Tesla flipped a small wireless charging startup like some flip houses. The automaker has sold Germany-based wireless charging startup Wiferion after acquiring it just earlier this year.
Wiferion is a Germany-based wireless charging startup known for inductive charging technology for industrial robots and electric vehicles.
According to official company documents, Tesla acquired the startup for an undisclosed amount earlier this summer.
Tesla has never shown any interest in wireless charging until earlier this year.
The problem wireless charging solves is not a major one. It alleviates the need to plug in your car, which is not a super difficult or time-consuming task. Nonetheless, Tesla has previously talked about automating the task in order to be ready for self-driving technology. If the cars could drive themselves, it would make sense for them to be able to charge themselves without a human needing to plug them in.
Over the years, Tesla has favored an automated robot arm instead of wireless charging to complete this task, but things have changed recently.
Earlier this year, Tesla teased a new wireless home charging station – pictured above.
Because of this tease to move into wireless charging, the acquisition of Wiferion made a lot of sense for Tesla.
But now we learn that Tesla has already sold the startup.
On its website, power electronic supplier PULS announced that it acquired Wiferion:
Wireless charging specialist Wiferion becomes our new business unit PULS Wireless. Wiferion’s customers will benefit from our engineering resources and global presence in production and application support.
According to The Robot Report, Tesla’s acquisition of Wiferion was more of an “acqui-hiring” situation. The automaker kept Wiferion’s engineering team on board and sold its operations and manufacturing business to PULS.
Electrek’s Take
It’s possible that Tesla either already had manufacturing plans for its wireless charger or didn’t like the manufacturing operations of Wiferion so it decided to go after the engineers instead.
Either way, we do expect Tesla to announce something soon about wireless charging because it was unlike the company to release a teaser like that about an unannounced product.