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Wireless phone charging pads are common accessories for pairing with a smartphone in 2024, with almost every new flagship device now capable of charging without a plug-in cable. It’s become a popular addition to car cockpits as car manufacturers attempt to give the vehicle a more premium appeal – but it’s often done quite poorly. The Volvo EX30however, he accepted the assignment, and it is cause for celebration.
We’ve got some ground to cover, so let’s just cover the basics. Think about how it works with a wireless charger; your phone must be placed on a mat or puck that lines up perfectly with the wireless charging components between the two devices. I fail to get a perfect face-to-face connection, and I get no power. It is a pain for many users of wireless charging, even worse when the charging pad is not the right size for the phone (although this is rarely a problem).
Wireless charging “Qi 2” (pronounced “Chi two”) introduced a requirement for magnetism already demonstrated with Apple‘s MagSafe that solves the alignment problem thanks to the Magnetic Power Profile (although, confusingly, some Qi 2 chargers can be sold with the “Extended Power Profile”, removing the magnets). But so far only the iPhone from the 12 series and the HMD Skyline, an Android phone released in 2024, have adopted the standard.
So what happens when you put technology in a car? You face a new suite of problems. Suddenly, the environment is moving at inconsistent speeds and in different directions. Depending on the interior design, the location of a wireless charger could be potentially problematic; if it is on an incline on the center console without any surrounding barrier, it is likely to have a one-way trip to the floor when you make a tight turn or accelerate aggressively. Even driving carefully can result in the phone coming into contact with the charger.
Trying to solve this problem is not easy, and I have seen some egregious attempts to solve wireless charging location problems. The worst I’ve seen was in a very good car – the Audi E-Tron GT – which positioned the wireless charger. in the center arm of the car. In this position, it was tightly packed against the side of the compartment with a support that forces contact against the charger. It could get extremely hot in this position, to the point where I would be worried about my phone if I left it there any longer.
Fortunately, Volvo has made the wireless car phone charger work perfectly – and made it quite simple.
Wireless phone charging in a car is done right
In the Volvo EX30, there are two wireless chargers – one for each front seat. These are positioned below the infotainment system, and unique to the EX30, below the centralized glovebox (yes, the glovebox is in the middle and not immediately in front of the front passenger seat).
It is similar to the approach of Tesla, and indeed many cars put their wireless chargers in this same place, but they usually find a little incomplete in their development. Depending on the materials used for the mat and the phone (and its case), your device might even slip and stop charging. Not in the EX30.
In Volvo’s entry-level SUV, phones are held at an angle, held in place with a rubber grip that presses the phone firmly against the cargo mat – like a seat belt. It works perfectly.
It innovates on a similar design that I saw when they reviewed the BMW iX1 – where a hard plastic belt design was used. Even then, the phone was not held so firmly in place. It could also slide left and right, or snap out of place after acceleration (although for the most part it was successful in keeping the phone in contact with the charging mat). To activate the seat belt, you clip it in place by pulling the plastic.
The EX30, with its strong rubber-based containment, perfects the no-moving-parts approach. There is no seat belt to fasten or unfasten, as there is persistent. You just stuff your phone in; it is ventilated so that it does not get too hot, unlike the Audi design previously mentioned, and it is close enough not to cause problems with your wireless phone connection. The phone doesn’t move and stays charged pretty reliably.
And it seems so simple, right? It’s not even a technical solution, it’s a physical solution. The Volvo EX30 is built on offering such solutions with its small size and condensed infotainment and user interface, and this is just a testament to its smart layout.
It is a step in the right direction
Volvo’s design here is great because it acknowledges a real problem with a simple and well-considered solution. The big question is this – why haven’t we reached a widespread Qi 2 charge, even outside of cars? It’s almost non-existent on the Android side of the fence (Samsung reveals pending, of course), and Qi 2 chargers are few and far between. In the automotive world, I cannot think of a single car that offers a Qi 2-capable charge, with magnetism able to solve many of the problems outlined in this article.
The other benefit is obvious – the loading speed. Most Qi 1 chargers have a capacity of 5W (or up to 15W, depending on the specific devices in use), while the Qi 2 offers a basic capacity of 15W. These capabilities are still well below fast charging with a USB-C cable, with most phones able to go from 0 to 50% in just 30 minutes, while wireless chargers will struggle to provide a comparably fast experience .
With the mobile world now fully embracing the USB-C standard, I can’t help but imagine that the solution is simply a better-arranged connection. The problem with wireless phone charging in cars goes in tandem with other problems connecting your car to your phone. Android Auto connected to Bluetooth and Apple CarPlay, for example, are finicky in many cars, and I had to deal with abandonment in some. Some cars also require the use of a USB-A cable to connect with Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, despite offering USB-C ports that are only dedicated to charging.
These problems can be solved with a single solution; integrated supports that offer a USB-C plug, which you can simply insert your phone. In this way, there is no ambiguity as to where your phone is intended to be placed and, if pulled just right, the phone will not move during the move.
Volvo’s approach in the EX30 seems to be going the right way towards a more perfect solution for connecting the car to the phone, especially with its intuition. operating system which embodies Android Auto in Android Automotive (the separate name for the on-board OS as opposed to the car-to-phone mode).
I look forward to seeing how Volvo innovates on design in future models, as the company has pulled off some of my favorite car designs in recent memory.
