Posted on 07/10/2008 4:11:24 AM PDT by decimon
TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) will switch gears and produce the Prius hybrid instead of the less fuel-efficient Highlander sport utility vehicle at its planned Mississippi factory, the Nikkei business daily reported on Thursday.
The world's biggest automaker is also likely to suspend production at one of two assembly lines at its Indiana factory, where it builds the Tundra pickup and Sequoia SUV, by year-end for at least six months, the paper said. Citing company sources, it said the move was in response to falling demand for those models and would amount to a production cut of 50,000 vehicles a year.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
electric cars have been a pipe dream for 30 years, no suitable battery, they are still a pipe dream. Running the car on the starter is an old four wheeler trick, it just doesn't work that well. When someone comes up with a battery that beats the LSD NiMH, the latest technology, that can equal gasoline in energy storage density, then we may have something. Until then ... psst, it's just a scam.
It will still be a dream even if they came up with a good enough battery technology. Cars use 20 times the power as an average house. That means that if you are going to plug your car in to charge up overnight, you are going to raise the average power draw of your house by at lease 5x. Do you think the power grid we have can support everyone all of a sudden using 5x the electricity?
Everybody always overlooks where you get the juice for the battery charger.
I agree with your 20 years, if then.
Looks like this is out of the realm of speculation and into the realm of ‘we’ll see.’
Now I can see Toyota hyping the Prius as a matter of marketing, but that's a different story.
I think we the people should be able to drill and refine our own products.
Only if you know that the final deals are done. If you know you have all countries and politicians sufficiently lobbied, paid for and green (red) you can go ahead with your plant.
If we assume one vehicle in a two car family fleet is an electric vehicle used for commuting/short trips only, an overnight charge cycle doesn’t really stress the infrastructure. A 50A 220V circuit (which is a typical range circuit) would do fine.
The electric companies are licking their chops hoping for this to come to pass. Sunbelt utilities peak in the late afternoon in the Summer, and would love to see some more nighttime load on their equipment.
I agree. But increasing demand, until very recently, is outstripping our ability to increase supply at a reasonable price. That could change but it hasn't in forty years so I'm not holding my breath.
That is because they want a productive workforce, not a continuous fight with the UAW.
The plant is green-lighted [no pun intended]. Toyota is simply announcing that it is building a different vehicle there.
The Prius has been built for several years now. One you don't hear much about, the Ford Escape hybrid is, I believe, going into its fifth production year with the 2009 model. That Escape, FWD 2008 model, is rated at 34 MPG city and 30 MPG highway. And the Escape is affordable.
Looks like variations of hybrid or electric vehicles are coming, like it or not.
Fortunately, a lot more battery production capacity is coming online because of the demands of the computer industry for various portable devices and light industrial users as power backups. As such, Toyota can get batteries needed for its next-generation Prius, which will offically arrive in January 2009 at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
And I would agree with you. I hope that technology advances to at least give us a breather. But it so far hasn't advanced enough.
Its a funny thing how many companies who used to try like hell to avoid regulation now benefit from it.
Yes, that's an insidious process. It's similar to what used to happen with the car companies and the UAW. GM became less concerned with particular union demands than with whether Ford and Chrysler would have to meet the same demands. And so it is with regulations. As long as all must meet the regulations there is no competitive disadvantage to meeting them. At that point it is a matter of going where the money is.
If a Prius met my other requirements, I would have bought one (or two). Unfortunately, it was too long to fit in my driveway, and I hate to park on the street. I can’t put two cars longer than 160” each between my house and the sidewalk.
But the Prius is a nice, comfortable vehicle and the efficiency numbers are good. My brother has two of them, and has had no trouble at all.
Auto manufacturing plants are like chameleons, the robots are easily reprogrammed. With the JIT manufacturing, no parts are stocked in depth, so changing is simple. It makes PR sense to say they are building Priuses, when in fact they may build something else.
All a Prius is a Corolla with a small auxiliary battery and a big well heat sinked starter motor. It's called a two mode hybrid because the gas engine does most of the running, the starter motor is used mostly for the auto-start and off the line acceleration. I drove one around, it mostly works. If you think about it, the majority of the 'savings of fuel' is due to the auto-start, shutting the engine down at idle.
