Toyota is already getting ready to crank out plug in hybrids.
The Prius continues to be Toyota's top technology.
Toyota bowing to pressure to build plug in hybrids and ethanol capable vehicles
By HARRY STOFFER | AUTOMOTIVE NEWS
AutoWeek | Published 07/19/06, 7:32 am et
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WASHINGTON -- Toyota is "pursuing" development of a plug-in hybrid vehicle and is "strongly considering" the sale of ethanol-capable vehicles in the United States, says Jim Press, president of Toyota Motor North America Inc.
Press offered the clues about the status of future green vehicles from Toyota in remarks he was to deliver Tuesday at the National Press Club.
Toyota long has downplayed the potential of plug-ins. Instead, the company has emphasized its leading role in the development and sale of conventional hybrids, which combine internal combustion engines and self-contained, on-board electric power.
But environmental and national security groups and some government officials have labeled plug-ins a promising response to energy problems. They have pressed the industry to market plug-ins.
A plug-in has a larger battery pack than a conventional hybrid and can run farther on all-electric power. It must be plugged in regularly to recharge the batteries.
Toyota executives also have criticized the emphasis that some competitors have placed on ethanol as an alternative fuel. But again, Toyota appears to be bowing to public and competitive pressures in advancing its plan to offer U.S. customers flex-fuel vehicles.
Such vehicles can run either on gasoline or on ethanol-gasoline mixtures that are as much as 85 percent alcohol, usually made from farm crops.
Top technology
Press insisted that hybrids such as the Prius still represent the company's top technology. Toyota is going ahead with plans for hybrid versions of all its models.
Press, Toyota's top U.S. executive, said in his National Press Club remarks that good days are ahead for the U.S. automobile industry. He predicted U.S. sales of 20 million vehicles a year in the near future. He also said the industry will play a large role in solving the remaining societal problems created by cars and trucks.
Press said he expects General Motors and Ford Motor Co. to succeed in their turnaround efforts and to rebound as strong U.S. competitors. He said he applauds their efforts.
At the same time, he offered reminders of the big investments in plants and workers that Toyota and other import brands have made in the United States.
Earlier, Press said Toyota's place in talks about an alliance of GM, Nissan Motor Co. and Renault SA is "on the sidelines," waiting to see what happens. "If they become stronger competitors," Press said of the companies, "it will make us work a little harder."
'Idle speculation'
News stories suggesting that Toyota might try to make its own deal with GM or otherwise thwart the alliance talks are "idle speculation," Press said. No such talk has occurred in Toyota offices, he said.
Leaders of GM, Nissan and Renault have launched a 90-day review of possible benefits of an alliance.
As he downplayed Toyota's interest in a possible new global automotive alliance, though, Press predicted that more industry consolidation is inevitable. He said that ultimately, there will be seven to 10 global automakers because smaller ones won't have the capital to stay competitive.
"We have a lot of goals and objectives to run our own company," Press told reporters here Monday night. "Our goal has never been to see how big we can be."
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Why No Plug Required
Plug in my hybrid car? Why, you ask?
The reasons are simple and the technology doable today, but first let's make one thing clear. The current crop of hybrid cars from Toyota, Honda, Ford and Lexus do not need to be plugged in to recharge their batteries. In fact, they can't be plugged in. Anxious to not have their cars confused with pure electric cars, carmakers have gone to great pains and expense to reassure potential buyers that their products have none of the limitations associated with battery-only cars, including having to plug it in at all.
Instead, the batteries in today's gasoline-electric hybrids are kept recharged by an engine-driven generator. In addition, hybrids can also make use of the vehicle's own kinetic energy. Apply the brakes on your Prius or Insight or Escape and you actually engage the generator, which not only makes electricity, but actually helps slow down the car. You get back some of the energy (between 10-50% depending on how "mild" your hybrid is) you expended to move the car down the road and save wear-and-tear on your brakes at the same time.
Cool, huh?
Electric Hybrids -- An Idea Whose Time Has Come
What we call an "Electric Hybrid", also known as a plug-in hybrid, grid-connected hybrid, gasoline-optional hybrid or just PHEV, works pretty much the same as your conventional hybrid, but with one big exception: it has a bigger battery pack.
Take the much-in-demand Toyota Prius, for example. It has a 201 volt, 1.3kWh battery pack mounted under the rear passenger seat. It is a technological marvel all by itself. If the battery is fully charged and the engine warmed up, you can drive around the block without the gasoline engine turning on at speeds up to 42 mph. In effect, you're driving an electric car, and it's great for creeping along the congested 405 in Los Angeles. But wouldn't it be great if you could go further than a kilometer or two?
We could if we replaced that 1.3kWh, Panasonic NiMH battery pack with sometime a bit larger, say 9kWh? What would that -- and some nifty computer code hacking -- do for the Prius?
That's exactly what a California non-profit and small R&D company wanted to find out. The California Cars Initiative and EnergyCS have built prototype Electric Hybrids; CalCars building the first prototype, which they call "PRIUS+", with affordable, but heavier, low-energy density batteries, which will be replaced with NiMH; and Energy CS, using lighter Lithium-ion batteries.
In the case of Energy CS's Electric Hybrid Prius, the engineering teams estimates that the car, if carefully driven, can get between 120-to-180 mpg; while using only 115-150 Whr per mile. The last part, Watt hours per mile, is important. Here's why.
The 9kWh Lithium-ion pack provides enough energy to propel the car at freeway speeds for about 60 miles or so -- a really exciting improvement. At that point, the car returns to normal hybrid operation, running the gasoline engine for most of the time and getting about 50 mpg.
