Patent 7367317 was granted and assigned to Toyota on May, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
An engine ECU executes a program including a step of sensing a coolant temperature TW of an engine, if a start request of the engine is sensed, a step of causing only an intake manifold injector to inject fuel to start engine 10, if coolant temperature TW is lower than a threshold value TW(0), and a step of causing only an in-cylinder injector to inject fuel to start engine 10, if coolant temperature TW is higher than threshold value TW(0).