I also drove a Chevy Tahoe hybrid. Most of the savings on fuel comes from electric accessories, cooling fans and power steering, and auto-start. The battery is quite small and has limited energy storage. The electric motor is in the transmission, so it starts the engine and drives the wheels during the initial acceleration. Not much endurance on electric power.
Last month Toyota couldn't build what they sold, not enough batteries, the shortfall was like 25,000. So why would you need more production capacity when you need more batteries.
No one thinks about the amount of materials it takes to build the batteries, which is what caught up to Toyota.
All the focus on hybrids and electric 'plug-in' cars proves is no one in Washington is serious about drilling for oil and building new power plants. That's the scam.
Real technology you can use is direct injection which is going into production cars right now.
Big saving for cars can be had with electric accessories, cooling fans, power steering AC those kinds of things. Auto-start, shutting down the engine at idle, can also add lots to fuel gains.
Tell me, if Toyota announced it was building heavy trucks that get 8 miles to a gallon of diesel in your state, do you think your politicians would blow it off?
Technology is a beautiful thing. Frankly, the Prius is based on ten year old tech. Something better will come along, and soon.
But three years ago, when I was replacing my cars, the Prius was about as good as it got.
I just hope that somebody applies the new technology to maximize milage, instead of high performance. Too often, it seems, the emphasis is providing reasonable milage without sacrificing 0-60 times. I really don’t care about 0-60 times. I never put my right foot all the way to the floor, so what do I care what happens when I do? But I fill up the car every week.
I would take a car with 14 second 0-60 times that got great milage, any day of the week. But I am probably an outlier in this regard.
They get around some of the limitations by using high voltage packs of these NiMH batteries.
The computer industry is mostly satisfied with Li-Ion, which when recently a plug-in car using this Li-Ion battery chemistry was brought out for public viewing, the result was it burned to the ground. Li-Ion — not ready for car use.
There is a bunch of people working on this problem, been doing that for years. The winner will get billions in patent rights, if it happens.
Looks like this is out of the realm of speculation and into the realm of ‘we’ll see.’
I liken it to the T Bone Pickens plan. I disagree with his wind and solar ideas, but the natural gas for autos and trucks, has some merit since the technology already exists. Burns clean, just missing the wider distribution of bottled gas locations.
One issue that I’m also unfamiliar with is whether CNG works with present day fuel injection systems. Seems to me the cars running on Natural Gas of yesteryear, needed a carburetor.
I’m not exactly up to speed on the differences in Butane, Propane, CNG and any other gas permutations either. So much stuff, so little time. So many cars sitting in the driveway.
I was just gonna get another Scion xB 'til Toyota screwed with it.
Now I'm waiting for the Nissan Cube.
BMW has got a 7 Series V-8 due next month. Watch for the announcements in the coming months. Direct injection ads about 20% to both hp and fuel mileage.
Give me 60 hp in a 600 cc engine powering a 1600 pound car, and I will be a happy puppy.
I have two of the First Generation xBs. I can’t believe how badly Toyota screwed up the redesign.
I have always wondered why We didn’t take a problem like battery storage capacity and hand it to our top engineering schools (MIT for example) give them the funding, and a timetable. Then await results. The goal is clear. The battery has to provide the same or greater amount of energy as gasoline. The plus side is that electric motors are much more efficient that internal combustion devices. We developed how to do this when we developed the Polaris missile.
A gross oversimplification. A Prius is not a Corolla. The Prius is the only car that's a pure hybrid, designed from the wheels up as a unique hybrid, with regenerative braking, a CV transmission, and the ability to drive solely using the electric motor. The other cars are after-the-fact hybrid assist vehicles. I'm not including the Corolla, since there is no hybrid version of the Corolla, which gets 27/35 mpg.
I got 60.5 mpg recently on a 350-mile trip on the interstate recently in my Prius.
You said "if you think about it, the majority of the 'savings of fuel' is due to the auto-start, shutting the engine down at idle". Maybe you'd better think some more -- at interstate speeds the motor seldom shuts down, namely on steep downhill grades or deceleration at an off-ramp.
Bailing out troubled industry of any kind is bad precedent that unfortunately has been set and will take great courage to fight.
