Depot EV Charging Patents: Who Leads, Where the Gaps Are 2026
Filing growth compares 2021 (10 records) with 2024 (9) — a three-year span. 2024 is the most recent year we treat as complete: publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, so 2025 onwards are still filling in and any growth rate that ends there would understate the field. Top-5 share is the combined record count of the five largest assignees divided by all 53 records in scope (CR5), not by the ranked leaders only.
What this landscape covers
This review covers 53 published patent records matched against depot-level EV fleet charging: load balancing across multiple vehicles at a single site, scheduling logic for charging depots, and the grid-facing infrastructure that has to absorb the resulting demand. The scope spans 2015 through the 2026-07-31 cut-off, capturing both the early charging-station patents and the more recent scheduling-platform filings that treat a depot as an optimisation problem rather than a set of independent chargers.
Because publication lags filing by roughly 18 months, the most recent one to two years in any trend line will understate real filing activity. Read the peak year and the multi-year comparison, not the final partial year, as the signal of where the field is actually heading.
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Filing trend and technology composition
Two views of the same 53-record set: how filing activity has moved year over year, and which IPC subclasses the claims actually sit in.
Filing trend, 2017-2026
Filings rose from zero in 2017 to a peak of 10 in 2021, then eased to 9 by 2024 — a -10% change over that three-year span. 2025 and 2026 are shown but should be read as incomplete given the publication lag; they are not evidence of a slowdown.
Technology composition by IPC subclass
B60L (electric vehicle propulsion) appears in 67.9% of the 53 records, ahead of H02J (power supply and grid systems) at 37.7% and G06Q (business, commerce and admin data processing) at 26.4%. Smaller shares in H02B, H01H, H01R, G01C and H02S mark narrower claim territory around switchgear, connectors, positioning and solar integration. Records can carry more than one class, so these shares add up past 100%.
Shares are the percentage of the 53 records in scope. A patent can carry several IPC classes, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
Go deeper on Charging Infrastructure — Depot Smart-Charging Load Balancing Patent Landscape with Eureka
This page is one run against one query. Ask Eureka your own question about charging infrastructure — depot smart-charging load balancing patent landscape and every answer comes back with the patent numbers behind it.
Try EurekaMost-cited records and a recent representative filing
Scheduling platform for an electric vehicle (EV) fleet charging depot
A scheduling platform for an electric vehicle fleet charging depot based on a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) approach is described. The electric vehicle fleet is a public service vehicle fleet, such as a bus fleet, in an urban or extra-urban setting.Filed by Siemens; published 2026-08-06 as WO2026162428A1.
| # | Publication no. | Patent title | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WO2023049998A1 | Electric vehicle fleet charging and energy management system | 30 |
| 2 | WO2013056990A2 | Method, system and charging station for charging electric vehicles | 30 |
| 3 | US20250033517A1 | Electric vehicle fleet charging and energy management system | 18 |
| 4 | EP2768693A2 | Method, system and charging station for charging electric vehicles | 16 |
| 5 | US20210331598A1 | Ac charging system for electric vehicles | 10 |
| 6 | US20220302701A1 | Electric utility load distribution systems and methods | 9 |
| 7 | US20230116469A1 | Balancing electrical vehicle power distribution across a charging lane | 8 |
| 8 | EP4350589A1 | Method and system for electric vehicle (EV) fleet charging | 6 |
| 9 | US20240140247A1 | Smart charging station adapter for residential ev charging station | 5 |
| 10 | EP2768693B1 | Method, system and charging station for charging electric vehicles | 5 |
Citation counts favour older records simply because they have had longer to be cited; treat them as a signal of influence within this corpus, not of which claims matter most today.
Each row carries its publication number; clicking a row searches Eureka by that number.
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Three readings of the same dataset, aimed at where to file next and where prior art is already dense.
A leader plus a long tail, not a crowded field
The top 5 of 23 ranked assignees account for 24 of the 53 records in scope — 45.3% of the field held by a small group, with the leader alone on 7. The remaining 18 ranked assignees and the unranked filers behind them hold single-digit counts each, which is room to move for a new entrant with a genuinely different claim angle.
Peak filing was 2021, not the present
Filing activity peaked at 10 records in 2021 and had eased to 9 by 2024, a -10% change over that span. Given the roughly 18-month gap between filing and publication, 2025-2026 counts are still incomplete and should not be read as a further decline.
Most claims still sit on the vehicle side of the meter
B60L (EV propulsion) touches two-thirds of records, but H02J (grid and power supply) at 37.7% and G06Q (scheduling and business logic) at 26.4% show the field splitting into vehicle-side, grid-side and software-side claim strategies rather than one dominant approach.
