Toyota Makes a U-Turn on Plug-in Lithium-ion Hybrids

35 Responses to “Toyota Makes a U-Turn on Plug-in Lithium-ion Hybrids”

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   Guy Incognito Says:
   January 15th, 2008 at 1:03 am

   There are already a number of companies that convert the Prius into an plug-in hybrid.
   Amberjac Systems, EnergyCS, Hybrids-Plus, and Hymotion to name a few.
   Like any other megacorporation, Toyota is quite adept at doublespeak.  
   
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   Harvest Says:
   January 15th, 2008 at 2:00 am

   This has been reiterated a number of times…

   There is a huge difference between a plug-in hybrid conversion by a third party and the commercial release of a plug-in hybrid by an OEM. Crash testing, warranty figures, cost management and planning, dealership support, service plans, and mechanic training are all things that have to be in place (not counting the money) before production of one of these vehicles can take place.  
   
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   Brian M Says:
   January 15th, 2008 at 2:01 am

   Don’t try to talk sense into Guy, he won’t listen.

   As for Toyota, I applaud them for seeing the light. However, I think when people see the difference between a parallel PHEV and an E-REV, the choice will be easy for most   
   
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   Nick Says:
   January 15th, 2008 at 2:42 am

   This means Toyota is way behind. GM will have a 10-mile range Vue available to consumers in 2010. Toyota will only have a 7-mile range and consumers won’t be able to buy them in any case. GM has a 40-mile range offering well into development that will most probably be out by the end of 2011. Toyota has no such announced plans and seems to have just admitted to itself that this is possible.  
   
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   Jean-Charles Jacquemin Says:
   January 15th, 2008 at 3:50 am

   Good day to all,

   In France they already advertise this :
   found on a French site dated December 4th 2007 : http://www.clean-auto.com/spip.php?article4486

   Even with a pdf presentation of the french main electricity company EDF (Electricité de France)
   http://www.clean-auto.com/IMG/pdf/Prius_plug_EDF.pdf
   They do not say anything about the range however.
   The Prius plugin is a reality.  
   
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   Jean-Charles Jacquemin Says:
   January 15th, 2008 at 3:54 am

   I forgot to add this about Fisker

   http://www.thecarconnection.com/Vehicle_Reviews/Hybrid_Cars_Electric_Cars_Diesels/2010_Fisker_Karma_Preview.S274.A13828.html?DID=RSS

   They beat the Volt and even Tesla.  
   
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   Brian Says:
   January 15th, 2008 at 6:57 am

   Proposed $0.40 increase per gallon over 5 year period.

   http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080115/ap_on_go_ot/transportation_safety

   Someone release something already.  
   
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   Brian Says:
   January 15th, 2008 at 7:00 am

   [quote comment="27265"]I forgot to add this about Fisker

   http://www.thecarconnection.com/Vehicle_Reviews/Hybrid_Cars_Electric_Cars_Diesels/2010_Fisker_Karma_Preview.S274.A13828.html?DID=RSS

   They beat the Volt and even Tesla.[/quote]

   I really dig the exterior, but for some reason I find that interior hideous. They must have blown their budget on the exterior. =P  
   
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   Sentinel Says:
   January 15th, 2008 at 7:17 am

   [quote comment="27281"][quote comment="27265"]I

   http://www.thecarconnection.com/Vehicle_Reviews/Hybrid_Cars_Electric_Cars_Diesels/2010_Fisker_Karma_Preview.S274.A13828.html?DID=RSS

   I really dig the exterior, but for some reason I find that interior hideous. They must have blown their budget on the exterior. =P[/quote]

   WAY outa my price range @ $80k, and ditto on the interior. But I’d like my Volt in that color blue please (following the link to the Fisker gallery)  
   
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    Dave G Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 7:52 am

    [quote comment="27280"]Proposed $0.40 increase per gallon over 5 year period.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080115/ap_on_go_ot/transportation_safety/quote
    I think this is a good idea. Something has to be done about our aging bridges. Raising the income tax is worse than raising the gas tax, and as Ronald Regan used to say, “it’s not a tax, it’s a user fee”. People can do something about the amount of gas they use. In 5 years, most of my miles will be electric.  
    
