Wireless phone chargers in cars pretty much all suck. At worst, all they do is cook your phone to the point that it’s hot to the touch, and no more charged than when you got in the car. At best, your phone has gained 3% charge but is still stupidly hot to the touch.
That’s if you’re lucky. Most wireless phone chargers in cars come in the form of pads, and because everyone’s phone is shaped differently, those pads have to be large enough to accommodate bigger phones. Even with rubber surfaces, that means phones slide around, eliminating the charger’s efficacy.
Somehow, these issues have persisted for years. Toyota’s most recent design, where you put your phone in a slot in the center console, has been my favorite solution to this problem so far, but it still gets the phone pretty hot. Nissan has just revealed its own modern phone charging design, and it promises to fix both of these problems.
Source: Nissan
Nissan’s new design is called the Qi2 (pronounced chee-two, not que-eye-too). Like previous iterations of the wireless phone charger, it uses a rubberized mat as a base. But there’s a raised magnetized puck in the middle where you can mount your phone, so it can hold itself in place without sliding around the second you take a corner. From Nissan:
“With the magnetized puck-like surface, drivers can easily place their phone on the charger and know it’s working without needing to adjust it mid-drive,” said Angela Moon, a senior manager of Research and Development at Nissan Technical Center North America (NTCNA) in Farmington Hills, Michigan.
The magnetization doesn’t just help hold the phone in place; it helps it charge more efficiently.
“Proper alignment is critical when it comes to wireless charging,” said Matt Zimmerman, a manager of Research and Development at NTCNA. “Even a few millimeters can cause a big drop in performance. The magnetic puck helps ensure the phone is properly aligned to receive optimal charging – even with modern phones’ large cameras.”
Source: Nissan
Why it’s taken so long for any manufacturer to do something like this, I’m not sure. iPhones have had magnetized back plates since the iPhone 12, which was released in October 2020. But I’m glad it’s here now.
While the magnet solves the placement and charging issues, it doesn’t solve the heat problem. Nissan’s got a solution for that, too: a fan specifically for the charging area. While this isn’t a new idea, it is an effective one, according to the company:
“Thermal management has been a common challenge in earlier generations of wireless charging systems. The fan greatly reduces the amount of generated heat,” Moon said.
The benefits of the fan are twofold: By reducing the temperature, it not only helps prevent the risk of overheating – which can cause a phone to stop charging while it cools down – it also enhances efficiency.
“Simply put, a phone can charge faster when it’s cooler,” Moon said.
Source: Nissan
With these two features combined, Nissan promises consistent power delivery of 15 watts—around triple the power of previous-generation chargers, according to the company. That’s also a bit closer to what most car-mounted USB-C ports output, in case you were wondering. Nissan claims its new setup was able to get its test phone, an iPhone 14 Pro, from 10% charged to 90% charged in just 90 minutes, down from four hours.
This wireless charging pad will be available on 2026 Pathfinders and Muranos, so we won’t have to wait long to find out for ourselves whether Nissan’s claims are true. I’ve been let down by dozens of wireless phone chargers at this point in my career, so I really hope this time is different.
Top graphic images: Nissan; Insane Clown Posse/YouTube