Toyota procrastinates on EVs, but dealers get it
Everett, Washington Toyota dealer Buzz Rodland has no plug-in cars to sell, but he has no doubt the future is electric. Toyota may behave as if the RAV4 EV never existed, but as a one-time member of the company's national dealer council, he knew about the cars. He nagged until he received one. "My sales pitch was I would evaluate it in cold weather," he said. According to a story in today's HeraldNet, his experience has him "totally convinced" on electric cars. "I've become a real fan," he said. "I know my customers would buy this car. I think the technology is really worth pursuing."
The story contains a few inaccuracies. The batteries in these 120-mile range EVs are nickel metal hydride, not nickel cadmium. Although Toyota execs have told me they cost $102,000 to produce each of the approximately 1500 RAV4 EVs made to meet California's Zero Emission Vehicle mandate back in the day, the article says they were $225,000. Either way, this is still only 10-25 percent of the cost of the million dollar fuel cell vehicles Toyota would prefer to dribble out for the foreseeable future. Rodland is hopeful Toyota will be producing a plug-in hybrid by 2010, but he's asking Toyota for another one of the five- to ten-year-old EVs.
[Source: HeraldNet]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Throwback 4:56PM (3/31/2008)
$102,000!! That is what killed the electric car not Roger Smith.
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Wildgoosechase73 5:45PM (3/31/2008)
Touche Throwback.
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Andrew 5:45PM (3/31/2008)
Doesn't look like $100,000 is stopping anyone from buying a tesla....and btw Throwback do you know the estimated cost of a hydrogen fuel cell car? How about a MINIMUM of ten times that......
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Marc 5:59PM (3/31/2008)
It's all about economies of scale. The first few of anything are very expensive. $100,000 for a very limited number of custom built vehicles translates into a much lower cost once production is ramped up. Given the urgent environmental and national security need to move off petroleum, the near term viability of plug-in cars demands bringing the nearest term technology to market. Electricity, regardless of the source, is here today and cleaner, cheaper and domestically produced. Plug-in cars are ready for prime time.
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Kardax 6:47PM (3/31/2008)
Andrew: Rich people are used to paying a lot of money for fast sportscars. There's no suprise here. Not sure if you can sell a family SUV for $100,000, though...
Marc: The most expensive component of a modern EV is the batteries, and these are already being mass-produced (the Tesla Roadster uses commodity laptop cells, and these are produced by the billions). You might be able to save some money on other parts, but pure EVs are always going to be lots more expensive than any kind of hybrid.
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what da 7:41PM (3/31/2008)
Kardax,
The argument for EVs is that they were produced in just the hundreds, 1500 or so for the Rav EV and as were EV1s. No car that an automaker produces will be "affordable" and good pricing for just 1500 being produced. For the EV1, 5000 were waitlisted but they PURPOSEFULLY made it VERY difficult to get it and addressed the vehicles, first, by it's limitations and not by its benefits.
And if you say the EV sticker price is going to be higher than a hybrid, yes I would agree with you. But like the fluorescent light bulb you haven't looked at the TOTAL COST which would be much cheaper over time. When you use one-fifth the cost for fuel and practically have NO maintenance for oil change, smog check, replacing spark plugs, and any other hundred gears that can go wrong then compared it to a handful of parts in the EV, I will go with an EV over a gas or hybrid car.
Don't get me wrong I think hybrids are great but EVs can meet 85% of needs because most middle class families have more than one car and most do not need 120 miles in one day.
For the occasion of visiting a far away friend I'll use a hybrid car but for my daily commute to work and routine an EV with 120 plus miles is more than enough to meet my demands and many others.
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KarenRei 7:53PM (3/31/2008)
Kardax: Indeed, laptop cells are produced by the billions. But automotive li-ion batteries, like lithium phosphates and titanates, are not. While normal laptop cells are acceptable for the risk-taking money-bleeding sports car community, they're not acceptable for a mass-market, low-end vehicle where the owner can't afford to change them out every few years and is a bit more averse to the risk of spontaneous combustion. Also, they'll never be able to fast charge traditional laptop li-ions.
It'd be great if these new automotive li-ions can get down to the price of laptop li-ions. Mass production and advancing tech should do the trick.
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jake 8:58PM (3/31/2008)
No doubt all R&D costs would be heaped on to that price, where with such a low volume (only 1500!?) the R&D costs per car are going to enormous compared to most conventional cars that sell at least in the 100s of 1000s. Also, since this is new tech, and components (mainly the batteries) also cost more and are less standard, the costs are even more inflated. Same reason why hydrogen cars are costing in the millions; except h2 components and R&D costs even MORE.
