BMW offers a wide range of plug-in electric cars and owners can charge by obviously plugging them in. However, the company has been working on alternate methods of charging its vehicles and one includes a wireless charging pad. The BMW Wireless Charging Pad is already available in Europe and the company has now confirmed that it’s going to offer the charging pad for one of its cars to customers in the United States.
BMW North America product planner John Kelly confirmed that the company is going to offer the charging pad for its 550e iPerformance plug-in hybrid in the United States.
The company displayed the charging pad at its stand today at the Detroit Auto Show but didn’t commit whether or not it will be available for purchase by the end of this year. A BMW representative had previously said that the technology would take a few years before landing on U.S. shores.
BMW does sell its wireless charging pad in Europe. The pad uses an inductive cord built into the car to charge the battery at 3.2kW per hour. That’s enable to charge the plug-in hybrid’s battery from empty to full in three and a half hours, provided that the pad is connected to a 220-volt outlet.
Kelly mentioned that the availability of the BMW Wireless Charging Pad will be limited in the United States as the company first wants to learn about the customers who want it and how they use it. “It will be a small test at first,” he said. Kelly didn’t say how much it’s going to cost.
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