Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
The thing I find confusing about it is how anyone can claim that
using a gasoline-powered motor/generator and electric drive motor
combination could be original, proprietary, or "theftable".
That concept has been in use for decades in diesel locomotives.
I am sure many original engineering details can be stolen. The
general idea is not new, but automobiles are very different from
railroad locomotives and it must be a lot of work to implement this
design for an automobile with state of the art equipment.
To take a similar example, wind powered sails and windmills have been
used for thousands of years, and wind turbine water pumps since the
19th century, but the newest generation of wind turbine electric
generators are built on a far larger scale than any previous wind
powered machines, and they incorporate advanced technology in design
phase, in the generators, and elsewhere.
- Jed
