Report: Revived Toyota MR2 hybrid could challenge Honda CR-Z
Honda may not have the hybrid sports coupe market to itself for long if a report out of Japan has any merit. One of Japan's top car magazines, Best Car, is reporting that Toyota is planning to bring forth a hybrid sports car in the near future as a direct challenger to the new Honda. Unlike the front wheel drive Honda, the renderings produced by the magazine indicate that the sporting hybrid would be mid-engined like the now discontinued MR2.
Such a layout would would imply the likelihood of a significantly higher performance level than what we expect from the CR-Z, although Honda has yet to say just what to expect from its coupe. A hybrid sportster like this would might also be a good first non-plug application for new lithium ion batteries. If such a car does become a reality from Toyota, it would certainly be in line with Akio Toyoda's stated intent of getting more passion into his namesake brand. It would also make an interesting counterpoint to the upcoming FT-86 being developed with Subaru. Who said hybrids had to be boring?
[Source: Best Car via CarScoop]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
RAN 10:42PM (11/27/2009)
Whoop-ti-do.... no plug-in, but they *have* decided to jump to the cutting edge and put in lithium ion batteries. Toyota, you're dazzling me with all this technology! Why, in 20 years, you'll even have plug-in *serial* hybrids! And in 30-40 years, an actual car that runs on batteries!
You're just moving way too fast for me.....
Reply
watcher 11:18PM (11/27/2009)
um, they did have an all electric Rav4 back in the late 90's when California had the mandate for no emission vehicles. Same time period that made the General Motors EV-1 death famous. Try doing your homework before replying like that genius
mark 11:45PM (11/27/2009)
This article is old and was posted in march, at least then they put up the updated MR2 photo rather one from the original model. Seems some people here have no idea about EV facts, more than one it seems.
RAN 12:26AM (11/28/2009)
The RAV-4 was then... this is now, "Genius..."
Ian Bruce 12:13AM (11/29/2009)
Mark: Speaking for myself, I'm delighted they used that photo -- I actually own a silver MR2 Spyder.
http://www.spyderchat.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30591&highlight=ianbruce
Mark_BC 2:10PM (11/29/2009)
"There's plenty of hydrogen in seawater, too, and just like the lithium, it's jumping up onto the (rapidly retreating) shoreline, just begging to be scooped up."
Getting hydrogen from seawater makes no sense because of thermodynamics. Getting lithium from sea water is difficult due to the lack of a cost effective method of doing so. They are totally different issues. H2 is used as an energy source and Li is an energy storage medium. But that is all irrelevant because there's plenty of easily recoverable lithium in salt flats and minerals, more than enough to last us until the NiMH battery patents expire and we can make BEV's with those, and there's no shortage of nickel.
"You're saying that the energy storage device--not the energy source--loses five per cent in itself, and you're fine with that? Context. Context."
Can you elaborate on that? Numbers please.
"Electric cars are a fascinating hobby..... Battery cars are a curiosity--an artifact. They'll be accepted as real transportation only at the point of a gun."
Well, you will soon be able to buy one for almost the same price as an ICE car, that has a daily range of 100 miles, and that costs 1/5 the price to charge, and 1/4 the cost to maintain (less moving parts). I have a feeling that at least half the population will disagree with you.
"Why, once you glue the solar cells to the roof, there'll be no stopping you."
Yes, you could get 10 miles daily range using today's solar panels, maybe even 20 miles in a few years as they improve.
It's your choice to be angry, it seems to be the norm in the wonderful free market paradise of the USA, but for your own sake why don't you vent your emotional problems on a real problem.
comatus 4:28PM (11/28/2009)
Electric cars are then, "Genius." As in 1902-1916. This is now.
Now that the CO2 hoax has been exposed, expect a whimpering death for your insipid fantasy. No battery will ever be as efficient as an engine. If electricity were free, you could just about break even. Yank the Gaia-worship subsidy and you have the backyard toy you're so richly qualified to drive, so long as Mom keeps a close eye on you.
Reply
Ian Bruce 7:39PM (11/28/2009)
Comatus wrote: "No battery will ever be as efficient as an engine..."
Li-Ion batteries and electric motors are about 95% efficient.
