Mercedes, Qualcomm and Verizon Support WPC’s Qi Wireless Charging Standard

Qualcomm, Inc. and Verizon Wireless have joined the board of management of the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) and Mercedes-Benz has announced that it will include the WPC's Qi standard for wireless charging in its cars starting in 2014. The announcement by Mercedes-Benz follows the announcement earlier this month by the Consumer Electronics for Automotive association (CE4A) that it has endorsed Qi as the worldwide charging standard in passenger cars. Mercedes is a CE4A member.

Qualcomm was a co-founding member of the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP). The company now appears to be in the position of supporting both the WPC and A4WP efforts. The WPC has gained a significant market position more rapidly than the A4WP. The WPC is managed by the 24 companies that are a so-called “regular member” of the WPC. Each regular member has one vote in the board of management and has same rights and obligations. There are no companies with special voting rights or other perks. The board of management of the WPC (also called the “steering group”) includes many companies from the mobile phone industry such as HTC, LG Electronics, Nokia, Panasonic, Qualcomm, Sony, Texas Instruments, Toshiba, and Verizon Wireless.

As announced on 4, September, experts from CE4A have agreed to recommend use of the Qi® standard from the WPC as the preferred wireless charging method for use in automobiles. CE4A is a working group of automobile manufacturers founded in 2006 for the purpose of advancing the standardization of mobile device interfaces. German carmakers like Audi, BMW, Daimler, Porsche and Volkswagen contribute to CE4A, which operates under the umbrella of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA).

Mercedes-Benz will be introducing the Qi standard for the wireless charging of smartphones in cars from 2014. Mercedes stated in it’s announcement that the wireless connection of telephones in cars is standard today. Connected to the vehicle via Bluetooth, a smartphone can be used to make and receive calls, to establish a connection to the cloud, to enable the use of Mercedes-Benz apps - and it can be operated safely and conveniently via the multifunction steering wheel, voice control or turn/push controls. But one problem remains: when the telephone's battery is empty, it has to be wired up for recharging. This is now set to change. As from next year, Mercedes-Benz is to fit out its vehicles with wireless charging technology. The Mercedes announcement observed that “the magic word is ‘Qi’.” It appears that Qualcomm and Verizon agree, at least to some extent.