Eureka can read the same corpus for gaps instead of for coverage: under-claimed branches adjacent to charging infrastructure — depot smart-charging load balancing patent landscape, with the prior art for and against each one.
Where to take this analysis
The dataset points to a few concrete next steps depending on whether the goal is filing, freedom-to-operate, or tracking a specific competitor.
Check freedom-to-operate against the most-cited records
The highest-cited records in this set define the prior art that any new depot scheduling or load-balancing claim will be measured against, regardless of filing date.
Run a freedom-to-operate check in EurekaWatch the leader and the fast-moving mid-field
With 45.3% of records held by the top 5 of 23 ranked assignees, tracking filing behaviour at that tier is more useful than watching the full 23-company list.
Set up assignee tracking in EurekaTest claim language in the under-claimed IPC branches
H02B, H01H, H01R, G01C and H02S each cover under 10% of records; a claim drafted specifically for one of these branches faces less direct prior art than a general B60L filing.
Draft and stress-test claims in EurekaCommon questions about this landscape
The dataset ranks 23 assignees active in depot smart-charging load balancing, with the leader holding 7 of the 53 records in scope and the top 5 combined holding 24 records, 45.3% of the field. That is a leader-plus-long-tail structure: one company ahead of the pack, then a cluster of mid-tier filers, then a long list of single- and double-digit entrants. Fifth place holds 3 records and tenth place holds 2, so the drop-off from the leader is steep rather than gradual.
Filing peaked at 10 records in 2021 and had eased to 9 by 2024, a -10% change over that three-year span, which is the most recent period that can be treated as complete data. Counts for 2025 and 2026 appear lower still, but that reflects the roughly 18-month lag between filing and publication rather than an actual drop in activity. Any claim that the field is currently slowing should be checked against 2024 as the last complete year, not against the partial recent years.
Most records sit in B60L (electric vehicle propulsion), covering 67.9% of the 53 records in scope, but a large share also touch H02J (power supply and grid systems) at 37.7% and G06Q (business, commerce and administrative data processing, largely scheduling logic) at 26.4%. Smaller pockets cover H02B switchgear, H01H switches and relays, H01R connectors, G01C positioning, and H02S solar integration, each under 10% of records. Because a single record can carry multiple IPC classes, these figures describe overlapping claim territory rather than a strict split.
The IPC classes with the thinnest coverage relative to the 53-record set are H02B (power switchboards and substations), H01H (switches and relays), H01R (connectors and current collectors), G01C (positioning) and H02S (solar power integration), each under 10% of records. These are areas where claim space is comparatively open rather than already occupied by dense prior art. A first filing that combines one of these narrower branches with depot-level scheduling logic is more likely to clear a novelty search than a general B60L or H02J claim.
WO2026162428A1, filed by Siemens and published 2026-08-06, describes a scheduling platform for an electric vehicle fleet charging depot using a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming approach, aimed specifically at public service vehicle fleets such as buses in urban or extra-urban settings. It is a recent filing, so its practical blocking effect depends on the specific claims granted, which should be reviewed directly rather than assumed from the abstract. Anyone filing in adjacent scheduling or optimisation approaches for depot charging should treat this record as a starting point for a novelty and freedom-to-operate check, not as a blanket bar on the space.
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Disclaimer. This page is generated from Patsnap Eureka data drawn from a limited snapshot of global patent and scientific-literature records, and is provided for general information and reference only.
Patent data carries inherent limitations: recent filings (typically the most recent 18–24 months) are under-counted due to standard publication lag; counts may be reported at either a patent-family or a patent-record basis and are not always directly comparable; classification, applicant-name, and citation data may contain errors, duplicates, or omissions; and the underlying search query defines and constrains the scope shown. As a result, the analysis may be incomplete or inaccurate and may not reflect the full technology landscape.
Nothing on this page constitutes an exhaustive prior-art, novelty, freedom-to-operate, or validity search, nor does it constitute legal, financial, investment, or professional advice, and it should not be relied upon as such. Any patent, commercial, or strategic decision should be verified independently and reviewed with qualified patent, legal, and domain professionals. Patsnap makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the information presented.
Machine translation. Assignee and organisation names originally recorded in Chinese, Japanese or Korean have been rendered into English by an AI translation step so that the tables stay readable. These renderings are best-effort and may not match a company’s registered English name; the original name is what the underlying patent record carries, and it is what any Eureka query launched from this page uses.