Vehicle processor and method for tracking and reporting vehicle use and associated fuel cost

• US 10,311,656 B2
• Filed: 10/13/2015
• Issued: 06/04/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 10/13/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, Inc. (Ford Motor Company), Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Ford Global Technologies, LLC (Ford Motor Company)
• Inventors: Makke, Omar, Kadry, Haysam M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Cuong H
• Application Number:
  US14/881,875
• Publication Number:
  US 20170103589A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,330 Days
• Field of Search: 701123, 701532, 701424-425, 430438, 702122, 706 45, 706 47- 48
• CPC Class Codes: B60K 35/00 Instruments specially adapted for vehicles; Arrangement of instruments in or on vehicles
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/025 Coordination of plural reservations, e.g. plural trip segments, transportation combined with accommodation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/06 Energy or water supply
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/06 in graphical form
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/08 Registering or indicating performance data other than driving, working, idle, or waiting time, with or without registering driving, working, idle or waiting time
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/0825 using optical means

Abstract

A vehicle computing system includes a vehicle human-machine interface (HMI) and a vehicle processor coupled to the HMI and programmed to store trip information for multiple trips including consumed fuel cost for vehicle operation in response to a trip purpose input from the HMI. The trip purpose may be a business or personal purpose, for example. A fuel queuing model based on at least two fuel prices and corresponding fuel quantities may be used to determine the consumed fuel cost associated with fuel consumed from the vehicle fuel tank. Trip information, such as date, distance traveled, origin, destination, and consumed fuel cost may be output to a display, a wirelessly connected smartphone, and/or a remote server in response to a request from the HMI.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a vehicle HMI; and

a vehicle processor coupled to the HMI, programmed to;

store, in persistent memory, trip information for multiple trips including fuel cost for operation in response to a trip purpose input from the HMI using a fuel queueing model based on at least two fuel prices and corresponding fuel quantities, and

output the trip information including the fuel cost in response to a request from the HMI.

2. The system of claim 1 further comprising a wireless transceiver in communication with the vehicle processor, the vehicle processor further programmed to obtain a fuel price from a remote database using the wireless transceiver in response to detecting vehicle fueling.

3. The system of claim 2, the vehicle processor further programmed to communicate vehicle GPS coordinates using the wireless transceiver to obtain the fuel price based on a vehicle location during a detected vehicle fueling event.

4. The system of claim 2, the vehicle processor further programmed to determine a fuel quantity in response to detecting vehicle fueling.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the fuel queueing model comprises a FIFO model.

6. The system of claim 1, the vehicle processor further programmed to output the trip information including the fuel cost for multiple trips to the HMI.

7. The system of claim 1 further comprising a wireless transceiver in communication with the vehicle processor, the vehicle processor further programmed to output the trip information including the fuel cost for multiple trips using the wireless transceiver.

8. The system of claim 7, the vehicle processor further programmed to output the trip information including the fuel cost for multiple trips to a mobile device.

9. The system of claim 7, the vehicle processor further programmed to output the trip information including the fuel cost for multiple trips to a remote server.

10. The system of claim 1, the vehicle processor further programmed to delete selected trip information including the fuel cost from persistent memory in response to input received from the HMI that modifies the trip purpose.

11. The system of claim 1, the vehicle processor further programmed to reset the trip purpose to a default value in response to a vehicle ignition cycle.

12. The system of claim 1, the vehicle processor further programmed to prompt for fuel price input via the HMI in response to detecting vehicle fueling.

13. A method performed by a programmed vehicle computing system, comprising:

storing a fuel cost and associated quantity for each vehicle fueling;

storing trip information and an associated trip purpose including consumed fuel cost calculated using a fuel queueing model populated with the fuel costs and associated quantities that assigns consumed fuel to a purchased fuel batch; and

outputting the trip information for all trips having a specified purpose in response to a user request.

14. The method of claim 13, the trip information including a date, distance traveled, origin information, and destination information.

15. The method of claim 13, the cost of fuel consumed during a trip being calculated using a FIFO fuel queueing model.

16. The method of claim 13 further comprising automatically detecting the associated quantity of fuel for each vehicle fueling.

17. The method of claim 13 wherein outputting the trip information comprises transmitting the trip information to a smartphone coupled wirelessly or through a wired connection.

18. A computer program product embodied in non-transitory computer readable storage having instructions for programming a processor of a vehicle to communicate with a mobile device having a display, comprising instructions for:

communicating cost of consumed fuel associated with trips having a specified purpose to the mobile device, the cost calculated using a FIFO fuel model to determine price of the consumed fuel based on a plurality of previously purchased fuel quantities and associated prices.

19. The computer program product of claim 18 further comprising instructions for detecting a vehicle fueling event and automatically determining an associated fuel quantity.

20. The computer program product of claim 19 further comprising instructions for obtaining a fuel price for the associated fuel quantity in response to detecting the vehicle fueling event.