EV Battery Pack for Recreational Vehicles Patent Landscape
This is a small, highly concentrated niche with 16 patent families dominated by Ford Global Technologies, which alone accounts for the majority of the corpus. The field peaked in 2021 and annual volume has since eased sharply, signalling a post-peak phase with limited new entrants beyond GM and an individual inventor.
Ford leads a tightly held, sub-20-family corpus
Ford Global Technologies leads the applicant ranking with 10 patent families, followed by WAEV Inc., InvertedPower Pty Ltd, and GM Global Technology Operations, each holding 3 patent families. The four ranked applicants collectively account for all filing activity captured in the top applicants.
Concentration is extreme: the top five filers hold 100% of the top hundred ranked filers’ combined total, indicating that no meaningful long-tail of smaller applicants has emerged. The gap between Ford (10 patent families) and the three-way tie at second place (3 patent families each) is substantial, confirming a single visible player with distant challengers.
| # | Applicant | Patent families | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ford Global Technologies LLC | 10 | |
| 2 | WAEV Inc. | 3 | |
| 3 | InvertedPower Pty Ltd | 3 | |
| 4 | GM Global Technology Operations LLC | 3 |
Ford’s position suggests that RV-specific EV battery integration has been treated primarily as an internal R&D agenda item by one OEM. The absence of tier-1 suppliers or battery specialists in the ranking indicates that electrification of this vehicle segment has not yet triggered a broad cross-industry IP race.
Patent families filed in approximately the last 18 to 24 months may not yet be fully published, so the apparent absence of activity in 2025 and 2026 should not be interpreted as confirmed inactivity. Longer-window growth, applicant concentration, and technology-route coverage are therefore more reliable signals than the latest-year bar alone.
Filing activity peaked in 2021; propulsion-control IPC classes dominate the mix
The two charts below show the annual filing cadence since 2017 and the distribution of IPC technology classes across the corpus, revealing both the temporal arc of activity and which engineering sub-domains have attracted the most attention.
Annual filing trend
Filings were absent in 2017 and 2018, then built from 4 families in 2019 to a peak of 6 in 2021 before dropping to zero in 2022 and 2023. A small rebound of 2 families appeared in 2024. The 2025 and 2026 figures reflect publication lag and should be treated as provisional rather than confirmed zero activity.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaTechnology composition
B60L (electric vehicle propulsion) is the visible class with 20 records, reflecting the core powertrain integration focus. H02J (power supply and grid systems) and B60K (vehicle propulsion and drive) each contribute meaningfully, while H01M (batteries, cells, and fuel cells) appears with only 5 records — suggesting that cell-level chemistry is largely borrowed from existing patents rather than developed within this RV-specific corpus.
↗ Hover for values · click a bar to ask EurekaHighly cited patent families surfaced by the query
Citation-heavy patent families returned by the query. Use this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents.
Systems and methods for providing bidirectional ch…
Systems and methods are disclosed for coordinating and executing bidirectional energy transfer events between electrified vehicles and one or more participating electrified recreational vehicles. Energy may be transferred from an electrified vehicle to one or more electrified recreational vehicles, from the one or more electrified recreational vehicles to… (excerpt from the patent abstract)
| # | Patent | Citations |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Electric vehicle | 196 |
| 2 | An electric vehicle DC-DC boost converter | 30 |
| 3 | Electric vehicle | 28 |
| 4 | Scaled home energy storage systems and associated … | 18 |
| 5 | Electric-drive vehicles, powertrains, and logic fo… | 12 |
| 6 | Electric-drive vehicles, powertrains, and logic fo… | 10 |
| 7 | Systems and methods for providing bidirectional ch… | 8 |
| 8 | Electric vehicle | 6 |
Ranked by total forward citations. Citation counts favour older and broadly cited patent families, and broad or adjacent patents may appear when they match the search scope. Treat this section as citation context, not as a curated list of the most topic-specific patents. Some patent titles may be shown in their original, non-English language where an accurate translation could not be guaranteed.
What the structure means for R&D investment decisions
The combination of small corpus size, single-player dominance, and a post-peak filing trajectory creates a distinct strategic context for any team evaluating entry or expansion in this space.
