The battery system on an electrical vehicle can either charge– from regenerative braking or an external power supply– or release– powering the EV's motor(s) or providing that power by means of so-called vehicle-to-load. As a guideline, it can't do both simultaneously, however General Motors has some ideas about that. The patent analysis website CarMoses found a current GM patent application for a system that can charging and releasing all at once.
The patent explains a “charging system” with a set of charging ports. One is for drawing power from an external source, much like every other EV. The 2nd charge port is linked to a bi-directional battery charger, and the battery management system has the ability to charge the battery pack from the very first port while likewise providing power from the 2nd port.
That 2nd port might be utilized to charge another battery, consisting of the battery of another EV, and the patent consists of an illustration of 3 EVs daisy-chained to each other.
Credit: USPTO
The concept of 2 charge ports on an EV is not unprecedented; Porsche's Taycan (and the associated Audi e-tron GT) have one on each side, and it's a choice on the more recent PPE-based EVs from those brand names, if I'm not incorrect. I have no concept whether GM's patent will reveal up on a production EV– cars and truck business patent lots of more concepts than they ever get around to structure.
And I need to confess, I'm not totally sure what the usage case is beyond seeing the length of time of an EV-centipede you might make by plugging one into another into another, and so on. I am fascinated.