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    Van Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 8:00 am

    As I understand the history, Toyota had planned to retail the third generation Prius in late 2008 as a 2009 model. It was supposed to have a lithium ion battery. But problems cropped up, and the car was redesigned to have a 2.6 NIMH instead of a lithium. This car is still supposed to retail in the spring of 2009, with an AER of about 7 miles, and a top speed in all electric mode of over 60 mph.

    Turning now to speculation, the Plug-in prototypes use the same 2.6 NIMH so even though they plug in, AER is very short. However, if a more robust lithium ion battery will become available for the 2010 fleet PHEV, it may have a longer AER. Time will tell.  
    
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    BlackSun Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 8:07 am

    I think this is a good idea.

    Ditto. $.40 per gallon is not enough. It should rise $1.00 or more, some of which should go to infrastructure, the rest rebated to low-income drivers to offset the pain of the regressive nature of the tax.

    This has the benefit of discouraging use of petro-gas across the board and moving everyone toward electrification of transportation. Liquid renewable fuels could also be exempted based on blending percentages–leading to proportionally lower pump prices the higher the renewable content.

    Over time, to offset the falling revenues, fuel taxes will have to be changed over to per-mile driving fees. This transition could be complete say around 2020.  
    
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    Demetrius Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 8:24 am

    Per Mile Driving Fees!!! Ofcourse, we get off Oil so the government must tax us for how and where we drive because Oil revenue has dried up – all cars will have GPS mileage meters, speed limiters and anything else the tax man can engineer to extract revenue from us.

    Where’s my old bicycle?

    As for Toyota – the general public will not see the difference between plug in hybrid and Volt as clearly as we here in GM-Volt do(pass the koolaid).  
    
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    Dave B Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 8:55 am

    I for one am glad to see the competition from Toyota–may the best “car-that-you-plug-in” win.  
    
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    Tim Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 8:56 am

    Dave G (#10) & Blacksun (#12)

    You liberals really do want to kill the economy with MORE taxes on the productive!

    Tax & spend Republicrats/Democans (NeoCons/Democratic-Socialists) are all the same. They’ve never seen a program they wouldn’t buy with other people’s money. Well, it bankrupted the Soviets and the US is next!

    Why must we give $1.2 Trillion in benefits to ILLEGAL alien invaders each year? Why must we police the world? Why doesn’t Congress simply have the courage to stop wasting $Trillions each year on maintaining & building the global US Empire?

    Ending benefits for illegal invaders, imprisoning those who hire them and closing all international military bases, ending all “police actions” and ending all foreign aid would leave PLENTY in the federal budget for rebuilding OUR infrastructure AND lowering taxes on the productive.

    Any child knows that if you want less, punish it. If you want more, reward it. I guess thinking of this in terms of taxes and productivity is just too complex for the well programmed adult nanny state children.

    I guess common sense is uncommon these days. We will reap what we have sown. Look at gold and the US $Dollar over the last 10 years.  
    
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    Rashiid Amul Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 9:09 am

    [quote comment="27308"]

    Dave B. #14,

    I for one am glad to see the competition from Toyota–may the best “car-that-you-plug-in” win.[/quote]

    I’m not sure how much competition this Toyota Prius brings. It is a fleet car only. And if memory servers me right, only 7 miles on a charge. That seems very anemic
    to me. Don’t get me wrong, competition can be a wonderful thing. I just don’t think it is coming from Toyota.  
    
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    Neutron Flux Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 9:29 am

    Read the fine print on the tax proposal, it is not being proposed just for fixing roads! Rail improvement & rural access, read mass transit, subways and all the pork government can swallow. I am all for taxes on fuels that go directly into improving roads used by such vehicles but history has shown government “appropriates” the funds for everything except road improvements, just look at California how Sacramento has raped & pillaged the highway trust funds for over two decades. Lets start with an audit of all current taxes on fuels in the US to see where they are currently being spent! Funds must be exclusively used for road improvements not mass transit & must be separated and banned from reallocation. They say let those who use the roads pay for their upkeep, I say let those who use mass transit pay for their’s as well!It is either cost effective or not, let it stand on its own merits. Hear Hear!  
    
