to go with worst case for level two and say 89% charging
efficiency, though realistically that number can be as high as 92%. All right, so as you can see here, level two wireless in the US at least is actually charging faster even once you take into consideration efficiency than level two
wired. So about a kilowatt faster and as far as charge time, about an hour quicker. Now one of the interesting things to think about is how much total energy do you need in order to charge this battery from zero to 100% for the
108 kilowatt hours of usable energy that the battery has. Total battery pack the battery has. Total battery pack size, 113 kilowatt hours, 108 usable. So with level one because it's so inefficient, it's going to require 180
kilowatt hours of energy in order to deliver the 108 kilowatt hours into the battery pack. For level two wired, that number is its lowest, 112.5 kilowatt hours. And then for level two wireless, 121 kilowatt hours. So, yeah, a little
bit more. But then take into consideration how much does this cost? So, I looked at average electricity prices in the United States. That turned out to be about 17.3 cents per kilowatt hour. So, as you can
see, the level one wired option, $31 for a full charge versus $19.46 for a full charge on level two wired. So, a big difference there in cost. But for level two wireless, only $21. And
again, this is assuming the lowest charging efficiency on that level two wireless. So, only a $1.50 difference. And again, you know, we're talking about a six-figure Porsche. So, a $1.50 difference in charging, who cares? But
just for fun, let's look at a lifetime worth of energy and see what the cost going to assume that we're going to travel 200,000 miles for the life of this vehicle and that on a single charge, it gets 300 miles of range. Now,
Motor Trend has tested the vehicle. They actually got 350 miles on a single charge, but we're just going to be a bit conservative, say 300-mile range for the battery. Now, traveling 200,000 miles, your cheapest option, of course, is
connection, the most efficient. And connection, the most efficient. And that's at about $12,973 thing over its entire lifetime. Compare that to level one wired, $20,760.
wireless, only $14,000. So, again, it's only about a $1,000 more over the entire lifetime of the vehicle to use wireless charging versus wired. And so if it is more convenient for you, who cares? The cost difference is
basically negligible. Now, of course, electricity is going to vary in price considering how expensive of a vehicle this is, when you're looking at these small differences in price for total life charging, it's really not a big
deal. Now, that said, you do have to pay for the hardware, right? That's the expensive bit. So, Porsche says the ground pad for the wireless charger, about, and then for the vehicle pad that's installed on the Cayenne
electric, $1,650. So, it is not a cheap option, but again, this is a Porsche. And actually, if you look at the combined cost of the charging pad and installing it on the vehicle versus level one wired charging,
the cost difference isn't all that much just because level one wired charging is so inefficient. So, level two wireless, basically a better idea than level one wired, and it comes real close to level two wired in terms of the actual cost of
the energy. This portion of the video is sponsored by NOCO, who sent me their NOCO AL5 portable air inflator. The NOCO AL5 is their most compact battery-powered air inflator, meaning you can easily fit it in your glove box
or trunk. I love leaving an inflator in my cars in case I need to top up, or say nail while on the road, I can reinflate the tire after. And if your vehicle includes a spare, it's easy to forget to keep it properly inflated. So, this
ensures you're ready to go if you need to use it. The NOCO AL5 can supply a max pressure of 130 PSI, can fully inflate a tire from zero to 40 PSI in just 7 minutes, and has an integrated sensor so you can simply select your needed
pressure, and it automatically stops at your target. It's also perfect for bike tires, and it includes a flashlight as well as a USB-C charger in case you need emergency power. For peace of mind, I'm keeping the NOCO AL5 in my rear seat
storage, so I'm road trip ready. You can grab yours with the link in the video description. So, how impressive is this? I mean, Porsche says most of the time you're going to be getting 90% charging efficiency with this wireless charger.
