US Patent Issued to TOYOTA JIDOSHA on March 4 for "Hybrid electric vehicle" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,240,439, issued on March 4, was assigned to TOYOTA JIDOSHA K.K. (Toyota, Japan).

"Hybrid electric vehicle" was invented by Hiroya Tanaka (Nagoya, Japan), Motoshi Asada (Chiryu, Japan), Mitsuru Yamaguchi (Ama, Japan) and Masato Yoshikawa (Toyota, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A hybrid electric vehicle includes an engine, a motor, a clutch provided between the engine and the motor, a battery for charging regenerative electric power of the motor, and a control device that controls the engine, the motor, and the clutch. The control device includes a charge determination unit that determines whether the battery is chargeable when there...