Fusion Hybrid needs a subforum of its own

Ummm.. No. Well, kinda. But Ford is splitting hairs here. Technically, Toyota applied for patents under a generic nameplate, not specifically for the Prius. A figure I heard recently is that Toyota owns over 1,000 patents with most of them being put into use on the Prius. And Ford has split hairs repeatedly over the years. Every commercial on see on TV about ford says they are now number one in initial quality. Well, read the fine print. Their initial quality study was commissioned by Ford themselves. They found that there were 8% less problems with their cars over the first 3 months of ownership. Toyota and Honda only bettered themselves by 4%. So technically, Ford is better than Toyota.

And that article is a copy of an official Ford Press Release.

 

Actually, I think the hybrid subforums here should just be consolidated by major automaker since they're pretty lightly trafficked anyhow. So, I'd say we should have these subforums for non-Prius hybrids and electrics: GM, EV, Ford, Honda, Nissan, Tesla, other Toyota/Lexus hybrids.

 

The patent system needs a complete overhaul. I bet 99.9% of those patents are trivial extensions of existing technology - both Ford and Toyota. The trouble is, if your competitor has a patent, you need patents of your own to trade with them so they don't completely shut you down. Example: Ford traded diesel technology patents with Toyota to get licences for Toyota's HSD patents, even though Ford had developed their technology (based on TRW's patent) independently. The risk of being sued and having to pay crippling royalties was too great. Cobasys (owned by Chevron) have patents on large NiMH batteries which they have successfully used to block production of practical EVs. They're not a car company, so there's nothing the car companies can offer to cross-license.

I still don't know what it was that Toyota did to get patents on HSD over and above the original TRW patent that detailed the layout of the motors and how they couple to the engine and the wheels. That deserved a patent. But I believe there are very few genuinely patentable inventions.

I don't think the law needs changing, necessarily, but the implementation of it does. The judgement of what is an inventive step is far too lenient.

 

Down with ford, and their own sub forum (unless the RX hybrid gets one too )





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