Toyota to provide royalty-free access to hybrid-vehicle tech patents

TOKYO: Toyota Motor Corp will offer royalty-free access to its hybrid-vehicle technology patents through 2030, as it seeks to expand use of lower emissions vehicles before the global auto industry shifts to all-battery electric cars.

The Japanese carmaker said it would grant licences on nearly 24,000 patents on technologies covering hybrid power systems, which comprise motors, power converters and batteries.

“Based on the high volume of inquiries we receive about of vehicle electrification systems from companies that recognise a need to popularise hybrid and other electrified vehicle technologies, now is the time for cooperation,” said Toyota executive vice-president Shigeki Terashi in a statement yesterday.

The Nikkei Asian Review first reported Toyota’s plans to give royalty-free access to hybrid-vehicle patents.

Since pioneering the Prius — the world’s first mass-produced hybrid car — in 1997, Toyota has sold more than 13 million cars featuring the technology, which twins a conventional petrol engine and electric motor, saving fuel by capturing energy during coasting and breaking and using it to power the motor.

Hybrid vehicles account for around three per cent of all vehicles sold globally, eclipsing the roughly one per cent share of allbattery electric vehicles (EVs), according to LMC Automotive.

Toyota vehicles account for more than 80 per cent of the hybrid vehicle market.

Toyota has long held to its belief that its hybrid vehicles, whose fuel efficiency is roughly double that of petrol cars, are a costeffective alternative to all-battery EVs, due to their lower cost, lack of need for charging infrastructure, and because they operate more or less like petrol cars.