Ford built their hybrid set up and realized it was very close to what toyota came up with, so they decided to just pay for the license for the tech rather than risk getting sued.

Stop raggin' on Motor Trend about lickin' "Insert name of car company other than Ford" 's *****. Honestly I've read every issue back to back for the past 3 years, and as a devoted Ford fan, i've never seen any bias anywhere near as strong as people are always female ******* about. I'm sure some individual journalists might have their personal preferences, and some of them might let those shine through a little bit every once in a while... But you've got dozens of people who spend their lives driving and writing about cars. If they say good things about a certain brand, ITS FOR A REASON!!

sorry... i'm done now.

 

I always thought MT was pretty darn good myself, espeically for domestics. COTY just depends on whats new, the 'newest' idea always wins. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dunno.gif[/img] C&D is a little sappy for imports, its Automobile that in love with european cars. R&T is like its run by scatterbrains. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/04.gif[/img]

 

Haha, sorry Jeff. But after reading a Camry long term road test in MT, they listed about three serious problems including a leaking head gasket, but in the "highs and lows" recap they counted "reliability" as a pro and justified it by saying "we likely got a poor example." Yet the entire point of the long term test is to report on their specific vehicles, not glaze over any details about their physical car and feed me more of what everyone already thinks about Camrys.

At this point I read the words for fun and take everything subjective with a grain of salt. They've got expensive testing equipment that I can't afford, but I can generate opinion and buy into generalizations all by myself.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(AnotherMustangMan @ February 14, 2006, 2:41 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
Haha, sorry Jeff. But after reading a Camry long term road test in MT, they listed about three serious problems including a leaking head gasket, but in the "highs and lows" recap they counted "reliability" as a pro and justified it by saying "we likely got a poor example." Yet the entire point of the long term test is to report on their specific vehicles, not glaze over any details about their physical car and feed me more of what everyone already thinks about Camrys.

At this point I read the words for fun and take everything subjective with a grain of salt. They've got expensive testing equipment that I can't afford, but I can generate opinion and buy into generalizations all by myself.
[/b][/quote]

They also had a Prius for a year that never topped 42mpg, a far cry from 60.

The toyota store I worked at always had plenty of vehicles to work on, and the techs moan and groan about being pieces of ..... just like any other dealership(techs hate whatever they work on [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif[/img] )

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(StangenSteven @ February 12, 2006, 9:00 AM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
Whining and asking the Fed for a bail out is quite unbecoming...and un-American.
[/b][/quote]

Welcome to the the future brother, welcome to the US of A in the new millenium.

 

I doubt this lawsuit will ever end up in court. More likely the plaintiff is just looking for monetary compensation - something Toyota can manage easily. Everything else in the meantime is just sparring and posturing.

It will amount to nothing and Toyota will carry on building its hybrids, business as usual, IMHO.

 

Its certainly an interesting case that I would like to follow to see the outcome of.

I enjoyed reading everyone's comment's and I agree that something should be done if it really is patent infringement.

I'm sure something will inevitably happen. What that "something" is is far beyond me. But negative press is certainly not a good thing.