DIY
Wireless Charging Cell Phone Mount for Your Tesla
It is quite common today to see vehicles on the road beside you with some kind of dash or windshield mounted cell phone mount. As the use of smart phones has grown, so too has the idea of using them as a GPS and navigation device.
Tesla has a fantastic navigation system built into the huge center touchscreen which might leave little reason for using a mobile device as your main source for navigation. However, many Tesla owners augment their onboard Nav with a windshield mounted mobile device powering Waze, a popular app that provides real-time crowd sourced traffic data. A phone mount also secures your mobile device while the vehicle is in motion, and can be placed at a convenient eye level.
Today I’ll be reviewing the Montar Air cell phone holder with built-in industry standard Qi wireless technology.
Holding
For this purpose, the single most important thing in a phone mount is that it sticks to the surface you want it to – be that your windshield glass or dashboard. The Montar Air Qi Wireless Charging phone mount excels in this area. The suction cup itself is made of a gel-like material that has a bit of a stickiness to it before the suction even comes into play. Initially, this caused a bit of alarm that the cup would leave a residue on our Tesla’s as yet unscathed black leather dash. After one brief use, it did not. Similarly, it left nothing of note on the glass windshield, which it also stuck to nicely.
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- This mount held on the Tesla’s dash without having to engage the suction cup by turning down the tab in the center of the base.
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- iPhone 6 in the Tesla Model S
The next important thing I wanted to test was that it worked with a variety of phones. It held my iPhone 6 with ease, as well as my bulky and thick Kyocera Torque. The Torque is meant to be very rugged and as a result is nearly 14 mm thick! That’s about double the iPhone 6. The phone mount held them both securely. The mount has one component that looks like a pair of feet. These feet, so to speak, click out to a customizable length to accommodate many phone sizes and easily retracts back in with the push of a release button on behind the mount. This same method is employed by the side arms that hug your phone. That release is on the top of the mount rather than on each side since unlike the feet, the arms are two separate pieces.
For testing sake, I tried to use this mount with a GoPro camera. These cameras are very small and without a case, the mount did not hold it. The mount does not claim to be able to accommodate a GoPro. I also tried this with a case on the GoPro, which makes it a bit larger. I was able to successfully hold the camera but not securely enough to record a video with an acceptable level of steadiness. With that in mind, it could probably take a photo if you desired to take a photo with a small action camera in this mount. Though with today’s high quality phone cameras and front-facing capability, I imagine one would rather just use this mount and take any needed pictures or videos with a smart phone.
Charging
What makes the Montar Air phone mount unique is that it also charges your phone. That is to say, you charge it and it charges your phone wirelessly assuming your phone is compatible with the Qi wireless charging protocol. This eliminates the need to plug in and unplug your phone itself if you desire a charge while on the road. I find that idea very convenient especially when uses such as GPS are so battery intensive. Note: this charging is only appropriate for phones equipped with Qi wireless charging capability. Since neither the Apple iPhone nor the Kyocera Torque will charge this way, I sought out a popular phone model that would: The Samsung Galaxy S6 Active. At a current state of charge of 39%, the phone screen estimated and displayed that it would take 2 hours and 12 minutes to charge. As expected, the mount adjusted easily to accommodate a snug hold for this phone model. A nice unexpected twist, however, was that the portion of the mount charge cable that plugs into your car lights up blue.
Ease of Use
The mount itself, once assembled, is very easy to use. The buttons on the rear of the mount that control the adjustable “feet” and “arms” work as intended without much pressure. They are placed in discreet yet reachable places. The mount itself is also made of a seemingly high quality and sturdy plastic, which gives me the impression that it will last. The ability to rotate the phone 360 degrees (assuming your placement accommodates it) is a nice bonus and the rotating mechanism is smooth yet provides enough resistance to keep the phone locked at your desired position. Every part of the product as a phone holder met or exceeded my expectations.
What’s Not So Great
Be it the fault of the mount itself, the size of phones today or a combination of both, I did not find a way to mount my iPhone 6 in portrait view on the dash without the windshield getting in the way. In order to accommodate that orientation, only a windshield mounted position worked.
Also, the instructions that came with the mount were fairly terrible. The product came in the box as two pieces but did not make mention of how to get the two together. Fortunately, I figured it out in a reasonable amount of time but there is no reason the small instruction packet should not have included it. You needed to remove a round gasket from the portion where the ball joint would be inserted in order to fit in the ball joint, then re-secure the gasket. Perhaps this would have been more obvious to some but I find failing to direct a customer on the most basic action required to being using a product is inexcusable.
Verdict
This substantial base makes this mount sturdy and reliable, plus the smooth plastic gives it a sleek and high quality look. The charging capability works as advertised and the blue glow of the plug was nice, even if it did contrast with the red coloring of the mount’s phone base. At a retail cost of $99.99, this product is priced higher than other Qi capable car phone mounts but for its price you get a product that looks to be more sturdy than those that may cost 20% less. If I were a frequent user of my phone as a GPS unit I would certainly want the mount to be of a high quality and sturdy, but would only choose this one if my phone was compatible with the wireless Qi charging.
Back in 2019, YouTuber Simone Giertz, the self-proclaimed “Queen of Sh*tty Robots,” created a one-off Tesla Model 3 build that took the automotive world by storm. Fondly dubbed as “Truckla,” Giertz noted that the vehicle was actually her dream car — as crazy as that may sound.
Now almost four years later, the YouTuber posted an update on Truckla. And just like every other big project that one probably started, Giertz stated that she actually stopped working on Truckla when the vehicle was about 80% complete. The car is driving though, but a lot of stuff was not really working very well.
