Several modern cars have wireless charging built-in which makes it extra convenient to charge your smartphone without those messy cables. Since some hybrid cars need a juice up every now and then, BMW has introduced its own wireless charging pad that’s not for your phone, but it’s for the car.
The BMW charging pad is quite huge and it plugs into a 220-volt outlet with a charging rate of up to 3.2 kW. To charge, you’ll just need to drive above the pad and it will guide you through the iDrive system by showing blue lines on the display. It will show a green circle once you’ve aligned the car properly above the pad. It will start charging automatically after you’ve switched off the ignition.
What’s amazing is that it can charge from zero to full in just 3.5 hours which is pretty close to wired charging. So all you need to do is just park and you’ll have a fully charged car the next day. As expected, the BMW Wireless Charging feature will be sold as an optional package and you’ll need to buy the wireless charging floor plate as well.
This charging technology is still under testing and evaluation and it will be available for the BMW 530e iPerformance plug-in hybrid sedan early next year. BMW would extend this feature to other BMW iPerformance plug-in hybrid models later on.
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