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GM Patents Data Mining Method For Refining the Chevy Volt
An anonymous reader writes "A patent application published yesterday may show an important tool that GM is using to refine future models of the Volt and especially the future size of the Volt's battery. The application is directed to uploading driving habit data from a plurality of vehicles to a remote server via a telematics system (e.g., such as GM's OnStar) and then providing alternate fuel-related analysis based on different vehicle profiles (e.g., an EV with a 40-mile range). The application contemplates that this analysis may be valuable to vehicle designers or to operators for comparison purposes."
So, when it comes to Slashdot entries related to patents, I see three categories:
1, Patent applications for new interfaces for things like iPhones, where the patent app gives us insight into what a company is working on,
2, Following the actions and behavior of patent trolls,
3, Reporting on (and usually condemning) the way that corporations patent everything they possibly can.
Now, I'm not a fan of the behavior represented in category 3, but you'd think that there'd be a bit more understanding of how it's an inevitably consequence of the behavior in category 2. As for category 1...that's awesome, I dig it. :) But can we get in tune with the reality that organizations *have* to patent the hell out of everything, if only to protect themselves against some dickhead patenting it himself and trying to extort them?
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
When I was a kid I watched my Dad buy a few cars. You could customize a lot of things. Some of them were technical. You could even customize your rear differential ratio. The salesman would explain that to you if you didn't know.
I wasn't asked anything like that when I bought my first new car. Then again, it wasn't an American make so perhaps the big 3 dealers still do this?
Anyway, why not just offer different batteries as an option? If I've worked the same job for the past 5 years and it's a 10 mile commute, and I think I'll be working it for the next 5 years then why should I pay for a 30 mile battery that fits the "average driver"?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The Chevy Volt inherently has a complex use cycle. It can be plugged in for slow charge, fast charged, or fueled. Heating and air conditioning use matters a lot. So do hills. Info about the use cycle is needed to figure out the tradeoffs. Would adding 50% more battery capacity be a win or a lose? What about if battery prices dropped 20%?
The Volt's software notices if the gasoline engine isn't needed for 6 weeks or so, and prompts the driver to run the engine briefly, so it gets warmed up and rotated. If there's almost no fuel use in a year, it prompts you to run the engine and add some fresh gasoline (there's a shelf life problem). How many drivers hit those limits? Nobody knows yet.
For something like the Volt, with a somewhat large battery and a gas tank, the 40 miles on 99 days helps them size the battery and the 400 miles on the 1 day helps them size the tank.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Effective range is for what users MAY do, not what they DO do. Just because I only drive 40 miles a day 99 out 100 days doesn't mean I dont want to drive 400 miles on that 100th day.
Fair enough.
But are you willing to pay an extra several thousand dollars for a battery that'll get you the extra miles for that one day out of 100? Or would you be just as happy simply re-charging a few times along the way?
Does GM really need to outfit all its cars with batteries that can go 400 miles? Or can it maybe offer a model with a 200 mile battery instead?
Does GM need to focus on developing bigger batteries, because everybody winds up wanting to drive 400 miles? Or would that money be better spent on developing a quick-charge system that'll top off a battery in a few minutes, basically enabling the same kind of virtually-unlimited range that you get with a gasoline engine?
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
I used to watch Formula One races in the 80s and they had in-car computers sending wireless telemetry to the pits.
As for alternative fuel, I believe in these times most racing cars were using Jet fuel, ethanol or other crap like that.
HTML is obsolete. It's time for a new, simpler and richer markup language.
Great. Another overly broad patent to stifle innovation. Now anyone with an electric or alternative fuel vehicle who wants to transmit performance metrics (or even so much as graph them, see claim 6), will have to pay a license. In 2011 it should be obvious to anyone skilled in the art, any art whatsoever, that it is a good idea to transmit data from any device across a data network, any network, to a data processing device of any kind in order to glean useful information. Maybe in 1950 it was a novel idea, but not today.
I hope you are not an engineer, because if you are you should know that a big part of engineering is using resources as efficiently as possible to get the required task done.
I think its more an issue of finding your niche market. If only 10% car owners feel your car is suitable for them, you may have a problem. If that same 10% feel that your car is the absolute perfect fit and they wouldn't buy anything else, you've just got 1/10 cars on the road being yours. There is certainly a niche market for cars that won't take a long trip, but it doesn't mean its an impossible sale just because you "obarthelemy" don't want it. I could say the same thing about say "cargo vans" I don't need or would never buy one, but those who do need them, will buy them, so they sell very well.