So, you're getting basically equivalent efficiency as a wired charger, and you don't have to plug anything in. You simply drive over the charging pad, it it starts charging it. Now, you might wonder, why is level one charging with a
wired connection so inefficient? And there's a couple good reasons for this. fixed overhead. So, once you plug in that charger, you've got on-board on the vehicle, right? You've got your charger, you've got your AC-to-DC
converters. All of these things are going to have some fixed overhead to be so you're communicating the charging rate with cell phone towers. So, all of this takes energy. So, there's going to be an overhead. Say that overhead is 300
W. Well, that 300 W is 20% of your charging rate right there, without even then you have to consider about the efficiency of the charging itself. So, then with the charging, let's say you have your AC-to-DC converter. Well,
those are sized appropriately, right? So, if it's expecting you to regularly be charging at 11 kW with a level two charger, and you're only charging at it about 1 kW on a level one charger, well, then you're operating that converter at
a very low load. And so, it's designed to be most efficient at the load it often, right? These higher loads. And so, as a result of that, it's charging at a much lower efficiency when you're in that level one zone, and you have all
up being something like 60% charging efficiency. Terrible. And another interesting point is that 92% charging efficiency is not the limit for wireless charging. In fact, I found a study done out of Oak Ridge National Laboratory
using a Porsche Taycan, and they were able to wirelessly charge it. Yes, you're hearing me correct, wirelessly charge it at 270 kW. So, fast charging charge it at 270 kW. So, fast charging at an efficiency of 95%,
and that was over a 50% state of charge increase. So, it was genuinely charging increase. So, it was genuinely charging it at 95% efficiency wirelessly. So, this technology is able to get actually really close to what you can get with
wired charging. So, to summarize, what do I know about wireless charging? Well, it turns out I know a lot more about it today than I did yesterday. Now, perhaps wireless charging because there's a lot of other scenarios we haven't talked
about yet, but I asked Porsche a bunch more questions. So, let's talk through some of them. What if for an example a cat runs under the car while it is wirelessly charging? Well, the wireless charging pad actually has radar on it to
sense living objects, living animals, living whatever coming near it, and it automatically shuts it off. So, if anything living comes near the charging pad, it will automatically turn off. Well, what about metal objects? Say you
drop your spanner, your wrench onto the charging pad. I mean, this is not all that different from an inductive stove top, right? So, you put a piece of metal on there, you could put a lot of current through it, right? Well, actually,
through a resistance coil system, they can detect if any metal objects are on that charging pad, again, turn it off. They also, as a backup, have temperature sensors on the charging pad, so they can detect if it starts getting too hot,
off. Well, what about getting snow or dirt or water or ice on the charging pad? Actually, the whole charging pad is designed to be either used in your garage or outside. It's totally fine to use it outside, and you can hard mount
it, or it has little rubber feet so that it stays in position. So, as far as dirt, ice, snow, anything piling up on top of it, Porsche says it's no big deal cause a meaningful difference in charging efficiency. Now, is this device
fragile? Like, can you drive over it? Yes, you can drive over it. Simple as that. You could park your tire on top of it if you want to. You're not going to you're not going to damage it aside from perhaps some scratches if you just drive
over it. How much does it weigh? So, the floor unit weighs about 50 kg or about 110 lb while the receiver antenna that is mounted on the vehicle weighs about is mounted on the vehicle weighs about 15 kg or about 33 lb. Now, what about
other safety issues like if someone has a pacemaker? Well, again, Porsche took this into consideration, right? If it detects anything living nearby, it automatically shuts off. So, if you have a pacemaker, no problem. Now, crazy
people will still say crazy things about this kind of technology, right? The same reason why they don't like, you know, inductive stove tops or airplanes or inductive stove tops or airplanes or cell phones or 5G. Crazy people going to
be crazy, but there's no reason to be afraid of this tech. Now, could you use this wireless charger with another electric vehicle? Say you have two need the hardware, right? The other vehicle would need the antenna, but
there's nothing proprietary that is preventing it from happening. Porsche designed this whole system under a common ISO communication standard. So, there's nothing patented or blocking you off from using it. Yes, you know, you do
pair the vehicle with the charger, so there's communication between them. So, electric can't just drive over and steal your electricity, but once you pair the vehicle with it using this common ISO standard, right? Then you can charge it.
