ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,330,490, issued on June 17, was assigned to Kobe Steel Ltd. (Kobe, Japan) and TOYOTA JIDOSHA K.K. (Toyota, Japan).
"Vehicle body structure for electric vehicle" was invented by Sadao Miyazawa (Kobe, Japan), Kenichi Watanabe (Kobe, Japan) and Kenta Kojima (Toyota, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A vehicle body structure for an electric vehicle includes: a battery disposed at a center lower portion of a vehicle body; a side sill being hollow and extending in a vehicle body front-rear direction outside in a vehicle width direction of the battery; a bridge beam member being hollow, disposed below the side sill and outside in the vehicle...