Thus, for her Truckla update, Giertz shared how most of her Model 3 pickup truck conversion was essentially completed. Truckla got a lot of detailing done, she got a slight lift, and she now has a functional tailgate. One has to admit, Truckla’s tailgate is pretty darn cool.
The “Queen of Sh*tty Robots” also opted to give Truckla a friend in the form of an automatic robot charger. Unlike Tesla’s rather interesting snake charger from years past, Truckla’s charger would come in the form of a rover, thanks to her friends at robotics platform Viam. Giertz aptly named Truckla’s robot charger friend “Chargela,” which is an appropriate name for such an invention.
Also true to form for Giertz, Chargela’s first encounter with Truckla was just a tiny bit awkward. One could say that Chargela may have just been a little bit nervous on his first try without human hands helping him. Most importantly, the system did work, so Giertz would likely keep using Chargela for her Model 3 pickup.
Teslas are very tech-heavy vehicles, so projects like Giertz’s Truckla are always remarkable. The fact that the Model 3 works perfectly fine despite having a good chunk of it cut off and turned into a pickup truck bed is mighty impressive any way one looks at it. Overall, Truckla will always be one of the coolest Tesla DIY projects to date, so any updates about the vehicle are always appreciated.
Truckla’s nearly four-year update can be viewed below.
Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.
A Tesla owner is taking his hobby and love for electric vehicles to new levels by creating what could only be described as one of the coolest EV-related DIY projects to date. The idea for the project is simple: what happens when you cross a supercar with the Cybertruck? You end up with a two-seater CyberRoadster.
Tesla owner David Andreyev, who goes by the username @Cyber_Hooligan_ on Twitter, has spent the last few months creating a Cybertruck-inspired version of the next-generation Roadster made from a salvaged Model 3 Performance. Starting with a Model 3 Performance is an inspired choice, considering that it is Tesla’s first vehicle that has a dedicated Track Mode.
A look at Andreyev’s YouTube channel, which can be accessed here, shows the meticulous build that the Tesla owner has implemented on the project car. What’s particularly cool about the CyberRoadster is the fact that it’s being built with parts that are also from other Tesla vehicles, like its front bumper that came from a new Model S. Recent videos suggest that the project car’s rear bumper will be from a new Model S as well.
The journey is long for Andreyev, so the completion of the CyberRoadster will likely take some more time. Despite this, seeing the Tesla owner’s DIY journey on such an epic build is more than satisfying. And considering that the CyberRoadster is evidently a labor of love from the Tesla owner, the final results would likely be extremely worth it.
There’s a lot of crazy Tesla modifications that have been done as of late. But some, as it is with a lot of things on the internet these days, have become more silly gimmicks than serious automotive projects. Fortunately, car enthusiasts like Andreyev, who just happen to also love electric vehicles, are taking it upon themselves to create one-of-a-kind EVs that would surely capture the attention of anyone on the road.
Check out the latest video in the CyberRoadster’s creation below.
Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.
A Tesla owner has demonstrated a rather novel way to charge his Model 3. In a recent video, Sean Callaghan of the ItsYeBoi YouTube channel opted to use a series of off-the-shelf solar panel sheets onto a towable trailer to create a mobile charging unit for his all-electric sedan.
Callaghan planned to use only the sun and the solar sheets purchased from e-commerce platform Wish to charge his Model 3. The solar panel sheets would collect energy from the sun and transfer it to a control panel. The control panels were connected to batteries that would hold the energy—the batteries connected to an inverter, which would then charge the Tesla Model 3.
The entire assembly would provide the Model 3 with about 800 watts of energy on a completely sunny day. However, Callaghan shot the video when weather was overcast, so the entire solar panel trailer build only managed to provide around 300 watts throughout the YouTube host’s test.
To put this into perspective, a 100 volt home wall outlet provides 1.4 kilowatts of power, or 1,400 watts. Therefore, the 300-watt solar panel assembly built by Callaghan was producing less than 25% of the energy of a typical wall outlet. This is pretty marginal compared to Tesla’s 250-kilowatt V3 Superchargers, which provides 250,000 watts, or about 833 times as much power as the makeshift solar panel build.
However, Callaghan’s goal was not to charge the vehicle quickly. He explained the idea came from a previous video where he used a $5,000 Wish-purchased wind turbine to charge his Model 3. He wanted to test the effectiveness and efficiency of the system, which was questionable due to the time it would take to charge the battery fully.
The Model 3 battery pack is 78 kWh, and with Callaghan’s 300-watt system charging his electric vehicle, it would take 260 hours to supply the Tesla’s battery to full capacity.
In the past, electric vehicle enthusiasts have asked Tesla CEO Elon Musk why the company’s vehicles do not contain solar glass roofing, which would charge the car while the owner is driving. Musk has explained that the efficiency of this idea is challenging and likely would not provide an ample amount of range.
When asked about the idea of putting solar panels on the top of Tesla’s vehicles in 2017, Musk responded that the idea was “Not that helpful, because the actual surface of the car is not that much, and cars are often inside. The least efficient place to put solar is on the car.” It also would not be cost-effective for Tesla because “the cost of the panels and electronics, R&D and assembly would never pay for itself in the life of the vehicle, compared to charging from the wall in your garage,” Quartz noted.
That being said, Tesla plans to implement solar panels onto the motorized tonneau of the upcoming Cybertruck. The idea was discussed on Twitter when Musk stated that the optional feature would add “15 miles per day, possibly more” when parked in the sunlight. Also, fold-out solar wings could help capture enough solar energy for 30 to 40 miles a day.
Watch Sean Callaghan’s video of his makeshift solar panel trailer below.
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