Gasoline engines are about 25% efficient.
BTW: If your basis for Climate Change denial is some out-of-context emails, there's equally compelling evidence for the existence of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
Mark_BC 8:43PM (11/28/2009)
Nice try comatose, but try using some numbers next time. A coal fired electricity plant is 30% efficient, plus 10% loss in transmission, plus 75% plug to wheel efficiency of an EV, and you end up with 20% overall efficiency for EV's powered by coal. This compares with 18% for a typical ICE and 30% for a high efficiency diesel. But if only half of your electricity comes from fossil fuels, then suddenly EV's jump to 40% efficiency.
But the big benefit is that it's 5 times cheaper to charge an EV than fuel an ICE. And EV's will soon be the same price to buy as an ICE.
comatus 8:45PM (11/28/2009)
And right there is the statistical work that's made the Climate Change movement the laughing-stock it is today. You're saying that the energy storage device--not the energy source--loses five per cent in itself, and you're fine with that? Context. Context.
Why, once you glue the solar cells to the roof, there'll be no stopping you. Go settle your science, hater.
comatus 9:16PM (11/28/2009)
Yes, and lithium grows on trees in Illinois, batteries last forever, zeppelins got a bad break, and unicorns on treadmills will soon power half the grid. Here's a "number" for you: as of this morning, over half the electorate opposes continued subsidies for ManBearPigCo.
Play fast, boys, the game's almost over.
Ian Bruce 11:27PM (11/28/2009)
Here I go... debating the ignorant.
Besides mined sources, here's about a quarter trillion tons of lithium available in seawater. BTW: The salt in your Cheetos comes from the same source. Lithium is also recyclable -- gasoline is not.
Regardless of any facts, if you choose to believe there's a worldwide conspiracy by shadowy socialist/communist vegetarian overlords regarding the funding of climate research, and/or that global warming is a hoax, that's your privilege.
It might help if close your eyes too: that way you won't have to look at visibly obvious things like rising sea levels, retreating alpine glaciers, changes in ocean currents, and massive reductions in Arctic sea-ice. Such knowledge is dangerous, since you may inadvertently make a connection to these events and how a "climate" actually works.
comatus 12:46AM (11/29/2009)
You've obviously made a lot of "choices" in what you believe. You believe, for instance, that your movement has no leaders. But from outside the bubble, you appear to be marching in lock step.
There's plenty of hydrogen in seawater, too, and just like the lithium, it's jumping up onto the (rapidly retreating) shoreline, just begging to be scooped up. You choose to believe that. You're entitled to your own religion, but, as events are rapidly "conspiring" to prove, you no longer have the right to your own facts.
Electric cars are a fascinating hobby. Some of my best friends like to toy with steam traction; it's amusing and educational. If one day they started trying to force the rest of us to fire up and chug off, we'd laugh in their faces. That's right where you're at. Battery cars are a curiosity--an artifact. They'll be accepted as real transportation only at the point of a gun.
There. "Ignorant" just argued with "crazy."
Al 6:17AM (11/29/2009)
"the game's almost over."
I don't know where you've been for the last year, but from where I'm standing it looks like the game's just started!
Ian Bruce 8:02AM (11/29/2009)
You're obviously unfamiliar with a 2006 Pentagon report addressing the national security implications of climate change. 2006, if you'll recall, was during the Bush administration -- who, by the way, immediately classified it for obvious reasons.
The report was commissioned by Pentagon defense adviser Andrew Marshall -- a guy who's had considerable influence on U.S. military thinking over the past three decades. If you don't recognize the name, he was the man behind transforming the US military under Donald Rumsfeld.
The authors of the report were Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the Global Business Network.
The report concludes that climate change "should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a U.S. national security concern", "an imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is plausible and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately", and that "the threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism".
It's the U.S. military's job to take every credible threat seriously, and develop a response plan -- they don't have the luxury of ignoring facts to service some kind of political agenda. It may surprise you that the Navy has been monitoring pack-ice thickness, weather patterns, and global currents and temperatures for many years, and has reached many of the same conclusions as the vast majority of climatologists.
Among the Pentagon's concerns:
-- Himalayan glaciers are likely to recede, producing fresh water shortages in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and parts of China.
