Bang for the buck

The best technology solutions for electrified vehicles are the ones that deliver ∼80% of the performance of ‘ideal’ systems, at ∼60% of their cost.

Journalists are forever theorizing about trends in the subjects they report and write about, and I'm certainly guilty of the same. Looking at the number of vehicle manufacturers who have introduced new P2-type hybrid powertrains in the past year-with many more examples to come by 2013-started me wondering:

Is the “white space” surrounding intellectual property (IP) for light-duty hybrid systems growing smaller, as companies lock up patents? And if so, is this making it difficult for new entries to claim their own territory in terms of key technologies- thus the move to P2s?