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Throwback 9:07PM (3/31/2008)
In a slow sales year approximately 15 million vehicles are sold in the USA. Currently less than a handful need to be pluged in. We are a long way from having millions, or even tens of thousands of people "wanting" to start plugging in their cars. Just because future EVs may have enough range for most peoples commutes, does not mean people will buy them. A Civic will suffice for most people, but the F150 still sells twice as many units.
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tankd0g 11:39PM (3/31/2008)
Li-ion batter prices will not fall, they will only rise. The expensive part of a li-ion battery is not the manufacturing, it's the materials.
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meme 12:11AM (4/01/2008)
Not true. The lithium carbonate, for example, the source of the li-ion battery's lithium, is a couple dollars per kilogram. That's really cheap.
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Jimmy 1:14AM (4/01/2008)
VPX batteries from Black and Decker have A123 nanophosphate cells and cost under US$ 20 retail for a two cell battery.
I'll agree w/ other commenters that using commodity laptop cells in automobiles is a bad idea, both for lifespan and safety.
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mike 2:40AM (4/01/2008)
These Screwballs had better get EV's on the road fast, or SELL NOTHING.
China is now the 3rd largest buyer of oil on world markets. India has lost in bids for 3 years: http://www.peakoil.com/article36980.html
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Nicholas 8:19AM (4/01/2008)
Hey guys don't forget a major factor: The NimH batteries in the Toyota could go for 100 000 miles + with no loss of performance (!). Now that's impressive.
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kert 1:09PM (4/01/2008)
::The expensive part of a li-ion battery is not the manufacturing, it's the materials.
Which is actually true to a certain extent, the gotcha is that lithium isnt expensive. Cobalt, found in most electronics batteries and causing the flammability problems , is.
The good news is, there are several different lithium battery chemistries, and while cobalt oxide one is most common, other types like iron phosphate and manganese have quite some improvement room in prices, because their costs arent yet anywhere even near the material costs.
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what da 7:37PM (4/01/2008)
Throwback,
I think you have it backwards, the reason why there are only a handful of plug-ins is because they're not avaliable to be bought!
If you don't make it you can't advertise it nor sell it nor test the actual demand so I don't understand how you can assume that people won't buy it and thus, we don't need to make them. Have the automakers produce EVs on a fair market by advertising and marketing just like any of their other cars and see how much of it sells, THEN tell me if there is demand or not. Please save the losing money bid because GM just gave their execs a 33% raise with a several million dollar stock addition while posting a record 33 billion loss.
Money is not the issue nor is demand, it's their mentality and philosophy that they can make what they want and force it onto their customers because they make too much money on obsolete gas parts and cars.
Already as evidence is the prius. All the automakers said the hybrids are not possible and will not succeed. And what's happening now? It's one of the top 10 selling cars in america and people are wanting a plug-in.
It's the mentality that's the problem when EVs outdo any production car costs in every aspect with the exception of a limited range. We need to change the gas habit to a 4 dollar electric chord.
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kevin 7:39PM (4/01/2008)
All i want if for the manufacturers of lithium ion batteries to get the cost under control so that plug in ev's with extended range does not look so much like a whole lot of hot air. When the batteries become affordable then people will jump on them like hot cakes. But as off now despite mass production they still are expensive
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Dr Mark 11:55AM (4/05/2008)
The whole CARB mandate died because everyone made JUST A TINY mistake. They should have (and still can) encouraged development of Plug-In Series Hybrids which use far fewer batteries and only provide 20 to 50 miles all-electric range (50 miles/day is over 18,000 miles per year). A small on-board generator of about 15 kWatts (20 HP) can assure you that the car won't die in an inconvenient spot; but for 90% of your driving you still need no gas. Why haul around 800 lbs and $20,000 worth of batteries that you almost never use?!?!?
Its not surprising that $102,000 in 1998 would equate to $225,000 today, but what about economies of scale. Toyota only produced 100 RAV4-EVs per year. It's amazing they could do it so cheap. And if they eliminated 75% of the batteries by making a Series Hybrid it would be far more affordable than a Tesla Roadster. Of course there is a market for these cars; and by the time gas is $5 NO ONE will buy anything else until they are available.
Dr Mark (www.freedomformula.org)
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