Tesla just released a new $300 wireless charging platform. It's kind of fitting
since it was Tesla's namesake, Mr. Nikola Tesla, who pioneered
the wireless technology over 100 years ago. Modern day Tesla though, the car company,
has supposedly taken this wireless transmission of energy to the next level, allowing us to place
a wirelessly chargeable piece of tech anywhere on the surface of the pad and have it function.
You might remember Apple trying and failing to accomplish this same task a few years ago, so
it'll be interesting to see how Tesla's doing it. Thanks for watching Tim Cook. Let's get started.
[Intro]
Getting right into it, there are three things in the box.
One is an extremely substantial, entirely made from metal, angled platform. This guy can tilt the
whole wireless charger up at an angle so you can see and use your phones while they are wirelessly
charging. Helpful, since this pad can supposedly charge three things simultaneously. The metal
base holds the upper platform in place with some very large and strong magnets. So far, so good.
Looking at the wireless charger itself we don't see any visible screws. But there are quite a lot
of seams that might become entry points later. No magnets on this side of the platform. It is,
however, made from metal, along with the angled, CyberTruck looking sides – also metal. The top
of the platform is made with alcantara, a soft, velvety, suede-like material that will definitely
keep phones from getting scratched. This is the same material we would find on the ceiling of a
Tesla vehicle. The charging brick is also sharply angled like the CyberTruck, and is made from
plastic. It is capable of outputting 65 watts. Remember that number, it'll come in handy later.
It looks like the grooves on the back of the charger line up with the rubber pads on the stand,
but since we don't need to angle anything at the moment I'll set the base plate off to the side.
Now modern day Tesla says this pad can give off 15 watts worth of wireless fast charging.
At first that might not sound impressive, but that's 15 watts per device all charging
simultaneously. There is a lip at the bottom of the charger so in order for my Note 10
Plus to charge it does need to be upside down. Rather unfortunate but everything else appears
to be working just fine. I'm able to get two pretty large phones and a pair of earbuds to
all charge up at the same time. But how is this possible? How does the charger know
where the devices are located? And the only way to answer these questions is from the inside.
There are two rubber strips on the back, each of which are hiding 3 T10 screws,
pretty easy to remove. And with those gone the metal sides of the wireless
charger can pop off. And if you ignore the screw left intact near the USB-C cable,
the top of the charger can lift up and away, revealing an extremely
extravagant array of copper coils. Not going to lie, this is a pretty breathtaking setup,
and fairly difficult to wrap my eyeballs around. I haven't seen so much copper in one place since
my last visit to the Statue of Liberty. Layers and layers of coil disks resting on top of each
other. There's a company called Free Power who engineered this thing for Tesla and they say that
if any wirelessly chargeable device is set down on the pad, any one of these coils can activate
to charge it. Sometimes even multiple coils will turn on simultaneously, working together
to create the induction field that the coil on the receiving device can then get power from.
Now like I mentioned earlier, Apple did try to make one of these a few years ago and failed.
Rumor on the street is that their system couldn't handle the extra heat that's created from the
inefficiencies of wireless charging. I just want to pause for a second since this thing
is still working and charging my headphones even without the top layer. Tesla is doing the biggest
disservice to humanity by not having a transparent top on this thing. It looks so cool on the inside.
Where was I? Oh yeah, heat dissipation. Plugging your phone into a wall is near 100% efficient.
Basically all the power coming from the wall ends up inside of your battery. However,
with wireless charging we only end up with 60-80% efficiency since there's no direct contact and
energy gets lost along the way – especially if you have a case on your phone. Remember,
the wall brick is sending 65 watts into the coils, but only 15 watts is getting to each
device. That's a lot of power going poof. And also why there are no wireless chargers for electric
vehicles. Well, that and the magnetic field would wreck any pacemaker in a 6 mile radius.
Considering that Apple couldn't do this, I did expect to see a much larger thermal solution
underneath the coils, but the only thing we find under here is the pink thermal gluey stuff which
helps the circuits on the board transfer heat to the thick bottom metal plate. It makes me
think that it could be possible that the extra coils themselves, the ones not being utilized,
could possibly be acting as some thermal dissipation of their own. Each of the copper coils
are soldered to the edge of the circuit board. And if we count the soldered contact points,
two for each coil, we find that there are a total of 30 coils inside of Tesla's wireless charger,
which basically makes this 30 chargers in one. And if you think about it that way,
at $10 a charger, the $300 price tag makes a lot more sense.
Each of the little coils can be separated from each other. It appears like there's some sticky
adhesive that keeps the coils from touching. I imagine each loop needs to be isolated from
each other since the coils are acting as sensors to find devices, as well as power transmitters.
Thumbs up for how cool this thing is. Now, my charger has been plugged in this whole
time during the tear down. So I imagine by now I've tripped some safety overload sensor
or something and it's not functioning anymore. But, since nothing has been physically damaged
I imagine it'll still work when I put it back together. This thing is pretty crazy.
Speaking of which, Mr. Nikola Tesla, back in the day, was all about finding an unlimited
power source for humanity. And he thought that the great pyramids were planet-wide wireless
energy transmitters for the ancient Egyptians. And who knows, maybe he was onto something.
Either way, Tesla's new wireless charger is pretty fantastic. Solid quality on the inside
as well as the outside. Leave a comment down below if you think Elon should make
a transparent version. I'd drop a few hundo on that. Still ain't paying $7 for Twitter though.
Now that it's all back together, unplugged and replugged into the wall again,
everything is working just fine. It even works on iPhones. Nice work,
Free Power. And now that Apple has seen how it's done, I'm sure we'll get air power back
on the shelves here in the next year or two. Hit that subscribe button so you
don't miss the next tear down. And thanks a ton for watching. I'll see you around.