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Appears to open the door to permit you to optionally pay to get charging priority. That's actually efficient from an economic standpoint - if you don't care how long it takes, you won't pay. If you're in a hurry, you'll pay.
I could also see other priority schemes being created, e.g. priority for cars on a road trip (far from home) as opposed to local vehicles that visit regularly.
Finally, there’s been some inaccurate rumors flying around the web lately suggesting that Tesla has patented some sort of “new” type of Supercharger that splits power among the various Model S EVs that are plugged in. Those patents are years old and Tesla’s Supercharger have always been power splitters.
I noticed this in another thread. Seemed related to this discussion:
Details on Teslas First $35,000 Mobile Supercharging Station
Finally, there’s been some inaccurate rumors flying around the web lately suggesting that Tesla has patented some sort of “new” type of Supercharger that splits power among the various Model S EVs that are plugged in. Those patents are years old and Tesla’s Supercharger have always been power splitters.
constraint said:Does this patent include all charging or just L3 charging? One of the problems I have seen is the dedicated wiring for each individual L2 charger (EVSE). If I was a business owner and I wanted customers/employee's to have a chance to charge, I would prefer to just string up say 8 chargers in line and only wire 100A service (as an example) that could then be spread in any combination to any and all chargers. Say 1 spot is Iced, and another 2 spots have volts that are fully charged, It would be nice to take that entire 100 A of service to the remaining 5 chargers.
Lets upsize my example for a minute and say we have a 12 charger array with 200A of service. You are not going to wire each charger to be capable of the entire 200 A load. Hell Tesla's duel charger can only take 80A. You could size them for a max of say 40 A (10 kw). If you are a 3.3 kw leaf, well you get your max, if you are a duel charger tesla, sorry you only get 40 A on this array.I believe that when they filed the patent the concept was new. Apparently the USPTO thinks so too, or they wouldn't have issued the patent.
True, but traditionally every wire going to every charger has been sized for the capability of just that charger, and nothing has been making any sensible decisions about how much actual current to deliver across that wire. In your example, you'd have to wire every spot out of the 8 to be able to take the full 100A, even though most of the time you'd be delivering only 20A or less. And anyway, you're saying that now; I don't think it was that obvious a few years ago.
FIG. 4 graphically illustrates a possible use scenario of charger 300. This scenario is only meant to illustrate, not limit, how a charging system designed in accordance with the invention may be used to distribute power to two vehicles, “A” and “B”. The charging power provided to vehicles A and B are represented by curves 401 and 403, respectively. In this example, it is assumed that initially, at time t0, only vehicle A is coupled to charger 300, for example via charging port 313. As such, initially controller 321 couples the entire output, Pmax, to port 313. This is shown by the first portion of curve 401. Then, at time t1, vehicle B is coupled to charging port 314. In this example, from time t1 to time t2, vehicle B receives no charging power from port 314. This may be due to the priority given to vehicle A or for some other reason. At time t2, the power available from charger 300 is split between vehicles A and B, with vehicle A dropping to ⅔ Pmax and vehicle B receiving ⅓ Pmax. At time t3, the split of power from charger 300 to vehicles A and B is reversed, with vehicle A now receiving ⅓ Pmax and vehicle B now receiving ⅔ Pmax. This reversal may be due to vehicle A reducing its request for charging power. Alternately, and as discussed in detail below, controller 321may be using some other criteria for altering the distribution of power from charger 300 to the two vehicles. At time t4 all power, i.e., Pmax, is sent to vehicle B. This may be due, for example, to vehicle A being decoupled from charger 300 as a result of the batteries within vehicle A being completely charged.
Expanding this out based on the text of the patent, say that you have a charger that is capable of delivery 160 total amps, 80 amps max to each car. You could potentially have six cars coupled to the charger, and it could be delivering two cars 80 amps each and four cars 0 amps, or four cars at 40 amps and two cars at 0 amps, or one car at 80 amps four at 20 amps and one at 0 amps, or any other combination...
They're protecting themselves from other patents. There are at least two patents out there related to adjusting charge current based on load.
Doesn't sound like it they are intending it for Superchargers
Tesla's current Supercharger station allows only one vehicle per charger. The new patent will allow up to four per station.