-- Receding Arctic ice could trigger a territorial conflict involving Russia, the United States, Canada and others.
-- Sea level rise in Bangladesh, and drought in other parts of the world could unleash a flood of cross-border "climate refugees" and violence.
-- The Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, an atoll only a few feet above sea level, likely would disappear, taking away a critical U.S. military staging area.
-- Abrupt climate change could cause countries to employ nuclear threats to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies.
BTW: The Pentagon's main switchboard number is 703-545-6700. I'm sure that with a single phone call you could set 'em straight on what kind of deluded, tofu-munching, liberal panty-waists you think they really are. Just ask for whoever's in charge of "crazy". They'll put you right through.
comatus 1:11PM (11/29/2009)
I'm going to hazard a guess that this is the first time you've used the Pentagon as your appeal-to-authority fallacy since the Berrigans. But you got the Bush conspiracy angle in, after calling me a conspiracy theorist, so we'll go with that.
The Pentagon has many papers. There's an action plan for repelling a Candian invasion, and another for invading Canada. There are several for asteroid strikes. There was the Blue Book. And yes, there's another for the impact of a coming Ice Age. Obviously you're unfamiliar--I hope as unfamiliar as you say I am--of their details, their derivation, and of whether anybody in operations seriously thinks these things might happen. It's their job, and it's a sweet berth. Nobody gets to do it for a career.
But it's classified now, so only you can know. The rest of us just have to do whatever you say. Just like the rest of your "special" science: unverifiable, irreproducible, unfalsifiable, and, by the way, we've lost our source data, but trust me, I'm a "scientist." No you're not.
Al, you may have a point there. The game is afoot, and if you work out a way to power a car by harnessing rolling academic heads, I may buy stock in a startup. We're about to see a buyers' market in them.
Mark_BC 2:13PM (11/29/2009)
I made a response to comatose but mistakenly put it in the reply to the previous post.
Ian Bruce 4:14PM (11/29/2009)
I said it was classified under the Bush administration, which is simply a fact -- I didn't say it was classified now. The presentation version is linked below.
NATIONAL SECURITY AND THE THREAT OF CLIMATE CHANGE
Authors:
GEN Gordon R. Sullivan
Chief of Staff, Army
ADM Frank Bowman (USN)
Director, Navy Nuclear Power
Lt Gen Lawrence P. Farrell Jr. (USAF)
Chief Planner HQ USAF
VADM Paul G. Gaffney II (USN)
ONR and NDU
GEN Paul Kern (USA)
Army Materiel Command
ADM T. Joseph Lopez (USN)
Commander, U.S. Navy Europe
ADM Donald L. Pilling (USN)
Vice Chief, U.S. Navy
ADM Joseph W. Prueher(USN)
Pacific Commander; U.S. Ambassador, China
VADM Richard H. Truly (USN)
NASA Administrator; Astronaut
Gen Charles Wald (USAF)
Deputy U.S. European Commander
Gen Anthony C. Zinni (USMC)
Commander Central Command
http://securityandclimate.cna.org/report/CNA_NatlSecurityAndTheThreatOfClimateChange.pdf
Statement of Vice Admiral Lee F. Gunn, USN (Ret.)
President, American Security Project
Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Hearing on “Climate Change and Global Security: Challenges, Threats, and Global Opportunities”
http://foreign.senate.gov/testimony/2009/GunnTestimony090721p.pdf
robcomptec 5:46PM (11/28/2009)
Series hybrids are overrated.
I have always preferred to the parallel hybrid that Toyota manufacturers.
A series hybrid cannot avoid turning all the mechanics of the engine, even if the engine is not consuming gas. The parallel hyrid can move the car without the engine having to spin.
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Snowdog 7:46PM (11/28/2009)
I think you have your terminology mixed up.
You must be thinking of the Honda system, which is probably considered parallel. Motor is attached permanently to engine and they always turn together (in parallel).
Series Hybrid usually means: Engine-Generator to charge battery, supply power. No Engine direct connection to the wheels. IE like the Volt.
Toyota system is generally considered Series-Parallel. I agree, this is a very versatile arrangement. It can do everything. Mix any amount of Engine/Motor. Certainly the best system for a small battery hybrid.