German automaker Volkswagen announced on Thursday a new concept for a mobile charging robot that would have the ability to find your car and charge it for you in a parking garage.
Typically when you park your car to charge it, you bring your car to the charging infrastructure. With this concept, VW plans to flip that on its head by bringing the charging infrastructure to the car completely autonomously.
Mark Möller, Head of Development at Volkswagen Group Components, says this concept could trigger a revolution in the way people think about charging their vehicles.
“The mobile loading robot can trigger a revolution in charging, for example in car parks, parking lots or underground garages. Because with it we simply bring the charging infrastructure to the car and not the other way around. We electrify almost every parking space in one go without complex individual infrastructure measures.”
VW says it has already created a prototype of the mobile charger and energy storage devices. In details released on their website, they say the chargers are equipeed with 25kWh battery packs that can DC fast-charging at 50kW.
With this concept, the installation costs of charging infrastructure could be greatly reduced, as it would only require a small part of a parking garage, as opposed to traditionally taking up multiple parking spaces.
This remains a concept for now, with no date for a possible release. In the meantime, check out the video below giving a brief overview of how the system would work.
