

Elon Musk’s Answer To Stephen Colbert’s Vision Of Wireless Charging - nithinr6
http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/25/elon-musks-answer-to-stephen-colberts-vision-of-ambient-wireless-charging-well-do-it/

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njharman
[tangential topic]

I don't like techcrunch, I expect very little to no journalism from them. But
that was one of the worst written, contentless, fluff writing bordering on
vapid that I have had poor fortune to read.

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micampe
Yup.

Elon Musk’s Answer To Stephen Colbert’s Vision Of Wireless Charging: laughing
at Colbert's jokes.

Did anyone who voted this article read it or watch the interview?

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bsder
I really wish people who talk about wireless charging would do some math.

To get any efficiency, you need to tightly constrain the EM field, at which
point, you are effectively hitting a plug _anyway_.

Or, you are accepting enormous radiative losses and losing massive amounts of
power. Doubling or tripling the power draw in every device just so it's
powered wirelessly is a non-starter.

For cars, we're more likely to get automated charging stations that just plug
themselves in. That's going to be a useful problem to solve.

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barranger
Out of curiosity, how much does it typically cost to charge, say, an iPhone5?
For some (many?) doubling this price might not be as much of a non-starter as
you think.

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mikeash
Doubling is an underestimate. It's more like a factor of 10.

Still, multiplying the cost of charging an iPhone by 10 isn't bad. And in fact
you can buy a lot of solutions that enable this, because you're right, it's
not a big deal for a lot of people, and the convenience is worth the cost.

For an electric car, increasing the charging cost by a factor of 10, or even a
factor of 2, is a much tougher proposition.

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seanflyon
Where do you get a factor of 10 from?

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mikeash
From my butt, apparently. I was sure that was right, but checking into it now,
and it looks like it's more like 60-85% efficient.

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henryrocker
Canadians can watch here:
[http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/Shows/TheColbertReport?vid=40...](http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/Shows/TheColbertReport?vid=402651)

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anteht
And people outside of North America can view it here:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUDCIfI-
wRs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUDCIfI-wRs)

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damnmachine
The thing about Elon Musk is if he says he'll do it, he WILL do it.

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bcardarella
There is already a startup in Boston doing this
[http://www.witricity.com/](http://www.witricity.com/)

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iLoch
Nokia has already done what this company is doing in their Windows Phones.
What Colbert was talking about is something much different.

