Method for Electrically Charging Vehicle Batteries for a Group of Vehicles

Various embodiments of the teachings herein include a method for electrically charging vehicle batteries for a group of member vehicles. The method may include: predicting a total energy requirement for charging batteries for the group in a future time period; predicting a temporal distribution of the charging power requirement for the group over the future time period; calculating a total charging power profile optimized in respect of one or more optimization criteria according to the predicted total energy requirement and the predicted temporal distribution of the charging power requirement; purchasing an amount of energy in accordance with the optimized total charging power profile on a relevant energy market; and chronometrically controlling the charging processes of each member vehicle with a respective charging profile so the sum of the respective charging profiles of the individual member vehicles corresponds to the optimized total profile of the charging power.