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    Mark in WI Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 10:13 am

    Jean-Charles –

    I love your posts because it is such a completely different source of information. But I don’t speak French, and sifting through French articles trying to glean something with my limited Spanish could produce some wildly inaccurate conceptions on my part. If you don’t mind, I’d love to see a few bullets from you with the major/significant news from the articles that you link to.

    Go Pack! Forecast is for 7 F, but we can always hope for another ice bowl.  
    
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    Schmeltz Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 10:42 am

    Wasn’t it just a few short months ago, (or maybe even weeks?) that Toyota’s and Honda’s presidents wryly ridiculed GM saying that Series Plug-in vehicles (the Volt) were inferior to their hybrid drivetrains? Toyota has been publicly dragging their feet in their position AGAINST Lithium batteries, and Plug-in hybrid vehicles in general for quite some time, and to the alarm of the green car movement to boot, and now, all of sudden, a complete 180??? Why the sudden and drastic change in position?  
    
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    Drake Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 10:47 am

    This is a little hypocritical of Toyota, but ultimately very good for our cause. GM and Toyota are now duking it out in a head-to-head cage match to see who can create the best plug-in. Could we ask for a better situation?

    Here’s what the 2009 Prius is supposed to look like: http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4212545.html

    I imagine the 2010 Prius will look similar if not alike.

    GM – when are you going to release pictures of the production Volt?  
    
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    kent beuchert Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 10:50 am

    Toyota’s made about four U turns about plug-ins. Four spekesmen, four different claims.
    Let me know when they decide on what they will do about plug-ins. Toyota is just plain dysfunctional.  
    
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    Marty McFly Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 11:04 am

    I have no doubt Toyota is working on a series EREV powertrain for the Prius.  
    
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    Neutron Flux Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 11:54 am

    Tim #15 there is another choice:
    http://www.constitutionparty.com/  
    
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    BlackSun Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 1:04 pm

    Tim:

    You liberals really do want to kill the economy with MORE taxes on the productive!

    Newsflash, Tim, you supposed ‘conservatives’ have been enjoying a socialistic government SUBSIDY for your gas for decades which externalizes production, protection, and pollution costs to taxpayers to the tune of $5/gallon or more. Just google it if you don’t think so. It’s so ingrained in your entitled brain that you probably think it should rain gasoline from the sky and everyone who cares about the earth or the future is a communist.

    WRT per-mile fees: What do you think you’re paying now?? The gas tax is calculated roughly based on the CAFE average–so that’s what it is, a per-mile fee. Without liquid fuel to tax, we will need a new system to pay for the freaking roads you drive on. Or do those descend from the sky also??

    Not even going to touch your moronic views about immigration. Are all ‘conservatives’ so paranoid?  
    
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    Glenn Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 1:16 pm

    #13 Demetrius

    “the general public will not see the difference between plug in hybrid and Volt as clearly as we here in GM-Volt do”

    It should be apparent in MPG. When gasoline goes to $5 you can bet buyers will note the difference.

    Has anyone considered how MPG will be calculated for the window sticker?  
    
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    john1701a Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 1:16 pm

    [quote comment="27259"]Toyota will only have a 7-mile range and consumers won’t be able to buy them in any case.[/quote]

    That isn’t constructive.

    The testing mule has the 7-mile range using current NiMH, not the proposed production model which is intended to use Li-Ion.

    Of course, comparison by range alone makes no sense anyway. FULL hybrids don’t have the same purpose as a vehicle like Volt. The extra capacity delivers a MPG BOOST, not just electric-only operation.  
    
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    Glenn Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 1:23 pm

    #15 Tim

    “Why doesn’t Congress simply have the courage to stop wasting $Trillions each year on maintaining & building the global US Empire?”

    My hope is that when the US demand for oil drops due to these new technologies, our ‘need’ to have an empire will diminish, even vanish.

