Ford Motor Company has filed a patent for a fleet storage management system that may be used in future Ford vehicles, Ford Authority has learned.
The patent was filed on December 22nd, 2022, published on November 5th, 2024, and assigned serial number 12136344.
The Ford Authority Take
With the Ford Pro commercial business division posting massive profits and growing by the day, it makes perfect sense that The Blue Oval wants to continue to innovate in that space. Ford Pro already offers a host of fleet management software that has proven to be useful for businesses and profitable for the automaker, and as such, we’ve seen a number of recent patent filings revolving around that area – including ideas for a fleet inspection and maintenance robot, as well as an obsolescence system that could help fleets determine where each vehicle stands in its respective lifecycle. Now, this newly published patent keeps that trend going with an idea for a fleet storage management system.
Once again, the concept behind this patent is to create more efficient ways to manage fleets, in this case, EVs, specifically. Since commercial EVs are used for a wide range of purposes – everything from delivering packages to hauling heavy loads – there are a lot of variables involved, especially when we consider the different climates they operate in. All of these things have an impact on range and battery degradation, and preconditioning the battery isn’t always possible in every circumstance, though it’s an effective way of preventing range loss in cold weather – if the vehicle is plugged in during that process, at least.
Thus, this fleet storage management system proposes a better way to optimize parking site resource allocation for battery electric vehicles, which would minimize the need for preconditioning and ensure that vehicles are ready to go when needed. It would do that by analyzing a fleet’s parking lot and the vehicles in it, then recommending where those vehicles are parked based on their state of charge and other factors. From there, fleet managers and users would be able to easily identify which vehicle to use for any specific purpose at any time, which would take some guesswork out of that process and save time.
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