Post-peak: activity has eased sharply from the 2021 high
The lifecycle is classified as Decline, with annual filings easing back from the 2021 peak and a recent-window growth rate of –86%. This does not necessarily indicate the technology is obsolete; rather, the initial wave of broad-claim filings by the visible player may have run its course. New entrants with differentiated approaches could still file without facing a saturated prior-art landscape.
Lifecycle: DeclineSingle-player dominance with a wide gap to challengers
Ford Global Technologies holds more than three times the patent families of any other applicant. The three challengers — WAEV Inc., InvertedPower Pty Ltd, and GM Global Technology Operations — each hold 3 patent families, forming a compact second tier. This structure means Ford’s portfolio is the primary freedom-to-operate risk for any new entrant, while the challengers represent potential partnership or licensing targets rather than blocking threats.
High concentrationNo co-applicant activity detected in this corpus
The collaboration evidence shows no co-filed or jointly assigned patent families in scope. This absence of cross-entity filings is consistent with the small corpus size and suggests that OEM-supplier or OEM-university joint development has not been pursued — or has been kept outside the patent record. Any team building an ecosystem strategy would be entering a field where collaborative IP norms have not yet been established.
No collaboration detectedUS-centric with minimal international coverage
All 16 patent families are filed in the United States, with only 2 records at the EPO, 1 in Germany, and 1 via WIPO PCT. The near-total concentration in a single jurisdiction signals that international IP protection has not been a priority, leaving potential white space for applicants willing to file in Europe, Asia-Pacific, or via PCT routes.
US-visibleGo beyond the landscape: Eureka’s TRIZ Solution agent breaks down an R&D problem and returns patented concept solutions, each with a technical approach and cited patent & literature evidence.
Co-filing pairs, ranked by the number of jointly-filed patent families.
Assignee snapshot from the current evidence set
The applicants below are visible in this query result. Because the evidence set is relatively small, read this section as a directional snapshot rather than a full competitive ranking.
Ford Global Technologies
Ford Global Technologies holds 10 patent families, making it the clear incumbent. Its technology emphasis lies entirely within B60L (electric vehicle propulsion), specifically sub-classes B60L 53 (charging), B60L 50 (energy storage), and B60L 58 (battery monitoring and management). No momentum data is reported for Ford in the recent period, consistent with the post-peak filing pattern observed across the corpus.
families: 10GM Global Technology Operations
GM Global Technology Operations holds 3 patent families and is classified as a new entrant in recent momentum data, suggesting its RV-specific battery pack filings are recent additions. Its focus spans B60L 58 (battery management), B60L 15 (motor control), and B60L 3 (safety), indicating an interest in complementary control-system aspects rather than direct overlap with Ford’s charging-interface claims.
families: 3Frequently asked questions
The corpus contains 16 patent families in scope. This is a small, specialist niche compared to broader EV battery landscaping areas, reflecting the limited number of OEMs and suppliers that have targeted recreational vehicles specifically.
Ford Global Technologies leads with 10 patent families, more than three times the count of any other applicant. WAEV Inc., InvertedPower Pty Ltd, and GM Global Technology Operations each hold 3 patent families.
Annual filing activity peaked in 2021 with 6 patent families. Prior to that, 4 families were filed in both 2019 and 2020. Activity dropped to zero in 2022 and 2023 before a small rebound of 2 families in 2024.
B60L (electric vehicle propulsion) is by far the largest class, with 20 records. H02J (power supply and grid systems), B60K (vehicle propulsion and drive), and H01M (batteries, cells, and fuel cells) each contribute 5 to 6 records. Cell-level battery chemistry (H01M) is notably sparse, suggesting reliance on existing battery IP.
All 16 patent families are filed in the United States. Only 2 records appear at the EPO, 1 in Germany, and 1 via WIPO PCT, making this a heavily US-centric corpus with limited international protection pursued to date.
H02M (power conversion) and B60G (vehicle suspension) are the most notable under-served branches, each with only 2 to 3 records. Power conversion is technically relevant to V2L and V2G capability in recreational vehicles, while suspension integration addresses the mass and placement challenges of large battery packs. Both branches have limited prior-art crowding in this specific corpus.
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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.
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