If you don’t have an electric car, the act of plugging one in might sound simple, but companies rarely go broke overestimating America’s love of convenience.
“Do you have a garage opener, or do you know anyone who does?”
That’s Ned Freeman, Vice President of Marketing for a Richmond company called Evatran. It makes charging stations and pads that work automatically to revive a Nissan Leaf, Cadillac ELR or Chevy Volt.
Behind the firm’s headquarters between Richmond’s historic Church Hill and Shockoe Bottom neighborhoods, spokesman Steve Cummings points to a car in the process of charging.
“We take all the hassle out of charging with a plug and a cord. You just pull up, park, and you’re ready to go, so imagine parking in the snow or the rain. You just get out of your car and go into the house.”
Plugless uses a technology invented by Nichola Tesla more than a hundred years ago. It automatically transmits electricity from a coil on the ground, in the parking pad, to an adapter in the car.
“We did our trials with companies like Google, Hertz and SAP in 2011, and then after that testing and development process we were ready to sell to consumers in 2014.”
The cost for a home or office set-up is somewhere between $1,300 and $2,000. In addition to offering the product in North America, the company has partnered with a leading automaker in China – hoping to make Plugless the standard there.
