In one aspect, a system and method for battery conditioning of a vehicle are disclosed. The system comprises receivers configured to collect driving route information of the vehicle, battery state information of the vehicle and battery conditioning mode setup state information, and a controller configured to determine whether or not the vehicle enters battery conditioning control based on the driving route information of the vehicle, the battery state information of the vehicle and the battery conditioning mode setup state information received from the receivers and to control a battery temperature adjuster so as to adjust a temperature of the battery in advance before charging the battery during the battery conditioning control.

Informed towing is provided. Towing information is identified, by a towing vehicle, with respect to a towed vehicle to be towed by the towing vehicle. A towed configuration of the towed vehicle is monitored. Responsive to the towed configuration of the towed vehicle being incorrect according to the towing information, a warning is displayed in the HMI indicating the incorrect towing configuration.

A computer-implemented method and computer program product for directing a driver of an electric vehicle to a point of interest and a charging station in close proximity to the point of interest. The method includes the steps of: (a) receiving from a user a requested activity of interest; (b) identifying one or more points of interest matching the requested activity of interest and that are within a pre-determined point of interest range from the electric vehicle; (c) identifying charging stations within a pre-determined station distance from each of the identified points of interest; and (d) presenting to the user the identified points of interest having an identified charging station within the pre-determined station distance. The computer program is configured to perform the aforementioned steps.

Embodiments described herein relate to predicting the utilization of electric vehicle (EV) charge points. Methods may include: receiving an indication of a plurality of candidate locations for EV charge points; determining static map features of the plurality of candidate locations; inputting the plurality of candidate locations and static map features into a machine learning model, where the machine learning model is trained on existing EV charge point locations, existing EV charge point static map features, and existing EV charge point utilization; determining, based on the machine learning model, a predicted utilization of an EV charge point at the plurality of candidate locations; and generating a representation of a map including the plurality of candidate locations, where candidate locations of the plurality of candidate locations are visually distinguished based on a respective predicted utilization of an EV charge point at the candidate locations.

A method for operating an electric vehicle, in which an automatic unlocking function for a vehicle-side charging interface is activated if it is established on the basis of an ascertained position of the electric vehicle that the electric vehicle is arranged at a public charging column. The activated automatic unlocking function effectuates automatic unlocking of the charging interface as soon as a charging procedure of the electric vehicle is ended and thus a charging cable connected to the vehicle-side charging inter-face is released. The invention furthermore relates to a control device for an electric vehicle.

Systems and methods may coordinate and provide bidirectional energy transfer events between electrified vehicles and other vehicles, devices, and/or structures. A power outage map can automatically be generated in response to a power outage condition of a grid power source. Both a power outage zone and a predicted power outage zone may be identified within the power outage map. A notification, alternative drive route recommendation, etc. may be sent to users of the bidirectional energy transfer system who are operating their vehicles near the power outage zone or the predicted power outage zone.

A system for navigating a vehicle automatically from a current location to a destination location without a human operator is provided. The system of the vehicle includes a global positioning system (GPS) for identifying a vehicle location and a communications system for communicating with a server of a cloud system. The server is configured to identify that the vehicle location is near or at a parking location. The communications system is configured to receive mapping data for the parking location from the server, and the mapping data is at least in part used to find a path at the parking location to avoid a collision of the vehicle with at least one physical object when the vehicle is automatically moved at the parking location. The mapping data is processed by electronics of the vehicle so that when the vehicle is automatically moved collision with the at least one physical object is avoided and the electronics of the vehicle is configured to process a combination of sensor data obtained by sensors of the vehicle. The processing of the sensor data uses image data obtained from one or more cameras and light data obtained from one or more optical sensors.

An access control system for electric vehicle charging is provided that includes an access device, a secure reservation interface, a reservation server and a smartphone application installed on the smartphone. The access device includes a short-range wireless communication module connected to a processor having control of an electric vehicle charger. The secure reservation interface receives a reservation request for a reservation at a given destination. The reservation server receives the reservation request for the destination, issues a reservation certificate, and transmits the reservation certificate from the reservation server to a smartphone. The smartphone application has access to a short range wireless communication setting corresponding to the access device. The access device receives the reservation certificate from the smartphone application based on use by the smartphone application of the short-range wireless communication setting. The processor activates the electric vehicle charger based on at least the receipt of the reservation certificate.

A vehicle comprising an electrically driven wheel axle having at least two road wheels, an electric machine for providing propulsion power to the wheel axle, and a control unit configured to obtain positional data of the vehicle, the positional data containing information about the geographical location of the vehicle or the location of the vehicle relative to a reference point/area. Upon determination by the control unit that the vehicle's current location is a location where propelling by providing electric propulsion to the wheel axle is not permitted, the control unit is configured to generate an output signal which automatically causes, or which suggests via a user interface notification to cause, a temporary disablement of the wheel axle and the at least two road wheels from providing a contribution to the propulsion power that propels the vehicle. A method of controlling a vehicle is also disclosed.

A system and method for locking a charging port to charge an electric vehicle that includes determining that the electric vehicle is located within a predetermined distance of a charging station and determining when the charging port of an electric vehicle supply equipment of the charging station is attached to the electric vehicle to actively charge the electric vehicle. The system and method also include determining if the charging station accesses a parking citation associated with parking of the electric vehicle if the electric vehicle is not attached to the charging port. The system and method additionally include locking the charging port to the electric vehicle to disallow decoupling of the charging port from the electric vehicle by an unauthorized individual to avoid the parking citation.