Normal Motors is alternative ways to make the most of electric-vehicle bidirectional charging functionality and a number of cost ports, a newly surfaced patent submitting exhibits.
Revealed by the US Patent and Trademark Workplace (USPTO) Dec. 26, 2024, after being submitting by GM Jun. 22, 2023, the doc offers much less with particular {hardware} and extra with utilization schemes and management methods—and methods to stability present out and in of various cost ports.
What it may result in is a better flexibility for charging or discharging EVs at any given time, as vitality storage units.
GM lays out just a few examples of how this functionality could be mixed with a number of cost ports, together with utilizing one port to cost an EV whereas utilizing the second port to ship energy to an exterior energy-storage system.
Normal Motors multi-port bidirectional charging patent picture
One other chance is “daisy-chained” automobiles, with just one automobile truly plugged into a standard charging station. That automobile would then be linked to a second automobile by way of its different cost port. That second automobile may in flip be used to cost a 3rd automobile in the same method, in response to GM.
It will require a brand new technology of cost controllers, the patent underscores, and a brand new vary of eager about how folks will use bidirectional charging functionality. A fleet of appropriate automobiles could be required as effectively.
GM has expanded bidirectional charging throughout its lineup, however solely with one cost port as of but. It is already laid out what massive electrical vans may have the ability to do with a number of cost ports in a separate patent submitting, although.
Normal Motors multi-port bidirectional charging patent picture
Ford has additionally, in a patent, beforehand laid out what a number of cost ports may accomplish. That features connecting a number of EVs in sequence, just like what GM is discussing right here.
Different automakers, resembling Tesla, have additionally mentioned including bidirectional charging functionality, whereas Volvo has shifted that functionality right into a separate vitality enterprise. But it surely may take mandates like the one proposed by California to additional scale up bidirectional charging—and unlock among the prospects GM apparently sees within the tech.
