Toyota to launch battery electric vehicle in 2012, fuel cell in 2015
Bob Carter, group vice president and general manager of the Toyota brand, came to Detroit on Monday to have lunch with some local media. Among the topics of discussion at the gathering were Toyota's plans for zero emissions vehicles. Since last January, Toyota has shown two different plug-in battery powered concepts, the FT-EV and the FT-EV II, both of which were small city cars. Carter confirmed that Toyota would introduce a battery electric car in 2012. What he declined to elaborate on was what type of car it would be, although he did say the EV would not look like either of the concepts. Odds are the BEV will be a city car of some kind though. When asked if he thought EVs could hit 10 percent of the market by 2020, Carter replied, "the technology has to advance much further than it is today to hit 10 percent of the market."
Carter reiterated that internal combustion and hybrids would remain the primary motivators for some time to come although the company was still committed to fuel cells as well. Toyota would like to have a fuel cell vehicle on the market by 2015 if there is a reasonable network of filling stations.
Toyota will start deploying its test fleet of 500 plug-in Priuses around the end of November to commercial and government fleets in Japan, North America and Europe. According the Carter, the lithium ion battery Prius can run electrically at speeds up to 62 mph for up to 5 miles. It's not clear if the car can actually accelerate from a standstill to the speed without running the engine, that will have to wait until we have a chance to try one out.
[Source: Green Fuels Forecast]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
augustus 12:42PM (11/03/2009)
Begin ritual flogging of Toyota due to mention of a fuel cell vehicle.
Reply
letstakeawalk 4:41PM (11/03/2009)
Begin ritual flogging of ANYONE who mentions the heinous word!
LOL.
Serge 11:22AM (11/04/2009)
Symbolic flogging aside, the real one will start when Toyota (and Honda) start to loose sales to GM, Ford and Nissan in the next 5 years as T&H remain stubbornly entrenched in their version of the future of mobility.
Tohe 1:02PM (11/03/2009)
Yawn, could a company be any less exciting than this?
Reply
mk3 1:48PM (11/03/2009)
@Tohe,
agreed, but slow and steady wins the race; ) Chrysler is more exciting what with the engine failures, transmission failures, bankruptcy once or twice, etc. so if it's excitement you want..
Tohe 3:24PM (11/03/2009)
Hell no. Think Fisker!
letstakeawalk 3:30PM (11/03/2009)
Fisker is very exciting. They're going to announce their European distributor (over 100 dealers) very soon.
Tohe 5:13PM (11/03/2009)
Yes Mr. Wilde we know Fisker is taken you or your money to the wild side.
midnightrunner 1:53PM (11/03/2009)
Wasn't this done in 1997 with the Rav4ev?
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paulwesterberg 2:02PM (11/03/2009)
Yes with a msrp of $29-42k and range of 100-120miles.
I would buy a new one today if toyota still sold them.
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letstakeawalk 2:27PM (11/03/2009)
Blame Chevron. Come on, you know you want to. And CARB. They relaxed the rules so EVs weren't needed.
polo 3:17PM (11/03/2009)
The Rav4ev and EV1 were the result of automakers preparing to meet CARB's zero-emissions mandate. Its not exactly an unknown that those EV programs ended around when the mandate was eliminated, and that Chevron did buy up the patents for the EV1 battery system. You've gone from being a cheerleader for the hydrogen/hoax to just plain bitter.
letstakeawalk 3:26PM (11/03/2009)
Who's bitter? You're projecting...
I like fuel cells, and I like EVs. I can't wait to see what happens when Chevron's patents expire.
ShaunneyCakes 3:35PM (11/03/2009)
Ummm, no. Toyota has said that the Rav4 EV cost around the area of 200,000 each to produce. The problem with EVs in 1997 is that the demand was not there, the batteries were not durable enough (would only last around 70-100k miles if lucky) and cost WAY TOO MUCH to produce. Toyota did end up selling some of these at a loss because there was no reason to keep them around at the time.
Would you have bought the Rav4 EV for $240,000 (with %5 profit to Toyota)?
Serge 4:05PM (11/03/2009)
ltw, if I am not mistaken you are a historian, correct? In that case you should be familiar with the concept of sticking to facts instead of assumptions about motivations of others.
Unless ... (ok, no assumptions from me today).
CARB "relaxing" the rules would be similar to someone "giving" their wallet, because a gun is pointing at their head.
GM and other automakers, with the help of Bush Justice department successfully sued CARB and forced them to drop the ZEV requirements (http://www.e2.org/ext/document.jsp?docId=1043)
letstakeawalk 4:21PM (11/03/2009)
Serge,
You're arguing over my usage of "relax"? It means exactly what happened: CARB loosened, made less firm, etc. the rules for emissions that were in place at the time.
paulwesterberg 4:32PM (11/03/2009)
@ShaunneyCakes
No I wouldn't pay 240k, and the car would not cost that much in mass production today.
The Rav4 EV was only ever sold at a few dealerships in California(not where I live & hardly mass production). If I had a pile of large cash to put towards an EV I would buy a tesla roadster.
The vehicle only has a 27.4 kWh, about half the size of teslas 53kwh pack which is estimated to cost $30-36k. So such a pack could be built today(by an innovative company) with a pack cost of $15-18k and another 10k for the chassis leaves a bit of room for toyota to make a profit.
Wikipedia says:
"Some RAV4 EVs have achieved over 150,000 miles (240,000 km) on the original battery pack."
So the "lucky" range is quite a bit more than you state, but since chevron owns the patents replacement NiMH batteries cannot be bought for any price.
polo 4:42PM (11/03/2009)
-"CARB "relaxing" the rules would be similar to someone "giving" their wallet, because a gun is pointing at their head.
GM and other automakers, with the help of Bush Justice department successfully sued CARB and forced them to drop the ZEV requirements (http://www.e2.org/ext/document.jsp?docId=1043)"
Thanks for the post Serge.
"umm no.
Umm no what? Rav4ev and EV1 were lease-only, had low production volume, and were hand-built... of course the costs were high. Had the mandate stuck and they put out mass produced versions, obviously the costs would not have been the same. Regardless, I was correct that both programs were ended after CARB was forced to end their zero-emissions mandate.
letstakeawalk 5:02PM (11/03/2009)
"CARB was forced to end their zero-emissions mandate."
Now that's an incorrect statement. CARB didn't end the ZEV mandate, they just relaxed it.
"Due to a lawsuit filed against the Board, a federal district judge issued a preliminary injunction that prohibited the Board from enforcing the 2001 ZEV amendments with respect to the sale of new motor vehicles in model years 2003 or 2004. Once the Board adopted the 2003 Amendments to the ZEV regulation, the parties to the lawsuits agreed to end the litigation."
http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/background/background.htm
polo 6:03PM (11/03/2009)
According to your own quote they were forced to end enforcement of the 2001 ZEV regulation. Obviously the zero-emissions mandate I was referring to was the 2001 amendment, not the 2003 amendments that were later adopted that didn't carry the mandate. Nothing incorrect about the statement.