Wiferion now belongs to Tesla

Tesla has just completed the planned acquisition of German inductive charging technology specialist Wiferion announced in June. According to its website imprint, the Freiburg-based company now operates as Tesla Engineering Germany GmbH.

Last month, we reported the confirmation from two of the German startup’s investors that the company’s founders had made an exit and shareholders were selling their shares to Tesla International B.V. Now, the German publication Teslamag reports that the purchase price is likely to have been $76 million (around 68.9 million euros), referring to an entry in the current Tesla quarterly report, where that same amount is entered under the category of “business combinations”. Since Tesla is not known to have made any other acquisitions in the second quarter of 2023, “the entire sum could have flowed to the former Wiferion shareholders,” surmises Teslamag.

Wiferion describes itself as “the leading provider of automated, contactless energy transfer in the industry.” The German startup primarily provides inductive charging devices for robots but also electric vehicles. Founded in 2016, Wiferion charging stations have been on the market since 2018. Since then, the company says it has sold around 8,000 product units.

Teslamag also points out that the business purpose of the Freiburg-based specialist has been changed over the course of the acquisition. Wiferion used to focus mainly on industrial customers with its inductive charging systems, such as driverless transport systems, robots and forklifts. Now – according to the entry in the German Commercial Registry – Tesla Engineering Germany GmbH is dedicated to the development, manufacture and distribution of “products and services in the field of power electronics and other technical disciplines to support the development of electric vehicles and stationary energy storage systems and devices, power generation systems and devices, including solar modules, solar electric systems and/or other solar energy conversion technologies and, in general, all other power generation systems, related products and related parts.”

The renaming of the company appears to be ongoing. At the time of publication, although Tesla Engineering Germany GmbH is named in the imprint, the URL and the logo on the website are still in Wiferion’s original look. It has not yet been made public whether Tesla will continue to operate the new subsidiary under the old brand name for some time.

teslamag.de (in German)