Where Toyota's RAV4s are at today, and tomorrow
The fate of the General Motors electric vehicle, the EV1, has, literally, been documented all over the place. But the fate of electric vehicles from another major automobile manufacturer has been less publicized. Perhaps that's because, unlike GM's EV1 crushing policy, Toyota has announced it will keep all of its RAV4 EVs that are still running on the road "as long as they are safe and it is practical to do so" and "as long as they are sustainable". Toyota said last week that RAV4 EVs can continue to be leased (or purchased) by lesees and that vehicles returned to Toyota will be redeployed if they're still up to snuff. If they're not, then they will be harvested for parts and the rest will be recycled. Sounds a lot more sensible to me than letting them rust in the desert.
[Source: Toyota]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1985 Gripen 6:12PM (7/05/2006)
Though the EV RAV4s are a great step toward alternative energy vehicles, they were only sold to fleets, right? I see them every once in a while on the freeway sporting City of Los Angeles logos on the doors.
What's the real future of EV cars for the average consumer? The EV-1 is gone and a lot of niche makers are making either glorified golf carts or exotic cars out of the price range of the common man.
Is anyone leveraging advances in EV technology to come out with a purely electric car or is the electric vehicle a dinosaur and hybrid is the only future?
Most of the problem with EV cars were the limited range and extensive charge time, right? Haven't Lithium Ion and Lithium Polymer batteries improved on the older lead-acid and Nickel-Metal-Hydride technologies? Is there any major maker out there working on a next-gen EV? I know that everyone's working on hydrogen, ethanol, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and maybe even butanol. Anyone trying to advance EV technology or did everyone give up?
In my ideal future world all the cars would be EV and the entire power grid would be supplied by renewable, sustainable, and non-polluting technologies (solar, wind, geothermal, waves).
Hybrids are nice, but a "lesser of two evils" thing. They still contain internal combustion engines and emit CO2 and other pollutants, just less than most other cars. Hardly ideal.
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Sebastian 12:01PM (7/06/2006)
About sales to fleets: I'm not sure what the original policy was, but a few months ago you could have purchased a RAV4 EV on eBay. http://www.autobloggreen.com/2006/05/01/toyota-rav4-ev-sells-for-almost-70-000-on-ebay/
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The other Bob 1:52PM (7/06/2006)
The EV1 was unsustainable because GM would have been legally responsible for producing spare parts for it for many years down the road. Since the RAV4 is built on an existing platform, it is much cheaper to provide parts for it.
GM lost enough money on the EV1.
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powergyoza 1:55AM (7/07/2006)
The lithium-ion batteries are available, but not cheap at all. On a very very rough scale, one has to pay 10x the price to get 2-3x the power/weight. Maybe when we get closer to 2-3x price for 2-3x the power/weight it'll be more popular.
Current makers of lithium-ion batteries for EVs include a123, valence, thundersky, kokam. If you talk to any of them, you'll quickly find that getting enough batteries to power an EV is quickly going to hit 5-figures!
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