Abstract:
A energy meter unit for an electric vehicle contains energy measuring circuitry, a GPS unit, a CPU, and memory. The energy meter unit is capable of detecting the amount of energy charged at a specific location and storing that information for later uses, such as with a governmental incentive program.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     The present provisional application relates to an apparatus and method for tracking energy charging characteristics in an electric vehicle. 
     Many governmental bodies are introducing incentive programs as an effort to convince people to utilize alternative fuel cars such as electric vehicles. Among these incentive programs are programs which allow people to receive a discount or other credit for electricity they use to energy their electric cars. Since electric cars can be charged at any location, and not only at designated “charging stations,” it is desirable to differentiate between electric energy used for charging the vehicle and energy used for other purposes. In addition to differentiating between energy used for general purposes and energy used to charge the vehicle, it is desirable to track the energy used to charge the vehicle in order to properly benefit from the incentive systems. 
     Without a device capable of differentiating between energy used for charging an electric vehicle and energy used for other unrelated purposes, as well as tracking and reporting the energy used for charging, electric car owners are restricted to charging their electric car at designated charging stations in order to receive the benefits of any incentive programs. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention provides a device which can track the amount of energy used to charge an electric vehicle in a specific location. The device can then associate the amount of energy charged with the location where the energy was charged, and report this information to a data collection unit. The energy used to charge the vehicle may be billed at a discounted rate to the extent it can be verified that the energy was used to charge the vehicle. 
     A method disclosed herein includes the steps of determining an amount of energy sent to the battery and determining an amount of energy stored by the battery. An amount of energy lost is determined based upon the determination of the energy sent to the battery and the determination of the amount of energy stored by the battery. These and other features of the present invention can be best understood from the following specification and drawings, of which the following is a brief description. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  illustrates a vehicle with an energy meter installed. 
         FIG. 2  illustrates an example energy meter unit. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
     Referring to  FIG. 1 , an energy meter unit  14  for an electric vehicle  12  can be placed inside the vehicle  12 . The vehicle  12  includes one or more batteries  16  for driving one or more motors  18  for driving the wheels of the vehicle  12 . The energy meter unit  14  monitors energy received from a charging station or energy source  19  used to charge the battery  16 . The energy source  19  could be a specialized charging station or household electrical outlet (or household  220  line). A specialized charging station may include an identification module  17 , that communicates the identification (e.g. location) of the energy supplier/charging station to the energy meter unit  14 . The energy meter unit  14  may connect to the vehicle  12  on-board diagnostics (OBD) port  15 . 
     The energy meter unit  14  contains a GPS unit  38  which is capable of communicating with GPS satellites  26 , thereby determining the location of the vehicle  12  at any given time. The energy meter unit  14  is also capable of communicating stored information with a data collection unit  24  (e.g. server on a wide-area network, such as the internet), either through a user computer  28  with an internet connection  22 , or through another connection to the data collection unit  24 , such as a wireless network  20 . 
     Referring to  FIG. 2 , an example embodiment of the energy meter unit  14  is depicted. The energy meter unit  14  has a GPS module  38  (or other location-determining hardware, such as cell-tower triangulation, or accelerometers, speedometer, compass, and other dead-reckoning hardware and software, etc), energy measuring circuitry  36 , a central processing unit  30 , and a memory  32 . The example of  FIG. 2  can also include a connector  42  which can connect into a vehicle&#39;s data bus and a data transmission module  40 . 
     The data transmission module  40  can be a wireless transmission device (wi-fi, 802.11, gprs, cell phone transceiver, Bluetooth, or rf transmitter, satellite communication module, or the like), removable storage media (usb, flash memory, hard drive, etc), or some other form of transferring data. It is additionally possible to include a communication device  34  which is capable of communicating with an electricity meter at an energy supply (e.g., a charging station). The communication device  34  can obtain information regarding the specific energy supplier and forward that information to the CPU  30 . For example, if a user charged their car using a recharging station at 1234 Main Street, the communication device  34  would connect to a compatible device in the charging station, obtain the identifying information, and tell the CPU  30  that a recharge of a certain amount occurred at 1234 Main Street. 
     In the above described system, as soon as the battery  16  is connected to an energy source  19  for charging, the energy meter unit  14  measures and registers a battery&#39;s energy level. The energy meter unit  14  then monitors the energy level of the battery  16  and an amount of energy delivered by the energy source  19  throughout the charging session resulting in data representing total energy used in the charging session, energy stored in the battery, or any other desired energy statistic. 
     The energy meter unit  14  can also connect to the vehicle data bus (e.g. ODB  15 ) to determine and record any identifying information such as the vehicle identification number (VIN) of the vehicle  12 . Based on this, the energy meter unit  14  and an energy point can determine that the energy supplied by the energy point was used to charge a battery  16  used by the specific vehicle  12 . This can be used by the server  24  to provide the energy source  19  owner with energy credit for charging vehicle  12 , and/or can be used to provide the owner of the vehicle  12  a credit for the amount of energy he bought from the energy source  19 . The GPS reading can provide further evidence that vehicle  12  was charged during certain time at a specific location. 
     In operation, as soon as the battery  16  that is used to energy the electrical vehicle  12  is connected to an energy source  19  for charging, the energy meter unit  14  measures and registers the battery&#39;s energy level prior to charging. The energy meter unit  14  then monitors the energy level of the battery  16  and the amount of energy delivered by energy source  19  during the charging session (comparing the two allows for energy leakage measurement, and provides credit options to the server  24  as to credit for what was delivered versus for what was stored in the battery  16 ). The energy meter unit  14  will also contact the vehicle ODB  15  to enquire and record the vehicle identification number of the vehicle  12  that uses the battery  16  being charged. Based on this one can determine that the energy supplied by the energy source  19  was used to charge the battery  16  used by vehicle  12 . This can be used by server  24  to provide the energy source  19  owner with energy credit for charging vehicle  12 , and can also be used to provide the owner of the vehicle  12  a credit for the amount of energy he/she bought from the energy source  19 . The GPS reading can provide further evidence that the vehicle  12  with that VIN was charged during a certain time at the GPS location. This GPS location can be used to determine an address (geo-coding) and the address can be used to facilitate proper credits given to energy source  19  located at the address. Furthermore, the GPS locations (and hence the address) associated with the energy charging session can be used to validate a claim(s) by an energy source  19  associated with the address that it truly supplied a certain amount of energy to vehicle  12 . 
     If the energy source  19  has electronic identification  17  that it can transmit to the energy meter unit  14 , then this identification information is also recorded by the energy meter unit  14  and transmitted to server  24 . The GPS information can also be used to track vehicle  12  driving usage, so as to enable road based energy consumption calculations and congestion/road class related incentives and credits on the server  24 . 
     The data collection unit  24  collects from the energy meter unit  14  via one or more of the means described above (wirelessly or via a home computer). The data collection unit  24  allows the user to login to his/her account to review energy charging events using the home user computer  28 . The data collection unit  24  transmits relevant usage data to appropriate government and other credit agencies. Such agencies can also access the data collection unit  24  to validate claims, and to develop aggregated usage data across multiple users and/or with respect to spatial relevant usage data, for example, how much electrical energy was consumed in a certain geographical area. 
     In this application, “battery” refers to one or more batteries, since a “battery” often comprises several battery units combined together. “Electric vehicle” refers to any vehicle using electricity for locomotion, whether a pure electric vehicle, hybrid, etc. 
     Although a preferred example has been disclosed, a worker of ordinary skill in this art would recognize that certain modifications would come within the scope of this invention. For that reason, the following claims should be studied to determine the true scope and content of this invention.