Chevron not yet done trying to derail hybrids

[hill]

They cut Toyota off at the knees, when the manufacturer wanted to have replacement batteries for the RAV4-EV. Now, they're at it again.

Courthouse News Service

Too bad a substantial bunch of people couldn't boycott all their products, until they started acting for society's better interest.

[markderail]

Geez, why don't they simply buy packs from Toyota?

[morpheusx]

Chevron acts like this. Pretend hypothetically they made and sold billions of gallons of lamp oil for lanterns. Then some crazy guy invents the light bulb, so they buy all the patents and then pretend like the technology doesn't exist and slows down whatever progress anyone who legitimately wants to license it for fear it will destroy their core business.

[DropDeadRed]

I hope for their sake that they have something other than NiMH because while there is money in that in the short term.... everyone's moving on to Lithium batters asap.

[AussieOwner]

The oil companies are starting to operate just like the tobacco companies did back in the late 80's. Anything to protect their business.

A friend of mine was telling me that based on the current demand on fossil fuel - coal, gas and oil - there is now only an expected 90 years before they ALL run out. He was mainly interested in coal, as he is in the electricity power station business and whereas 5 years ago there was some 195 years worth of coal reserves, this has dropped down to only 135 years of reserve as of last year. Oil is dropping faster than that, so you really wonder at the oil companies trying to protect their core business - because that core business is going to disappear sooner than they would like.

[Godiva]

If they're not careful, they'll have their patent rights suspended under a national energy emergency.

[dogfriend]

Originally Posted by Godiva

If they're not careful, they'll have their patent rights suspended under a national energy emergency.

I would love to see this happen, but unfortunately it would probably get tied up in court for as many years as the patents remain valid. I'm sure Chevron has quite a war chest in reserve for any litigation.

It will be interesting to see what happens in Mercedes vs. Cobasys et. al. I hope it brings more light on the fact that Chevron is holding back the state of the art in hybrids/electrics. We could have a plug in hybrid today if Toyota could use larger NiMH batteries.

[Godiva]

Originally Posted by dogfriend

I would love to see this happen, but unfortunately it would probably get tied up in court for as many years as the patents remain valid. I'm sure Chevron has quite a war chest in reserve for any litigation.

Good luck to them. I'll bet the Federal Government has deeper pockets and better lawyers.

[McDonald]

I guess you guys don't know that Chevron supplies the technology that is in your current Prius' battery. Not saying that they shouldn't have funded that project, but they do try to do some good with renewable energy, etc.

[hill]

The Prius battery is as big as it can be w/o violating Chevron's patent. Any bigger & you can be sure they'd be all over toyota like flys on stink.