Patent 7482779 was granted and assigned to Toyota on January, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A hybrid ECU executes a program that includes the steps of: determining whether a deterioration degree of a battery is greater than a predetermined degree; when the deterioration degree of the battery is greater than the predetermined value, tightening the regulation of charging/discharging power to/from the battery; determining whether the deterioration degree of the battery is smaller than the predetermined value and; when the deterioration degree of the battery is smaller than the predetermined value, relaxing the regulation of charging/discharging power to/from the battery.