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A Toyota patent hints at a development that can eliminate the worst part of electric car ownership.

Toyota-the manufacturer of some extremely inefficient trucks and SUVs-is often considered a laggard when it comes to electric vehicles. But CarBuzz discovered a patent application of the Japanese company in the United States, indicating that they may be developing some truly groundbreaking electric vehicle technologies.

Toyota's patent is for the "car-to-car wireless energy transmission" system. Basically, if EV A finds that its battery is dead, it may rendezvous with EV B with a full battery; the car will coordinate the speed and route to meet, and then EV B can wirelessly transmit energy to the EV while the vehicle is driving A.

Don't expect the upcoming all-electric Toyota bZ4X to have this feature. The utility of this technology is premised on major technological developments. First, you need wireless charging technology that is good enough to transmit the large amount of power needed to run an electric car in a reasonable amount of time. This kind of energy transfer also requires relatively complex autonomous driving technology. Cars need to match speed and align with each other. Let's face it, if human intervention and altruism are not required, the entire enterprise will operate more effectively. An electric Lexus LX limped on the side of the highway because its owner was frantically looking for a fully-charged Camry in no rush to use the app, which would be sub-optimal.

As part of the huge charging infrastructure, car-to-car options may be an option, which may include mobile chargers for roaming highways and self-charging roads. People can see the full charge start a road trip, distribute and receive electricity as needed on the way, quickly charge when humans need to enter the station, and never have to do the most annoying thing about owning an electric car-stop for 35 minutes to charge to 80%.