News
Wireless charging hotspots let drones fly forever through in-air recharges
A Portland, Oregon-based company named Global Energy Transmission (GET) is developing a network of wireless charging hotspots for drones. With only six minutes hovering over a grid for a full charge, an electric industrial class drone can repeat the cycle of charging and flying until its battery is drained without ever having to land or connect to a cable using this technology. GET’s long-term vision includes a cell-tower like infrastructure comprising numerous charging stations, enabling indefinite flying time for drones in the network. If successful, this technology could reinvent the commercial drone industry, providing 24/7 solutions in dedicated areas for things like deliveries, monitoring, and security.
Per GET’s website, the drone built for the charging network technology weighs about 18 lbs without the battery, can carry about 15 lbs, and can fly for 28 minutes weighing 30 lbs at takeoff. The maximum flying speed is around 37 mph, and servicing of the drone is recommended every 300-1000 flight hours. The maximum power transmitted during the charging stage is 12kW – it consumes 1550W while hovering.
Overall, the GET charging grid looks generally like a hexagonal frame raised onto poles with wires laced throughout. Spanning 26 feet across, the frame’s size is designed to enable multiple drones to charge simultaneously. A working prototype of the full system has already been showcased, and numerous videos are also available for anyone interested in more detail about the development team’s process. One such video lasts over two hours to demonstrate multiple battery-drains and in-air recharges on a continuous feed.
Drones are currently being used to provide numerous consumer solutions in a wide variety of markets. Along with video and photography, these small flying crafts are being utilized or developed for places like the construction industry for mapping and site monitoring, search and rescue missions, and even transporting organs between hospitals. Of course, the short life span of a drone battery – about 22 minutes in most cases – is well known to drone pilots, making the potential for a wireless charging network an innovative opportunity. According to William R. Kallman, GET’s US Director and partner from the Draper Network in a recent interview, their technology could also be scaled up to transfer 200 kW of power in the future, putting drone taxis within the realm of GET’s potential customer base.
GET announced its charging system at the AUVSI Xponential May 2018 show in Denver, Colorado and made an appearance at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show 2019 in Las Vegas. While the company is officially based in the US, there is also a branch office and engineering center in Moscow, Russia. Their executives, as well as most of its team, are originally from Moscow with backgrounds in physics and chemical engineering, among others.
The company is currently taking pre-orders for its GET Air™ solution which will include a wireless power charger, a 26-foot diameter charging area/grid, and two GET Air™ industrial class drones with pre-installed wireless charging systems. Expansions are also available, including an Autonomous Power Module for independent power supply to charging stations with limited or no access to electricity. Operational and maintenance support are included, all for a package price of $120,000.
Watch the below video to see the GET drone charging system in action with some further details by their CEO:
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) closed at an all-time high on Tuesday, jumping over 3 percent during the day and finishing at $489.88.
The price beats the previous record close, which was $479.86.
Shares have had a crazy year, dipping more than 40 percent from the start of the year. The stock then started to recover once again around late April, when its price started to climb back up from the low $200 level.
This week, Tesla started to climb toward its highest levels ever, as it was revealed on Sunday that the company was testing driverless Robotaxis in Austin. The spike in value pushed the company’s valuation to $1.63 trillion.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
It is the seventh-most valuable company on the market currently, trailing Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.
Shares closed up $14.57 today, up over 3 percent.
The stock has gone through a lot this year, as previously mentioned. Shares tumbled in Q1 due to CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which pulled his attention away from his companies and left a major overhang on their valuations.
However, things started to rebound halfway through the year, and as the government started to phase out the $7,500 tax credit, demand spiked as consumers tried to take advantage of it.
Q3 deliveries were the highest in company history, and Tesla responded to the loss of the tax credit with the launch of the Model 3 and Model Y Standard.
Additionally, analysts have announced high expectations this week for the company on Wall Street as Robotaxi continues to be the focus. With autonomy within Tesla’s sights, things are moving in the direction of Robotaxi being a major catalyst for growth on the Street in the coming year.
Elon Musk
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs says.
Tesla is in the process of rolling out its Robotaxi platform to areas outside of Austin and the California Bay Area. It has plans to launch in five additional cities, including Houston, Dallas, Miami, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.
However, the company’s expansion is not what the focus needs to be, according to Delaney. It’s the speed of deployment.
The analyst said:
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Profitability will come as the Robotaxi fleet expands. Making that money will be dependent on when Tesla can initiate rides in more areas, giving more customers access to the program.
There are some additional things that the company needs to make happen ahead of the major Robotaxi expansion, one of those things is launching driverless rides in Austin, the first city in which it launched the program.
This week, Tesla started testing driverless Robotaxi rides in Austin, as two different Model Y units were spotted with no occupants, a huge step in the company’s plans for the ride-sharing platform.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
CEO Elon Musk has been hoping to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis in Austin for several months, first mentioning the plan to have them out by the end of 2025 in September. He confirmed on Sunday that Tesla had officially removed vehicle occupants and started testing truly unsupervised rides.
Although Safety Monitors in Austin have been sitting in the passenger’s seat, they have still had the ability to override things in case of an emergency. After all, the ultimate goal was safety and avoiding any accidents or injuries.
Goldman Sachs reiterated its ‘Neutral’ rating and its $400 price target. Delaney said, “Tesla is making progress with its autonomous technology,” and recent developments make it evident that this is true.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets bold Robotaxi prediction from Wall Street firm
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) received a bold Robotaxi prediction from Morgan Stanley, which anticipates a dramatic increase in the size of the company’s autonomous ride-hailing suite in the coming years.
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Percoco dug into the Robotaxi fleet and its expansion in the coming years in his latest note, released on Tuesday. The firm expects Tesla to increase the Robotaxi fleet size to 1,000 vehicles in 2026. However, that’s small-scale compared to what they expect from Tesla in a decade.
Tesla expands Robotaxi app access once again, this time on a global scale
By 2035, Morgan Stanley believes there will be one million Robotaxis on the road across multiple cities, a major jump and a considerable fleet size. We assume this means the fleet of vehicles Tesla will operate internally, and not including passenger-owned vehicles that could be added through software updates.
He also listed three specific catalysts that investors should pay attention to, as these will represent the company being on track to achieve its Robotaxi dreams:
- Opening Robotaxi to the public without a Safety Monitor. Timing is unclear, but it appears that Tesla is getting closer by the day.
- Improvement in safety metrics without the Safety Monitor. Tesla’s ability to improve its safety metrics as it scales miles driven without the Safety Monitor is imperative as it looks to scale in new states and cities in 2026.
- Cybercab start of production, targeted for April 2026. Tesla’s Cybercab is a purpose-built vehicle (no steering wheel or pedals, only two seats) that is expected to be produced through its state-of-the-art unboxed manufacturing process, offering further cost reductions and thus accelerating adoption over time.
Robotaxi stands to be one of Tesla’s most significant revenue contributors, especially as the company plans to continue expanding its ride-hailing service across the world in the coming years.
Its current deployment strategy is controlled and conservative to avoid any drastic and potentially program-ruining incidents.
So far, the program, which is active in Austin and the California Bay Area, has been widely successful.
Tesla stock closes at all-time high on heels of Robotaxi progress
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
