Experimenting With the EV Adoption Problem

Across the industry, consumers, dealers, lawmakers, and OEMs are walking around the question of electrification. Consumers say they need affordable, reliable, and easy-to-charge options is they are going to jump in, but every week we see plans set in motion that seem to miss the point and march on toward some other feature that nobody is asking for. Here are some we saw this week.

Office Frunk

Ford filed a patent for an alternative “front trunk” setup that would make your Mach-E a mobile office space.

• This solves the affordable question by allowing owners to rent out their home office space for spare income and the easy-to-charge issue by giving you a place to work even if you break down halfway to work.
• Unfortunately, it offers no upgrade on the reliability front so we don’t see it entering production

Which Winch?

Rivian is working on an integrated winch that will hide neatly in the front bumper of their vehicles.

• This is a pretty great idea since you could make side money by towing people (as long as you tow them in reverse),
• Or hitch up to a passing bestie to get to the next charger, which counts as an upgrade to reliability since you can “rely” on your winch if your battery craps.
• I'm not giving them a point for easy-to-charge on this one, though, but as a truck company, it would be a great factory feature to include, so we hope it makes it to production.

Junk Drawer

Too much junk in the trunk? No fear. Honda’s new design adds a pull-out drawer to the rear end of possible future designs. You may think this will replace the trunk/hatch, but no, it is in addition to it.

• Since you could technically moonlight as a delivery driver/smuggler with this, we say it addresses the affordability question.
• Also, you can fill it with tools and supplies, so it aids in reliability efforts.
• Finally, you technically could put a larger device in there so that easy-to-charge is also checked. (Of course, they could have just used that space for more batteries, but that would cost more so +1 affordability, -1 reliability)

Ultimately, these patents show automakers are looking for ways to deliver the most bang for consumer bucks, but they may also not be interested in delivering bangs in proportion to smaller bucks anytime soon.