Systems and methods for managing freshness of fuel in a vehicle
AssigneeToyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc.
InventorsJoshua D. Payne, Heraldo F. Stefanon
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Abstract
Systems and methods described herein relate to managing the freshness of the fuel in a vehicle. One embodiment tracks a freshness level of the fuel in the vehicle as time passes; determines a fuel consumption plan based, at least in part, on a predetermined refueling schedule for the vehicle and the freshness level of the fuel in the vehicle; and activates an internal combustion engine of the vehicle automatically on one or more occasions in accordance with the fuel consumption plan to consume at least a portion of the fuel.
Claims17
A system for managing freshness of fuel in a vehicle, the system comprising:
- one or more processors;
- and
- a memory communicably coupled to the one or more processors and storing:
- a fuel status tracking module including instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the one or more processors to:
- track a freshness level of a fuel in the vehicle as time passes;
- a route-prediction module including instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the one or more processors to determine a predicted route of the vehicle while the vehicle is operating in a manual driving mode by analyzing at least one of historical driving patterns and user calendar data;
- and
- a stale-fuel consumption module including instructions that when executed by the one or more processors cause the one or more processors to:
- determine a fuel consumption plan based, at least in part, on a predetermined refueling schedule for the vehicle and the freshness level of the fuel in the vehicle;
- and
- activate an internal combustion engine of the vehicle automatically on one or more occasions in accordance with the fuel consumption plan to consume at least a portion of the fuel, wherein a particular one of the one or more occasions is selected based, at least in part, on the predicted route of the vehicle.
A method of managing freshness of fuel in a vehicle, the method comprising:
- tracking a freshness level of a fuel in the vehicle as time passes;
- determining a fuel consumption plan based, at least in part, on a predetermined refueling schedule for the vehicle and the freshness level of the fuel in the vehicle;
- determining a predicted route of the vehicle while the vehicle is operating in a manual driving mode by analyzing at least one of historical driving patterns and user calendar data;
- and
- activating an internal combustion engine of the vehicle automatically on one or more occasions in accordance with the fuel consumption plan to consume at least a portion of the fuel, wherein a particular one of the one or more occasions is selected based, at least in part, on the predicted route of the vehicle.
A non-transitory computer-readable medium for managing freshness of fuel in a vehicle and storing instructions that when executed by one or more processors cause the one or more processors to:
- track a freshness level of a fuel in the vehicle as time passes;
- determine a fuel consumption plan based, at least in part, on a predetermined refueling schedule for the vehicle and the freshness level of the fuel in the vehicle;
- determine a predicted route of the vehicle while the vehicle is operating in a manual driving mode by analyzing at least one of historical driving patterns and user calendar data;
- and
- activate an internal combustion engine of the vehicle automatically on one or more occasions in accordance with the fuel consumption plan to consume at least a portion of the fuel, wherein the instructions include instructions to select a particular one of the one or more occasions based, at least in part, on the predicted route of the vehicle.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.