Inductive car charging shown at CES

Plugs are so 20th century. [Link]

This form of charging is 80 percent efficient, but the company estimates that with a more integrated system (mainly deleting the converter) they could get to 89 percent efficiency. The wired charger? It clocks in at 96 percent efficiency, meaning for any given voltage the charging time would only be about 7 seven percent slower going wireless -- a potentially small price to pay for the ability to turn an entire parking lot into a charging station without having to worry about wires or vandalism or semi-inadvertent electrocution of curious people who decide to see what happens when terminals get licked.

Most impressive? Inductive charging like this gets more efficient as you raise the voltage, meaning that as you go from 120 to 240 and even 480 (ala CHAdeMO) that efficiency could get even higher. A 30 minute quick-charge without wires? Call us interested.