The new NiMH battery described by Toyota has to be ours and
not the royalty-free, old, outdated NiMH misch-metal batteries of Matshushita/Panasonic.
This older technology was used by Toyota in Japan where they
sold 24,000 Prius' last year. They lacked poorly in acceleration, among other areas. However, this was not a serious problem in Japan where traffic is slower than in the USA. Toyota made statements to Automotive News last year, that I posted on a couple of different occasions, that they were going to have to improve their acceleration before bringing the Prius here. And, they can't get it from their batteries. I also raised the question of how much difference could there possibly be in the cost of mfg'g our battery vs theirs. It would have to be rather insignificant, if not pretty much the same. There is no contest in overall performance features and benefits with our technology vs. theirs.
Remember, Stempel stated in his handout to the security analysts in New York in July that we would be announcing that a current Japanese consumer NiMH battery licensee would be entering into an agreement with ECD to mfg'r larger batteries. There was some speculation as to who it might be.
And, Panasonic was one of the likely names that surfaced.
Remember, Toyota has entered into a shared advanced technology agreement with General Motors. All of the pieces
fit into place. All we need is for this to be confirmed.
I only hope we don't have to take them back to court as we had to the last time. The big difference from then to now is that we did not have our basic patents approved in Japan
back then. But, since then our basic patents have been
awarded in Japan in pretty much of a landmark case. The
Japanese don't treat these matters lightly. It is next to impossible to achieve this feat on any basic patents in
Japan. But, we were successful and won. This should help our case.
Regards. |
