Compartmentalized Electric Vehicle (EV) Having Attached Compartments with Separate Power Systems
AssigneeState Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company
InventorsAaron Williams, Joseph Robert Brannan, John Donovan, Brian N. Harvey
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Methods and systems for power transfer and routing in a compartmentalized electric vehicle (EV) having detachable compartments, and for handing off a load from one EV to another EV for delivering the load to a destination are described herein. Each detachable compartment in the compartmentalized EV may have a separate power supply, motor, set of wheels, and/or autonomous operation features. The detachable compartments may attach to each other, such that each of the detachable compartments combine to form a compartmentalized EV that travels to a particular location.
Claims20
A compartmentalized electric vehicle (EV) having a plurality of attached compartments each configured to operate separately from other compartments, the EV comprising:
- a plurality of detachable compartments, each detachable compartment including:
- a power supply;
- a motor;
- a set of wheels;
- and
- one or more autonomous operation features,
- wherein the plurality of detachable compartments are attached to each other to travel to a same location.
A computer-implemented method in a compartmentalized electric vehicle (EV) for delivering loads to a plurality of final destinations, the method comprising:
- causing a compartmentalized EV, by one or more processors in the compartmentalized EV having a plurality of detachable compartments, each detachable compartment including a power supply, a motor, a set of wheels, and one or more autonomous operation features, to travel to an intermediate destination within a threshold range of a plurality of final destinations;
- and
- in response to arriving at the intermediate destination, causing at least one of the plurality of detachable compartments, by one or more processors in the detachable compartment, to detach from the compartmentalized EV and to deliver a first load in the detachable compartment to a first final destination of the plurality of final destinations.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.