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Goliath, meet David. Toyota is being sued by Solomon Technologies
Inc. for alleged patent infringement concerning the electric drive unit used in the Prius and Highlander hybrid.
Solomon is a manufacturer of marine transmissions, and has a technology that they refer to as the
Electric Wheel. It’s essentially
two electric motors that are incorporated into a planetary gearset, forming a CVT of sorts. I’m not familiar enough
with the Prius transmission or Solomon’s patents to understand how the two may relate to each other, so we’ll need to
leave that to the courts for now.