At this point Toyota goes looking for prior art (predating Solomon's patent), etc., etc.

The ongoing saga of RIM's blackbery technology provides some idea of the worst case scenario though.

Toyota has so much invested in their hybrid system that I'm sure they will find some way to work this out.

We can expect to have hydrogen cars, after the last corn kernels from our farms have been converted into ethanol.

Clean(er)cars will come about after WWIII in the Middle East.

The fanatics will close off the Straight of Hormuz by sinking an oil tanker there. Once the Straight of Hormuz is closed off, the entire supply chain will be choked-off.

The Middle East is all bad news.  There will be no real solution without war.  Seven dollar per gallon gasoline will become a reality.  The US economy is going to worsen as a matter of course.

You will never see ticker-tape victory parades in NYC ever again, as long as this nation is in existence.

We are certainly a nation under judgment in Biblical terms.

..

America First The World Second

I think Solomon may be looking for a payment for licensing rather than trying to stop hybrid technology.  The legaleze cited on the news release does not necessarily tell the whole story.

Companies like Solomon try to get their technology put to good use and make money in order to keep developing more new technology, but manufacturers like ford and GM routinely forge patent documentation in order to steal the intellectual property they use.  

Then spend decades in court waiting for the principles that own the patent rights to give up or die.  Patent law, as every other aspect of the US legal system, has been corrupted by corporatism.

Saving 3 dollars per unit on some safety related widget and sacrificing 1000s of lives per year to do that is the business of corporations like ford.

Toyota is a progressive company fighting the trend set by US auto industry/government corruption.

If Solomon had been bought out by a US automaker then it would be a BIG problem.  It is to be hoped that is not the case in this instance.

The Solomon techology works in both the motor and generator mode, it is perfect for wind or wave power systems designed to turn variable sources of energy into a steady stream of power.

It is notable however that UQM electric vehicle motor/generators use a permanent magnet design with no transmission or need for the Solomon design.

Will Solomon's technology be usefull for electric plugin vehicles that use an auxillary generator system like a multi-fuel microturbine?  Probably not.

This is because electric notors develop high torque even at low RPM, unlike internal combustion engines.  And with all the moving parts, cams and valves especially, it is very hard to get an internal combustion piston engine past 10,000 RPM reliably.  They tend to blow up.

Look at a Dremel tool, it runs at 30,000 RPM.  And it's mainly plastic.  Permanent magnet motors need no brushes so they only have one moving part, the rotor.  

That means they can operate at very high RPM, and power increases proportional to the square of the RPM.  Internal combustion engines need a transmission to drive a vehicle efficiently because of their limitations as far as torque and RPM.

The present hybrid design has very limited fuel savings and utility, even with plugin mode added.

Mating internal combustion with electric power is problematic.  A pure electric plugin supplemented with a microturbine, where necessary, is a much more useful system in terms of relibility, manufacturing costs, and energy efficiency.

By the time the solomon litigation is settled the hybrid system that uses their design may very well be obsolete.  I still think their design has a great future in wind and wave power applications.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin