ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 31 -- United States Patent no. 12,512,727, issued on Dec. 30, was assigned to Hitachi Astemo Ltd. (Hitachinaka, Japan).
"Drive system" was invented by Takaki Itaya (Ibaraki, Japan) and Noriyuki Maekawa (Ibaraki, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An object of this invention is to efficiently warm up a catalyst and keep its temperature. Provided is a drive system, including: an internal combustion engine; a catalytic unit configured to purify an exhaust gas from the internal combustion engine; a motor used for at least one of drive or regeneration; and a flow path formed so as to allow an oil-based medium for lubricating the motor to flow in the vicinity of the catalyti...