I wish we'd bought another before the redesign :(
I can’t believe how badly Toyota screwed up the redesign.
I haven't seen the sales figs on the new ones, but in an age of $4+/gal gas, I can't believe the sales numbers are all that great. From what I've seen on the car blogs, Nissan's Cube looks like it might be pretty good, pretty close to an xB (though without the dash top display that I really liked). Toyota needs its corporate head examined.
It’s simple, just plug your car into your neighbor’s house.
:)
The Prius uses smaller NiMH batteries in series, making a 200V battery, with upper and lower state-of-charge limits to extend battery life. The Volt will have lithium-ion batteries.
I was looking at the Nissan Cube, after reading your reply. Pretty neat little car. It is the way Toyota should have pushed the Scion xB, smaller/lighter instead of bigger/heavier. There are a lot of big/heavy cars out there, so the xB is now competing in a very well-served market. Meanwhile, it looks like the Nissan Cube will have small/light all to itself.
I just hope the Cube sits up as high as the xB. The seniors I drive around (family members with various disabilities) love how easy it is to get in and out of. No stepping down and stepping up. I know Toyota was afraid of the marque becoming the new Buick, but if folks are buying the cars, who the heck cares how old they are?! Jeepers, the nation’s greying. Note to companies: Tick off geezers at your peril. I can’t tell you how many older folks I knew who were going to buy an xB. Now they’re waiting to see what the Cube’s like, too.
Yeah. I am not exactly the target demo for the Scion xB. I like it for the same reason. It is the easiest car to get into and out of that I have ever owned. I drive around seniors from my church from time to time, and they always are leery about the car when they get in, but love it by the time they get out.
I don’t understand why Toyota does not want my money...
Nope GM recently said safety precludes their using Li-Ion, they are back to NiMH, lowered the range. No one wants to get into the fire safety issue especially with large high powered Li-Ion battery packs.
You are right about the series connected cells, they have to up the voltage because the per battery capacity is small, so they resort to high voltage and electronically step it back down. I saw the Chevy Tahoe Hybrid battery pack, it is really odd to see some many little cells in the pack to get the high voltage -- Had to be close to 200 cells in there. At least I was told it was the battery pack, don't hold me to it, it's just what the dealer told me, and you know how that goes. $50k was out of my price range ... for a truck. All those "High Voltage" stickers on the truck internals was creepy.
Its also important to note that many electric companies currently use natural gas plants for meeting peak loads. Those plants are not the cheapest way to generate kWhs, but they are the easiest to ramp up and down to meet those peaks.
If you increase the base load on the system via overnight charging, you increase the viability of other power plants, such as nuclear, that are expensive to build but cheaper to fuel.
You then have the potential to essentially shut down peaking plants, thus greatly reducing the demand for natural gas. Despite the increased prevalence of natural gas to heat homes over the years, actual natural gas usage for that purpose has dropped in this country. But demand for electricity generation has skyrocketed.
Exactly so.
On a related note, there’s really very little overlap between transportation fuel (almost all oil), and central station electrical generation fuel (primarily coal, hydro, nuclear, and natural gas, with some wind, solar, oil, and geothermal).
Many of those opining on energy issues act like fuels are interchangeable, when that is far from the case.
You are right about the series connected cells, they have to up the voltage because the per battery capacity is small, so they resort to high voltage and electronically step it back down. I saw the Chevy Tahoe Hybrid battery pack, it is really odd to see some many little cells in the pack to get the high voltage -- Had to be close to 200 cells in there. At least I was told it was the battery pack, don't hold me to it, it's just what the dealer told me, and you know how that goes. $50k was out of my price range ... for a truck. All those "High Voltage" stickers on the truck internals was creepy.
I still see the Li-Ion as the batery choice.(Any links to the change you mention?) Recent aritcles have hinted the Toyota is looking towards this tech as well, further in the future as they just invested in NiMH manufacture.
The Tesla is a full Li-Ion vehicle, so should be good to watch for how they work on the road over time.
On topic of this post, San Antonio and Indiana (Sequioa and Tundra lines) both were gifted with three month shut downs. Meanwhile the folks in MS are doing the happy dance about the Prius.
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