Towing is a genuinely hard case for an EV, and GM's grant US11167643B2, "Electric-drive vehicles, powertrains, and logic for comprehensive vehicle control during towing" (issued November 9, 2021), claims the control logic for it. The CPC is propulsion-control — B60L 15/20 (propulsion control), B60L 3/0046 (electrical-system monitoring), and B60L 58/12 and 58/26 (battery state and thermal) — so the independent claim's value is the towing-specific drivetrain control.
The novelty is the adaptation to the towing load. Hauling a trailer doubles or triples the energy draw, hammers range, and heats the pack and inverter, so a control strategy that anticipates and manages those effects is a concrete engineering contribution. A claim that ties drivetrain control to a towing state reads on something real, especially for the electric trucks GM was bringing to market in this window.
On scope, the independent claim establishes the towing-control logic; the dependents that specify how the system detects towing and modulates propulsion, battery use, and thermal management are the moat. As a granted B2, the scope has been examined. A dependent that conditions the control on a defined load or thermal signal is more defensible than the broad notion of controlling a vehicle while towing.
GM holding this in November 2021 is a roadmap tell aligned with its electric-truck ambitions — towing capability is a core promise for that segment, and the control software is where the promise is kept. The teardown verdict: an enabling, examined powertrain grant whose protection lives in the towing-detection-and-modulation dependents. Read those, and note that the unglamorous towing edge case got its own focused IP.