The record first. On September 26, 2023, Zoox, Inc. was granted US11766947B2, "DC fast charger wireless-charging adapter" (CPC B60L 53/38 and B60L 53/12). The named inventor is Vamsi Krishna Pathipati. The claim adapts DC fast charging to a wireless interface — vehicle-scale power-transfer engineering that shares conceptual DNA with consumer wireless charging.
Follow the convergence. Fast charging is one of the few technology domains where consumer devices and vehicles draw on the same fundamentals: power negotiation, thermal management, coil and converter design. A player building charging IP that spans both is positioning across a larger combined market, and the patent record is where that cross-category strategy becomes visible.
The business framing is portfolio leverage. R&D spent on charging fundamentals can amortize across phones, laptops, and vehicles if the IP is structured to reach all of them. A wireless-charging adapter grant from a vehicle-focused firm is a marker of that leverage — charging technology treated as a cross-category asset, not a per-product cost.
Comparability discipline applies. "Wireless charging" at phone scale and vehicle scale differ enormously in power and safety, but the IP can bridge them. The filing pins this claim to the high-power, vehicle-adjacent end — useful for understanding how charging portfolios span categories, and a distinction the consumer framing misses.
What the document does not disclose is the economics. It is a device-adapter claim, not a market figure. It will not tell you licensing, deployment, or revenue across categories. The grant establishes a cross-category-capable position; the financials are undisclosed.
For investors, the throughline is this: charging fundamentals span devices and vehicles, and the patent record shows which players are building portfolios that leverage R&D across both.