Toyota will let you use its hybrid and electric car tech royalty-free
You'll need to pay to license them, though
TOYOTA has potentially given the electrified car market a bit of a helping hand, by dropping the royalty fees for many of its powertrain patents.
To help reduce the time and financial investments needed to develop their own hybrid and electric vehicle tech, the Japanese car maker has removed the royalties on nearly 24,000 patents.
Of the now unlicensed patents, more than 10% of them (2,590) are for electric motor systems, with another 2,200 being for electric car chargers.
Toyota has also pulled royalty payments for 2,380 fuel cell patents, bringing the total number of its royalty-free IPs to 8,060.
While the royalties are gone, car makers will still need to pay a licensing fee and agree the terms and conditions in a contract before they can use Toyota’s tech, and the grants will only be valid up to the year 2030.
At an additional price, Toyota will offer advice and guidance to car makers so that they can adopt Toyota’s powertrain tech effectively.
By sharing its tech with other car makers, Toyota hopes it can help streamline the development of new electrified cars, and increase the uptake of hybrid, pure-electric and fuel cell-powered vehicles.
Shigeki Terashui, Executive Vice President at Toyota, said: “Based on the high volume of inquiries we receive about our vehicle electrification systems from companies that recognise a need to popularise hybrid and other electrified vehicle technologies, we believe that now is the time for cooperation.
“If the number of electrified vehicles accelerates significantly in the next 10 years, they will become standard, and we hope to play a role in supporting that process.”
Will Toyota also be open to removing royalties from its flying car patents, we wonder.
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