    Just think if we spent trillions on becoming truly fossil fuel independent instead of clinging to the status quo.  
    
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    Tim Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 1:33 pm

    Glenn (#26), EXACTLY my point.

    Freedom vs Control.

    CHOOSE!  
    
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    Rashiid Amul Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 2:01 pm

    #26 Glenn,

    Just think if we spent $trillion dollars curing cancer, AIDS, getting off oil, etc.
    A Trillion dollars can go a long way. Instead, look where we are. Spending all of this money in the Middle East. Great…..Just great. More taxes kills our economy, not help it. The US government gets enough of my money to waste. They don’t need any more of it.  
    
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    Drake Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 2:48 pm

    Glen, Tim & Rashiid – I couldn’t agree more.

    May all of our unwise politicians be replaced.  
    
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    noel park Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 5:02 pm

    Glenn, Tim, Rashiid & Drake:

    I agree as well. Sorry to repeat myself, but I highly recommend “Blowback”, The Sorrows of Empire”, and “Nemesis”, by Professor Chalmers Johnson. He lays it all out in terms that even I can understand.

    This may be pushing the envelope of the Volt blog, but Prof. Johnson makes it crystal clear that the issue you all raise threatens the very future of our (at least once) great nation.  
    
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    Jean-Charles Jacquemin Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 5:55 pm

    Mark in WI #18

    Sorry Mark, I’m a frenchspeaking belgian and my working langage is 25% english, 75% french so sometimes I forget when posting that some readers do not read french.

    So in nmy posts on the plug-in Prius in French, the most important informations I was referring to were :
    1. Some true Toyata plus-in Priuses are in France since september 2007 beind tested on European roads.
    2. They are in the EDF vehicle fleet (EDF is one of the most important electricity suppliers in Western Europe particularly in France, Belgium and Spain).
    3. EDF has developped public quick charging stations that they use in the tests.
    4. They intend to report tests results in 2008 and progress towards an effective implementation of public charging stations in several countries of the European Union.

    By the way to add to the french site I am referring to , this is a new one :
    http://www.lecho.be/article/La_voiture_ecologique_REVA_disponible_sur_le_marche_belge.6055326
    We learned on TV yesterday that the REVA is on sale in Belgium, it is a plug-in on acid lead batteries with a range of 80 kms (more or less 55 miles), with a max speed of 55 mph. Recharge time is 8h for a full charge but they sat that after 2 hours the battery is 80% charged.

    It costs 14,900 € (20K US $) and a lot of interested people fear about the battery. Reva says it will use Li-ion batteries next year and they intend to build a factory in UK produce 30,000 Reva’s a year because even if people do not like the acid lead batteries, the demand is increasing rapidly especially as the second car of urban families.  
    
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    Space Kimchi Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 9:32 pm

    This is great, the company that has been bashing Li-Ion and crushing EVs is telling me to hate their competitor because they changed their mind about something, awesome. Seriously, GM, play nice, you’re not winning any points by slinging mud like this is some kind of political campaign.  
    
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    Jeff M Says:
    January 16th, 2008 at 1:13 am

    As for the Federal gas tax, the real problem has been that when the tax was originally instituted it should have been indexed yearly for inflation, just like the AMT threadhold.

    As for State level gas taxes… I’ve been a proponent for years to phase out my State’s toll system and instead phase in an increase for the net revenue lost….

    … this has two benefits. 1st it gets rid of the overhead of maintaining the infrastructure, the toll collectors, bean counters, etc. 2nd it saves gas and vehicle emmisions from vehicles idling during rush hour. There’s actually a 3rd benefit as well… in my State we’ve had some serious fatal car accidents at toll booths.

    Instead of raising the Federal gas tax, just get rid of the tax credits and giveaways we’ve been giving to big oil/gas and use that money saved to put into fixing our national roads and bridges.  
    
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    Jeff M Says:
    January 16th, 2008 at 1:15 am

    Opps, my 1st paragraph should/sentence I didn’t finish… it should say “… just like the AMT threadhold should have been as well.”  
    
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