Americanized Russian Inventor of the Hybrid System Honored

The A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland in College Park will honor the inventor of the hybrid power system used in the Toyota Prius and other hybrid cars, Alex J. Severinsky by inducting him into the Clark School's Innovation Hall of Fame on October 30. Severinsky, who has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Moscow's Institute for Precision Measurements in Radioelectronics and Physics immigrated from Russia to the U.S. in 1978 - right in the middle of the national oil crisis of that era. Recognizing the problem of high gasoline consumption, he decided to find a viable solution. -Continued

He concluded that a fully-electric vehicle would never be practical, but an electric/internal combustion hybrid could work. After working as an electronic engineer and opening his company called Viteq that was sold to a Texas-based firm, the Americanized Russian sought the help of the then Clark School Assistant Dean Herbert Rabin, who assisted him in forming yet another company, called Power-Assisted Internal Combustion Engine (PAICE), to create a hybrid power train.

In 1992 Severinsky began filing numerous patents for the Hyperdrive power train system. He then made a physical prototype of his technology and, on October 14, 1999, demonstrated the PAICE system in Detroit. Severinsky showed that the system could reduce a Cadillac Coupe de Ville's in city consumption by half without affecting performance .

According to the University of Maryland, engineers at U.S. and Japanese automakers were interested in Severinsky's invention, but top management resisted. A staff engineer at Toyota later developed the same idea as Severinsky for hybrids. However, when the Toyota Prius was introduced, Severinsky fought to protect his patent rights and after a prolonged legal battle with the Japanese automaker, he won the civil case in 2005 - though additional litigation is in progress as the University of Maryland stated in its release.

Despite the legal battle with Toyota, Severinksy actually drives a Prius. "I bought my car from Toyota," he said, with a smile. "My wife loves it. It uses several of my inventions." The entrepreneur also credits Toyota for creating "an unusual working environment in which in-house competition of ideas is fostered".