Toyota-Exxon Work Plan on Exxon’s ACS Technology for Hybrid Vehicles (1979)

In 1979, Toyota entered into a collaboration with Exxon to work together on the oil company’s novel gas-electric hybrid drive system. Pages of the work plan can be seen here.

In 1981 Exxon’s engineers delivered a hybrid gas-electric Toyota Cressida to Japan. It was outfitted with Exxon’s technology that enabled use of an AC (alternating current) motor in a hybrid—cheaper, smaller and more reliable than DC (direct current) motors.

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The Electric Car and the Petrochemical Industry: Boon Or Bane? Treat or Threat? (1970)

In 1970, Victor Wouk, an independent scientist presented a paper at the Petroleum Chemical Industry conference in Tulsa, Okla. about the challenges and rewards of electric vehicles. The electric car could be “a treat that can be introduced via the bridge of the heat engine/battery hybrid vehicle over the next several decades. Everyone should be encouraged to promote the development of electric vehicles,” he concluded.

Wouk built a prototype1974 hybrid Buick Skylark that got 30 miles per gallon, double its regular mileage, and emitted 9 percent of the emissions a typical model did.

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Richard H. Baker Deposition: FTC v. Exxon Corporation (1980)

Richard H. Baker was hired by Electric Vehicle Control Systems in November 1976 as a full-time consultant. Baker by then had developed an alternating current synthesizer, or ACS, which the company used in its hybrid gas-electric vehicle prototype in the late 1970s.

To commercialize Baker’s ACS technology, the company bought Reliance Electric in 1979. The Federal Trade Commission filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Exxon to block the acquisition of Reliance. 

In 1980, Baker was deposed in Washington D.C. as part of the FTC’s suit.

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Outline of Possible Interpretative Release by States’ Attorneys General Under The Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act (Draft by Bevis Longstreth)

“The approach that institutional investors should take towards investing in the fossil fuel industry and in industries affected by climate change is a question of pressing concern…There is a need for interpretative guidance for fiduciaries subject to the Act as to how the duty of prudence should be exercised with respect to the rapidly growing climate change risks to the coal, oil, gas and other fossil fuel industries as well as to industries significantly dependent on such sources of energy.”

 

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