Patent ID: 8560147

Claim:
A portable electrical energy storage device security system comprising: at least one controller; and at least one communications module coupled to the at least one controller, wherein the at least one controller is configured to: receive information regarding authentication of an external device via the communications module; and make a determination regarding unlocking the portable electrical energy storage device locking mechanism based on the received information regarding authentication, the at least one controller being configured to make the determination at least by being configured to: generate a challenge key to send to the external device; send the challenge key to the external device; receive a response from the external device to the sending of the challenge key, the response including a response code as part of the information regarding authentication; generate an output from a secret algorithm using a secret key and the response code as input, the secret algorithm and the secret key configured to be known only to the portable electrical energy storage device security system and one or more authorized external devices; and compare the output from the secret algorithm to the response code, and wherein the at least one controller is configured to make the determination regarding unlocking the portable electrical energy storage device locking mechanism based at least on the comparison; and in response to receiving the information regarding authentication and, based on the determination, unlock a portable electrical energy storage device locking mechanism to allow the portable electrical energy storage device to be removed from being operably connected to a vehicle.