Rivian already has a patent on Tesla's Cybertruck 'range extender' | Hacker News Reader

Rivian already has a patent on Tesla's Cybertruck 'range extender'

electrek.co

27 pointsmfiguiere33 comments

How is putting an extended battery pack in the bed of a truck novel enough to get a patent...? It seems so obvious and uninventive and we already do this with liquid fuels. Guess we'll have to see if Rivian wants to try and defend it and what the courts think about it

Sounds like a fun exercise to challenge Rivian's patent with prior art perhaps.

The patent seems to mostly be focused on the battery cooling mechanisms

I couldn't find the actual patent in a quick search, but the odds are extremely high that the patent isn't as general as it sounds. The title of the patent isn't relevant, it's the actual claims in the patent that matter. Odds are, those claims are for something pretty specific, like a special interconnect or something, not for the concept of extended battery packs.

But hey, you never know. The patent office has approved bad patents before. It's not impossible that this is an patent office error.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20190016231A1/en

https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/revealed-rivian-p...

The patent describes an “Electric Vehicle With Modular Removable Auxiliary Battery With Integrated Cooling”.

You need to read the claims. This patent could easily be circumvented, for instance, by making it a non-removable battery (i.e., it's installed afterwards but 'cannot' be removed...). There's probably other workarounds or loopholes but this patent seems relatively weak. I doubt Tesla will have any issues here.

The sole purpose of my comment was to state in a comment the information from the link that’s relevant to this discussion, which is what the new part of the patent, which I understand to be the cooling system. I know nothing about patent law.

It doesn't even matter if tesla did. This is a nothing burger even if it's true.

Rivian uses numerous patents from Tesla and the cost of using those patents is a mutually assured agreement to not sue if Tesla then uses your patents.

So even if Tesla used it, it's going to be be free to use

Even if they are very specific claims, it still can’t be something that would be obvious to the average automotive engineer trying to solve the problem. There needs to be some kind of inventive step involved.

Subjective concepts like "obvious" or "average engineer" are not in the equation. Is it a new thing? Is there prior art? That's why innovation pays and R&D is worth it.

“A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains.” 35 U.S.C. § 103.

The quote says "prior art must not be too similar as of filing date" which is reasonable. I guess there was no sufficient prior art that detailed coolant connectors and all that stuff ;)

> obvious to the average automotive engineer trying to solve the problem

That isn't the criteria by which non-obviousness is evaluated.

In addition to that, a lot of patents that seem obvious to those not experienced in reading and evaluating patents have subtle differentiation in the claims that narrow their scope in a manner sufficient enough to gain admission.

IANAL, yet, I have read and analyzed thousands of patents, filed dozens (with the help of patent attorneys) and have taken a couple of courses on patent prosecution from the USPTO and other sources.

Having said that, as an engineers, I do think that a huge body of patents ought to be summarily thrown out. I feel that a massive number of patents don't have one iota of real invention in them. This Rivian patent might very well be one of them.

In a lot of cases patents such as this one are filed and just to get to the freedom-to-operate threshold. In other words, to defend against being told that you can't do what you are doing because someone else has a patent that might cover it. This is how we end-up with millions of bullshit patents for things that just don't look like true invention to anyone in the field who has more than two functioning neurons in their head.

There's invention and then there are patents. The mistake I made as a young engineer was thinking that the two were equivalent. They are not. At all.

So many patents these days are old ideas described with very specific qualifiers to circumvent the prior art disqualifier.

The patent is probably for the specific implementation, not the general concept.

Send in the lawyers, they'll be the only ones laughing all the way to the banks.

It definitely does feel like the patent system has been gamified and also weaponized.

I’m not sure it is fixable.

I’d have expected a range extender to be a gas or diesel generator, a bit like the bmw i3, but removable

> I’d have expected a range extender to be a gas or diesel generator, a bit like the bmw i3, but removable

Run don't walk to the patent office with that idea! If Rivian can patentent the idea of an extra battery, your invention seems much more inventive!

A 5kw generator is about as much as an adult can lift into a pickup truck alone. Connect it to a charge port that allows charging while moving, and you can extend range by....

If it takes you 4 hours to drive 300 miles, in that time you would have added about 60 miles. (4 hours x 5kw x 3miles per kwh)

I'm not sure this battery pack is something you could lift into the vehicle alone, either-- estimates are it's 500 pounds) So 15kW + some fuel might be possible in less heft, which could get you 2.5x the range.

I'm still waiting for EVs that allow arbitrary charging while operating to allow things like this. Or some sort of PTO (power-take-on/off) system for rapid charging. Currently, one of the fastest ways to charge many EVs is to tow it while using its regenerative brakes.

Added generators wouldn't even need to be that good to completely obliterate FUD about limited range.

> Currently, one of the fastest ways to charge many EVs is to tow it while using its regenerative brakes.

I'd be interested to know which EVs this applies to. Leaf, Bolt maybe? Regen on the Bolt is just barely over the DC fast charge rate, and the Bolt is on the low end. For something like a Tesla or any other equivalently modern EV it won't even be close.

Tesla's can charge at 75kW from regen braking... not nearly as fast as supercharging, but pretty fast I'd say.

I remember reading one of the patents ford submitted in 2018 resembling a toolbox.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a34277725/ford-f-150-range...

Ford has a patent on this concept

Oddly it looks like the Dodge ramcharger is going to be an interesting version of that but the generator is not removable.

When reading patents, you have to ignore just-about everything and just read the claims. Some of the other part of the patent are often used in support of the claims when trying to interpret or understand them.

This patent covers a battery pack and a cooling system that either connects to the vehicle's main cooling system, connects to a secondary cooling system or has an independent cooling system.

Circumventing this patent (doing it a different way) is really easy. They missed at least two --if not three-- implementations that are not covered by what is being claimed.

Rivian won't enforce this as they want access to Tesla charging stations.

Rivian signed an agreement with Tesla recently to do just that and start next year.

How does this obvious garbage get patented, while most good parents are rejected?!

Ford has a patent on putting a generator in the bed for the same reason

Rivian is officially uncool if they beef about such a simple idea.

I have a "range extender" on my ebike, it's a freaking extra lawnmower battery in the rear panier.

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