Toyota Will Share 23,740 Hybrid Vehicle Patents For Free (reuters.com)

An anonymous reader quotes Reuters: Japan's Toyota Motor Corp will offer free access to its hybrid-vehicle patents through 2030, it said on Wednesday, seeking to expand use of the lower-emission technology even as the global industry shifts toward fully electric cars. The pledge by one of the world's biggest automakers to share its closely guarded patents, the second time it has opened up a technology, is aimed at driving industry uptake of hybrids and fending off the challenge of all-battery electric vehicles (EVs).

Toyota said it would grant licenses on nearly 24,000 patents on technologies used in its Prius, the world's first mass-produced "green" car, and offer to supply competitors with components including motors, power converters and batteries used in its lower-emissions vehicles... Toyota's move to unlock its patents underlines its belief that hybrids are an effective alternative to all-battery EVs, given a fuel efficiency roughly double that of gasoline cars, lower cost and that they do not need charging infrastructure. Toyota vehicles account for more than 80 percent of the global hybrid vehicle market. "Toyota has realized that they made a mistake by protecting their hybrid technology for years. This prevented diffusion" said Janet Lewis, head of Asia transportation research at Macquarie Securities.

"Toyota on its own can't get key technology accepted, but if other companies use it, that offers the best chance of expansion," she added.
The article notes statistics from LMC Automotive that hybrid vehicles "account for around 3 percent of all vehicles sold globally, eclipsing the roughly 1.5 percent share of all-battery EVs."

Shigeki Terashi, Executive Vice President of Toyota, said, "we believe that now is the time for cooperation."

Comments

Self interest

[AmiMoJo]

They are doing this to try to prolong the production of hybrid vehicles before everyone moves over to EVs. You can see it in their advertising too, attacking EVs directly with nonsense like "self charging hybrids" (aka fossil burners, the last efficient and most polluting way to generate electricity).

They missed the boat on EVs and now all the patents are divided up between Nissan/Renault, Hyundai/Kia and the Chinese. Europe has some too, mostly around the CCS standard that was invented because it's not CHAdeMO.

It's actually a huge crisis in Japan. Their automotive industry is heavily invested in hybrid tech and needs to pivot hard, but mostly lacks experience and patent portfolios. Also they spent a lot of money on hybrid R&D which looks like it will only be valuable for another decade or two tops so before the bulk of sales are EV.

Re:Self interest

[Immerman]

I disagree. Batteries are a huge fraction of the cost of an electric vehicle, and will remain so for the foreseeable future, making them far too expensive for most people to consider. But, reduce the all-electric range from 300 miles to 30, and you can still handle 90% of most people's usage, while reducing the battery cost by 90%. Add in a small high-efficiency 30kW generator (about twice the highway cruising power consumption by an EV), and you eliminate range anxiety, charging inconvenience, etc. That makes EVs practical and affordable for far more people, while potentially reducing greenhouse gas emissions anywhere that coal provides a large fraction of grid power.

That said, that's not how Toyota's hybrid system works,as it still relies on a horribly inefficient variable-power ICE mechanically coupled to the road for the much of its acceleration, which seems to me to largely defeat the point. Still, many of their patents may be applicable to more impressive systems.

Re:Wow. What will the stock holders going to say?

[AlanObject]

Most hybrid technology is obsolete. A lot of those patents have to do with things like power switching and control and distributing torque among multiple providers on a drive train. Most of that disappears in an EV vehicle.

So I guess someone figured pitching that IP portfolio to the wind would have greater PR benefit than trying to protect and maintain it.

The car I drive, a Ford Escape Hybrid was succeeded in the Ford product line with an all ICE version of itself. No more Hybrid available. The ICE version ended up getting within 10% of the fuel economy of the Hybrid it replaced and you don't have the battery cost problems.

Although you do get better fuel efficiency with a hybrid it always has been a very marginal and temporary proposition. The only reason they have had the success they have had is because nobody had been willing to do with Musk had done, which was to 1) single-handedly multiply the global production of LiON batteries and 2) invest in improving them for EV use.

Trucks

[virtig01]

"Everyone" is not moving to EVs. The top 3 selling vehicles in the US are pickup trucks. Will they become EVs? Not any time soon. Hybrids? Likely.

That's not quite right

[SuperKendall]

They missed the boat on EVs

That's not really true though, what is happening is that the boat they are on, is hydrogen fuel cells for EV.

That is taking a long time to come to fruition, so I agree they want to see people using hybrid vehicles for a while yet to prolong the time until the market switches to full EV - so they can get more hydrogen station in place.

If that transition works they will actually be in better shape as hydrogen cell EV's in use are a lot more like cars people are used to. You can fill up essentially instantly instead of sitting for supercharger times waiting for a top-off. In order for every car to be electric, it has to be the case that a good number of them are hydrogen powered...

Re:That's not quite right

[AmiMoJo]

Hydrogen cars will never be mass market. They need a huge amount of infrastructure putting in, the fuel is still expensive and difficult to produce cleanly, and they aren't as convenient or cheap to run as EVs.

Means what?

[Anubis IV]

Toyota's move to unlock its patents underlines its belief that hybrids are an effective alternative to all-battery EVs, given a fuel efficiency roughly double that of gasoline cars, lower cost and that they do not need charging infrastructure.

Sounds to me like it underlines their belief that hybrids have no place in a future made almost entirely of EVs, so they've done the math and realized that there's no sense in clinging to patents that don't have a future. Better to cash in now by giving the patents away and making some money on the component/part purchases they'll receive during the shrinking window in which those patents remain relevant.

The catch? Possibly patents expiring soon?

[drnb]

Wow. What will the stock holders going to say? Wow, this seems extremely generous. Perhaps a little too generous. What's the catch here?

Perhaps the stockholders are likely to say "good job at getting marketing value out of expiring or otherwise obsolete patents"?

The Prius launched 22 years ago. Some patents are likely older than that. Patents only last 20 years.

Besides expiration we also have patents that have been worked around via a different approach to a problem, patents covering a now obsolete approach, etc. The "marketing value" of sharing these patents may very well be greater than "commercial value" of the patent itself.

Re:Wow. What will the stock holders going to say?

[twisteddk]

It's not the first time they have done this.... They released the patents for the engine the Auris is using a few years ago too. That was like... at least 10.000 patents as I remember it.

There is a strong incentive to get everyone to use the same technology as themselves, This is an easy way to get the companies not already invested in Hybrid tech, to start a partnership with Toyota, by having them use toyota tech.... Same as when google gives you 200$ worth of free adds... for google sites.

It's a totally viable business model.