So, it doesn't necessarily limit it to Porsche vehicles exclusively if other manufacturers happen to have wireless charging on their cars in the future standard. So, I think that's probably the most realistic negative of the whole
doesn't have a receiver antenna, you can't charge it. So, you'd have this your electric cars. So, if you have multiple, then you can't just plug it in every other car. But, it's the
right? You drive into your garage, you drive on top of this thing, it have to think about it. I mean, in theory, if you only charge at home, you might not ever actually open the charging door on this vehicle. I mean,
you might never do it. That's kind of wild to think about. It has plenty of range, so as long as you're not taking a really long road trip, yeah, it's feasible. But, are there any other benefits to wireless charging? And I
think one of the big ones is when you think kind of far ahead into the future about autonomous driving. So, if you have a vehicle that it pulls you up, you know, autonomously drives you to a restaurant, drops you off at the front,
and it goes and finds a wireless charger, then it just drives over top of have to worry about having something plug in a physical connection to the it. It can just do it automatically by
driving over a pad. And so, then the whole kind of scenario just becomes more parks in a parking spot with wireless charging, it charges up, when you're done with dinner, it comes and picks you up, and it's charged. How cool is that?
Ridge National Laboratory, you can actually have really fast charging speeds with wireless chargers. Now, speaking of charging speed, perhaps the most impressive thing about this Cayenne electric is the battery architecture,
because it can charge at ridiculous speeds on 800-V charging systems up to kW. This is absurd. In America, most of the ones that we have top out at 350 kW. And if you visit a Tesla Supercharger,
which is at 400-V, then this can still charge at 200 kW. And you might say, "Okay, 400 kW peak charging, who cares? What's the curve actually look like? The curve is ridiculous. You can charge above 350
ridiculous. You can charge above 350 kilowatts from up till about 50% battery state of charge and above 300 up till about 70% state of charge. So realistically, the charging curve is insane. You can put a ton of power into
this battery pack very quickly and get back off on your road trip. Realistically, you could be taking 10 minute or less pit stops with this thing minute or less pit stops with this thing on a road trip. Oh, and it can regen up
to 600 kilowatts. What? So part of this is the battery, you know, it's got their unique chemistry, their unique cells, and they also have cooling on both the top and the bottom of this battery pack. So they
really good cooling for this battery pack and it's able to put out a lot of power and it's able to accept a lot of power. Speaking of putting out a lot of power, the Cayenne Turbo electric, yeah,
power, the Cayenne Turbo electric, yeah, over 1,100 horsepower, 0 to 60 in 2.4 seconds, the quarter mile in under 10 seconds. So we've got SUVs that are doing quarter miles in the nines. This is insane. What a beautiful spot to try
out some launch control. Put on both pedals, off the brake. Oh my god. pedals, off the brake. Oh my god. >> [laughter] mean, the speed limit, which is 90 kilometers per hour, very quickly. 0 to
60 in around 2.4 seconds, probably can do it slightly quicker than that. This is genuinely one of the quickest accelerating vehicles I've ever driven accelerating vehicles I've ever driven and it's an SUV. It's a large SUV.
and it's an SUV. It's a large SUV. Driving this thing through corners at these speeds in an SUV, wow, it handles well. I will say, you know, they they have the
artificially piping in. You can, of course, turn that off. And it sounds fine in the sport mode. In sport plus, I think, when you really get on it, it sounds pretty artificial. But if you're partial throttle in sport plus, it
believable. As far as what this vehicle has been like to drive, it's been exceptional. The ride quality is so good. I've had it in comfort mode basically the entire time. An incredible suspension on this thing. Super quiet on
Love the driving experience. And actually, one of my biggest complaints on Taycan is that I don't really like the way the brake pedal feels. But here, pedal. You don't have that dead space that I find was the case on the Taycans
that I drove. My one complaint My one complaint is the same for all Porsche pedal driving. So, you can't come to a complete stop and leave your feet off both pedals. No one pedal driving in Porsche electric vehicles. That's their
wish they offered it as an option, but they do not. But wireless charging, And it turns out it's actually pretty much for watching. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to
questions or comments, feel free to leave them below.