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"Over 36 years ago, four guys from San Diego University had a vision to change what was a fledgeling mobile phone space," says Graeme Davison, Vice President of Business Development and Marketing at Qualcomm Technologies International, Inc. Since those early days, the company has developed a solution for tracking trucks around the world, transformed the mobile phone industry and is now leading the way in wireless car charging and connected car technology. Not a bad track record, hey?
As a founding partner of the ABB FIA Formula E Championship, the company provided wireless charging for the series' BMW i8 Saftey Car and i3 Medical Car since the inaugural race in Beijing in 2014, as well as improving the mobile phone signal for fans at races. Announcing their latest car tech at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year - C-V2X (which stands for Cellular Vehicle to Everything) - is capable of connecting cars to pretty much anything you can think of. That means cars being able to share information with buildings, infrastructure, mobile devices and even pedestrians. Following the show, we caught up with Davison to find out what the future of charging looks like, how Qualcomm Halo got involved in Formula E and why wireless charging is coming to a street near you soon.
Qualcomm has a long history in mobile technology. Why did the company get into cars?
We started realising that the next mobile device was, in fact, the car. ten years ago, when I first started talking to people about this, they thought it was just about connecting Facebook to the dashboard. But it was much more than that - it's about connecting your car to the environment around you, about connecting it to your home environment, wrapping the navigation system better into your life, it's about making the car more intelligent by enabling it to communicate with traffic lights, roadworks or each other. In short, we realised that connecting the car was fundamental.
At the same time, we saw so we spent some time looking at the technologies that existed within Qualcomm and we revisited a small research team who were looking into how you charge multiple devices at the same time just by being in a room. As part of that, they were looking at how you transfer large amounts of power across reasonably sized gaps. At this point, it was early days for EVs so we went out to manufacturers and explained our ideas for charging cars wirelessly. To be honest, we thought we'd be chucked out immediately but, surprisingly enough, not a single one of them asked us to leave!
Why wireless charging?
When you think about what you do when you arrive at home and get out of the car, you usually have your hands full - especially if you have children -
or you're on the phone - the last thing you need to remember is to plug in the car. We're looking at technologies that close the doors, turn the lights off and automatically charge the car, so you don't have to. That technology is wireless charging, which is what Qualcomm Halo was set up to do.
How did the link up with Formula E come about?
It was about five or six years ago and a man called Alejandro Agag was coming in to present to Qualcomm. No one could understand what he was talking about, so - as a motorsport fan - I was drafted into the meeting. So I went along to the meeting and he presented to us - all he had a time was a presentation. He didn't have a car, he didn't have a licence - all he had was a vision.
He presented to us three things. The first was an electric motor racing series that was based in the city with the goal of being sustainable. The second was to make electric vehicles (EVs) look sexy and prove to people that the technology was viable, allowing manufacturers to test EV technology to accelerate the uptake of EVs on the roads. And the third was to engage a new, younger generation of motorsport fan who connected with the sports predominantly through mobile. With our background in optimising mobile networks, connectivity and telecommunications, Alejandro saw Qualcomm as the perfect fit. Those three things were exactly what we were trying to do too, so we joined as a founding partner.
In the middle of the first year, we had seen such a phenomenal acceleration in the growth in the technology and the sport that we increased our involvement to become not just a sponsor but also a partner and an investor.
We were looking at what Qualcomm's involvement would look like on the ground and we saw that the safety car - a BMW i8 - and the medical car, which was a BMW i3. Of course, both need to be charged and ready to go at a moment's notice, so we suggested using our wireless EV charging technology. As the cars have improved and changed, so has our wireless charging and that's the story so far.
What's the future of charging?
We estimate there are roughly 160 EVs due out from manufacturers in the next 18 months and we want to see all coming with the option for wireless EV charging. Initially, EV owners will start to have wireless EV charge points fitted at home, then at work and then outside the grocery store, for example. With this, we start to see some interesting business models emerging where the shops offer free charging for customers. We then see wireless EV charging becoming commercial and different types of charging. If you stop at the shop on the way home for a few minutes, then you'll park over a fast charger. Park at the cinema, however - where you'll be for a couple of hours - and it could be a much lower power.
Beyond that, there's dynamic charging - which charges EVs while they're moving at speeds of up to 100mph, with each EV picking up 20kW of energy while it's moving.
We know it can be done but what needs to be decided now is how we go about doing it and how all the different ways of charging work together.
If we look at how cities are made up and built today, city authorities try and deal with traffic and congestion punitively. But what if we were to look at it in the opposite way? What if cities were able to offer EV drivers routes that offered charging along the way to encourage drivers to take that route instead? That becomes a lot more interesting for city planners and drivers alike.
When do you think we're likely to see this kind of tech on the roads?
I'd like to see static, wireless EV charging in homes within the next two years. Commercial static, wireless EV charging - outside shops, for example - within the next three years and dynamic wireless EV charging in the next ten years.
The future is wireless, autonomous and connected, so it's about understanding how all those pieces fit together and going forward with it.