A compact CPC is a hint to read the claim narrowly, and Toyota's grant US10958196B2, "Powertrain system" (issued March 23, 2021), has one of the tightest classification sets you will see in this space: H02P 6/20 and H02P 6/10 for electronic commutation and motor control, H02K 47/04 for machine construction, and B60L 50/61 for propulsion from onboard storage. Four classes, all converging on one thing — driving and controlling the traction motor.
The independent claim's value, then, is in the motor-control method, not in a sprawling vehicle system. H02P 6/xx classes are about how the inverter commutates and controls the machine, so the defensible core is the control approach for the electric machine. That is a deliberate, narrow position: Toyota is not trying to claim 'a powertrain' broadly, which would be indefensible, but a specific control technique within it.
This is the kind of patent that rewards the application-versus-grant discipline. It is a granted B2, so the scope has already survived examination, and a narrow grant that has issued is worth more in enforcement terms than a broad application still in prosecution. The H02P classes mean any enforcement reads on inverter/motor-control behavior, which is testable on a bench — a practical advantage for the holder.
Dated March 2021, the grant fits Toyota's long, methodical electrification posture: deep, focused IP on the components it has manufactured for decades rather than splashy system-level claims. The teardown verdict is that the independent claim is genuinely narrow and therefore genuinely defensible, with the H02P motor-control limitations doing the real work. Read the claims, not the bland 'Powertrain system' title — the substance is all in the commutation and control.