Ford patent application particulars mobile, towing charging stations

Patent programs are enjoyment, if only to see exactly where automaker engineers’ heads are at from time to time — and this just lately revealed application from Ford demonstrates it’s imagining about new techniques to demand electric powered cars. And it revolves all-around towing them.

The Push initially noticed this patent application for “Battery charging by towed regenerative braking,” filed by Ford World Technologies on Dec. 23, 2020 but printed July 1, which imagines EV motorists hooking up to a much larger transport car or truck to flat-tow the EV and demand it. There are two strategies the files depth this operation. The 1st is to demand the EV all the time while a semi, RV or other massive motor vehicle motors alongside. In this situation, the vehicle charging the EV adjusts to the street and slows the demand when the motor will come below extra load.

The second possibility is to cost the EV beneath braking or when the guide car is heading downhill. These are prime cases for regenerative braking to dump electrons back again into a battery pack, anyway. Selection 1 seems a minimal funky, to be straightforward it appears like EV motorists would use semis and other substantial automobiles as rolling turbines. As charging infrastructure continues to be sparse in lots of locations, while, I suppose it can be not a undesirable concept.

Like we usually say with patent apps, automakers file them all the time for very simple and wild thoughts. The existence of a patent in no way guarantees a technique or widget will come from it. So, we’ll have to wait and see if Ford decides to make tow-charging a point.