In effect, you didn't burn a little over one gallon of gasoline for the first 60 miles or so, as long as you don't go faster than 40 mph[1]. Instead, you consumed something less than 9kWh of electricity. Why less than 9kWh? It's a safety and durability precaution so you won't fully discharge the battery and shorten its life. So, let's say you used 80% of the 9kWh. That's 7.2 kiloWatt hours.
Now comes the fun part. Let's say you live in a city where electricity costs you 10 cents a kilowatt hour. To travel that 60 miles, it cost you 72 cents compared to the current national average price of gasoline at about $2.20/gallon in the US (as of April 2, 2005). In effect, for the same $2.20, you could drive up to 180 miles -- on three successive days, of course -- giving you the equivalent of 180 miles per gallon.
Nifty, don't you think?
Better yet, you generated no smog-forming tailpipe emissions and used American-produced energy including renewables, nuclear, coal, and natural gas, and virtually no imported oil. Can you start to appreciate the economic, environmental and national security implications here?
To learn even more about the benefits of hybrids that you can power from your home, see All About Plug-In Hybrids on the CalCar's web site.
Do I Have to Plug It In?
Of course not. That's the point. You get to choose which energy source is right for you. If there's not enough energy in the battery pack, no problem, you can drive on gasoline... but at about three times the cost, remember.
Like a battery electric car or your cellphone, when you get home at night, you'd plug the Electric Hybrid into a standard 110 or 220 outlet; the latter allowing you to recharge the car a bit faster, in case you care. Unlike most fully-electric cars, a night's charge from a 110V outlet is sufficient, and if not, it's not a problem.
CO2 Impact
If we run cars off of electricity, won't that generate more greenhouse gases?
No. They will generate significantly less. Here's why.
If your car gets 20 mpg, you will generate almost 24 pounds of carbon dioxide driving 20 miles, while burning one gallon of gasoline.
By contrast, a 20-mile-range plug-in hybrid might consume 5kW hours of electricity. Given transmission line and battery losses, it would take about 5 pounds of coal to go the same distance.
Depending on how much coal and natural gas your utility burns compared to other non-CO2 fuels like hydroelectric power or wind, every kilowatt might generate about 1.4 pounds of carbon dioxide. That's just 7 pounds to drive those 20 miles on electric power-only compared to the 24 pounds of the gasoline-only car. And since ethanol is virtually CO2-neutral, a flexible fuel plug-in hybrid would produce two-thirds less CO2 emissions than a gasoline-engine car.
So, while you sleep, the power company uses cheaper, off-peak electricity to recharge your car, saving you even more money and helping them get more efficient use out of their investment. You'd wake up each morning with a "full tank" of "fuel".
And depending on how much you use the gasoline engine for longer trips, you might have to refuel at a gasoline station maybe once a month, if that.
Need to drive further than 60 miles in a day? Again, no sweat. The car will operate just like any other hybrid using a mixture of both internal combustion engine and electric motor(s) to wring out the most efficient performance from the car.
Now Add Flexible Fuels
Okay, now you've got a car that will cost pennies to operate on a day-in-day-out basis using locally generated electricity, maybe even from your own solar panels.
There will be times, of course, when you'll need to switch on the internal combustion engine, but even here there's a neat, environmentally sustainable way to do this by switching from gasoline to E85 ethanol, a blend of 15 percent gasoline and 85 percent ethanol made from plant matter, principly corn at the moment, but eventually from any plant waste. Using E85 instead of gasoline is also good for the environment because it generates 30% less carbon monoxide and 27% less CO2 than a comparable gallon of gasoline; and most of that CO2 is carbon-cycle neutral because it's derived from plants, which need CO2 to grow. (E85 generates 17.06 pounds of CO2 to create 15,500 BTUs compared to the 23.95 pounds for gasoline).
Carmakers have built and sold millions of vehicles in America that can use E85 without modification, but no hybrids, so far. A flexible fuel plug-in hybrid would use only 15% as much gasoline as a conventional vehicle when running on its IC engine; the remainder would be made of renewable, carbon-neutral biofuels grown and processed in America.
When Can I Buy One?
You can't... not yet, at least. The cost of the batteries is a stumbling block, though even at current prices the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has shown that the total lifetime cost of an Electric Hybrid is lower than that of a non-hybrid and not merely lower than that of a conventional hybrid. And as more hybrid cars are built, the cost of batteries should continue to come down. A bigger impediment may be the belief by many, especially auto industry leaders (who are now acknowledging they were wrong about hybrids) that there's no market for these vehicles.
The appearance of this new EV World section reflects a shift in perceptions about these cars. Institutions ranging from utilities to state governments to environmental, national security and other groups are starting to call for the production of these vehicles. Meanwhile, small groups like CalCars and Energy CS hope to offer installed "kits" until the car companies come around.
Eventually, EV World expects carmakers to offer an electric hybrid option that will let you choose which fuel you prefer to use: gasoline, biofuels or electric power.
That's when we'll have real choice.
[1] A critical caveat: current plug-in hybrid conversions based on Toyota and Ford hybrid-drive systems operate in electric-only mode under 40 mph. Try to drive faster than this and the gasoline engine comes on. Plug-in hybrids with electric-only operation at freeway speeds greater than 40 mph are still in development.
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180 MPG? WTF?
If America and Japan twiddle their thumbs, I can guarantee you that China or someone else will build it and sell it.
Why possibly China? They lead the world in trying NOT to become dependent on fossil fuels. Alternative energy is a PRIORITY in China. They learned from the U.S.'s shining example of how bad things can get when you are on the oil tittie and do not have enough oil in your own country to supply demand and thus have large chunks of cash outflowing to other nations, nations that do not like you.
Topic: Whoops! We may be buying Chinese cars sooner than you think! (Read 2196 times)