Wireless Power Transfer Techniques for Electric Vehicle Charging: Feasibility and Efficiency Analysis

Abstract

Wireless power transfer (WPT) has emerged as a transformative paradigm for charging electric vehicles (EVs), offering contactless energy delivery, enhanced safety, and the potential for seamless dynamic charging along road corridors. This paper presents a comprehensive feasibility and efficiency analysis of the dominant WPT techniques applicable to EV charging—inductive power transfer (IPT), magnetic resonance coupling (MRC), capacitive power transfer (CPT), permanent magnet coupling (PMC), and radio-frequency (RF)-based methods—through a unified analytical and simulation framework. A lumped-parameter coupled-circuit model was implemented in Python 3.11 using NumPy and SciPy to evaluate system efficiency as a function of coil air-gap distance (50–300 mm), lateral misalignment (0–150 mm), and angular offset (0–45°). Monte Carlo analysis with n = 2,000 trials quantified efficiency uncertainty under ±5% component tolerance. Simulation results reveal that MRC achieves a peak efficiency of 95.8% at 50 mm air gap, while IPT delivers 93.8% under identical conditions; both degrade significantly beyond 200 mm. A two-dimensional efficiency heatmap demonstrates that lateral offset exceeding 100 mm causes IPT efficiency to fall below the SAE J2954 WPT2 class threshold of 85%. Regulatory compliance mapping against SAE J2954, IEC 61980, ISO 19363, ETSI EN 303 417, and FCC Part 18 confirms feasibility for static deployments up to 22 kW. A Python-based ten-year total cost of ownership (TCO) model demonstrates that static IPT at 3.3 kW achieves payback in 4.8 years versus a conductive Level 2 baseline, while dynamic WPT requires 14.2 years and public co-investment. Six original figures—including system block diagram, efficiency-vs-gap curves, misalignment heatmap, multi-criteria radar chart, TCO comparison, and Monte Carlo distributions—are presented to support the analysis. These findings provide actionable design and policy guidance for engineers and policymakers advancing EV charging infrastructure