CarCharging Files Patent Application to Enhance Inductive Electric Vehicle Charging Services

 
Car Charging Group, Inc., a nationwide provider of convenient electric vehicle charging services, announced the filing of a utility patent application (#13600058) with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for an inductive EV charging station in the form of a parking bumper. 

Transmitting the energy through a bumper, which is common in most parking lots, provides seamless and effortless charging, as it will only require the EV driver to park the car’s wheels near the charging apparatus.

Currently, most EV charging stations require a cord in order to plug in and charge the EV. These cords are typically 18 feet long and can be bulky for some EV drivers.  To eliminate the plug in cord, inductive charging methods, which utilize an electromagnetic field to transfer energy, have been introduced.  To charge the EV, rather than plugging in the cord, the EV must be placed in close proximity to the energy source providing the electricity.

Today, inductive charging equipment for EVs are primarily in the form of charging plates, on top of which EVs park.  The placement of the EV over the charging plates can be misaligned; therefore, reducing the efficiency of the charge. Additionally, for multi-level parking garages, the installation of the charging plates can cause structural issues, which causes the installation to be very expensive, if not impossible. To resolve these issues, and provide property owners and EV drivers with a simpler, less expensive solution, CarCharging conceived of the idea for an inductive parking bumper. This original invention intends to deliver the charge through equipment generally utilized in parking lots and/or parking garages, which is familiar to most drivers and conforms to standard parking practice.

“While current inductive charging options have eliminated the station’s plug in cord, they add alignment issues between the charging station and the EV, and installations can be extremely expensive, if not impossible,” said Michael D. Farkas, CEO of CarCharging.  “To reduce these obstacles, we believe that the energy source for the charge should be placed in the parking bumper.  The parking bumper is already standard to most parking lots, and it eases permitting issues because the installation is easier and the appearance of the parking spot is unchanged.”

CarCharging’s focus will be on the design and placement of the inductive EV charging station rather than the wireless energy transfer technology involved.  CarCharging plans to adapt the design of the inductive EV station to integrate with the magnetic coupling technology offered by providers such as Qualcomm, Delphi, Siemens, Evatran, and others that may enter the market.  CarCharging also intends to incorporate the charging standard currently being developed by the Society of Automotive Engineers International (“SAE”), which will establish the minimum performance and safety criteria for wireless charging, into the design of the inductive EV charging station.