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The article seems to imply that it was disclosed last year. Not the details of it, but the high level idea.

Hi think the author should have said instead “but we first heard about the concept last year from Tesla”

Elon mentioned it at their “battery day” event and everyone sort of laughed about it.

The rest of the sentence clarifies. Usually it's a good idea to read past the semicolon:

"The concept isn’t new; Tesla CEO Elon Musk first mentioned it at last year’s battery day."

Tesla pretends the concept is new to get the patent. The concept isn't actually new.

Would be far from the first time patents were granted this way...