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Toyota to Move to All Hybrid Vehicles By 2012
ftumph writes "Toyota has announced that
all their vehicles will be gas-electric hybrids by 2012. The plan is to eliminate the current $3,000 per vehicle additional cost for hybrid engines through mass production."
Finally, it is about time that an auto manufacturer step up to the plate. Too bad it is not an american mfg.
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
What would be really cool would be a hybrid Wankel-electric engine. You'd get the smoothness and high power to weight ratio of the wankel combined with the efficiency of the electric motor. Mazda, any plans for the RX-9? :-)
Stick Men
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I'd be a little concerned about buying one of these vehicles unless the manufacturer made a real effort to provide education to the masses about how to service them. How expensive is service going to be? Can I grab my buddies, tools and a case of beer and nut it out myself? These things are important.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
However, the fact that the Prius has sold very well in the USA is proof that you don't need lots of power to be a popular seller.
:-)
Having driven a Prius, the acceleration is actually quite good--and in the right conditions 50+ miles per US gallon fuel efficiency is great.
I think once the new EPA rules on cleaner diesel fuel comes into effect in a few years we may see diesel-electric hybrids--now imagine a Toyota Corolla with a diesel-electric drivetrain getting 75 mpg and still meet Super-Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle standards!
It says in the article that the hybrid cars would get 50 miles to the gallon.
We used to own a family sedan (Volkswagen Passat) which got 45 miles to the galon of Diesel fuel. Driven economically, you could get it up to about 70 miles a galon. This was 8 years ago.
And here in Germany VW have had the 3l Lupo, where the 3l standing for 3l/100km consumption, which translates to about 75mpg, out a couple of years also.
So I ask you: Is 50mpg really that good?
Operating an electric vehicle may not be as cheap as you may think. Currently, gas taxes go to support maintaining and expanding the roadways. Once enough people jump on the electric bandwagon, I could see the government imposing many of the same kinds of taxes on electricity. And I don't know if you've noticed, but electricity hasn't been getting that much cheaper lately.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I am not sure how many people will be willing to make the switch themselves. I was very much looking forward to buying a Toyota Prius, but I recently found out that the hybrid cars of today require you to change the batteries every 3 yrs and it costs $6000-7000 to replace them and they are not as powerful now. But maybe all this will change by 2012.
At the filling station, they pump out the broken shells, water and NaOH from your tank, before putting in new water and powerballs. The broken shells are recyclable. The NaOH is reacted with fresh H2 to produce water and NaH.
There needs to be some regulatory rules to make this process as clean as it promises to be. NaOH is nasty stuff, though no more toxic than gasoline. But overall, it's a cool idea.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
First of all, I've had my Prius for about 8 months now -- and I love it. The car is a technological marvel. Not only does it get amazing mileage, it also puts out less emissions that just about any other car out there. For those not familiar with how a hybrid works, all of the car's energy originates with the car's 11.5 gallon gas tank. There is no plug. I repeat: there is no plug :)
There is however a battery pack under the rear seat of the car and accessible from the trunk. Under the hood there is a conventional 4 cylinder engine as well as a electrical motor/generator. Here's where it gets fun: in order to slow down, the generator spins backwards (!) slowing the car down and generating energy. When the need for strong breaking occurs, or at low speeds, the friction brakes kick in. The system is very refined, with only a small barely noticeable transition between regenerative breaking and friction breaking. The energy generated is then stored in the batteries.
Internal combustion engines are least efficient when they first start up and also produce the most pollutants at start up. The Prius uses its electric battery power to drive the motor forward and get the car moving. This dramatically reduces wear on the engine and lowers emissions and increases mileage. (Note: At speeds under 38 mph, you can run totally on electric power -- or stealth mode -- the car is completely silent! Very cool.) That's a real basic run down. For real engineers & car people -- note the lack of a planetary gear, an ignition system, etc. There's a lot going on in this car!
I alluded to the biggest misconception earlier -- there is no plug. All the energy is generated internally. Some other folks have mentioned fuel cells, I sat in on a briefing a few days ago with some top EPA/DOE folks, and they made it quite clear the technology isn't quite there yet. But the biggest problem is the hydrogen infrastructure that would have to be built. I sensed that they would personally favor government intervention to encourage this, but that would be extremely unlikely under the current administration.
One last comment -- there are two categories of hybrid cars -- full and mild. Both are good, but if Toyota is talking about mild hybrids, this story is a bit more of a yawn. Mild hybrid just means that the engine kicks off when the vehicle is stopped. Basically, the only additional battery needed is to spark the engine back to life. This is a good thing (imagine all those idling engines turned off and not emitting pollutants), but it is hardly a revolutionary step. The technology to do this has existed for years.
But please -- everyone go out and buy a hybrid -- I've driven them all, and they are all amazing. Of course, the Prius is my favorite, but the hybrid civic is nice and so is the Insight. And keep your eyes open for the new hybrid Ford Escape due in late 2003. Encourage all your "I'm an environmentalist but I drive an SUV" friends to put their money where their mouths are!
I've had mine for two years of not so gentle driving in the NYC metro area and occational forays into mountainous areas and nasty unmaintained dirt roads with no problems (34,000 miles so far) As for the full/mild, the differences are a bit more involved. There are "series" and "parallel" hybrids - the Prius can act as either and any shade of grey between a strict series and parallel. The Hondas are strictly "parallel" hybrids. From the marketing literature the Escape seems to be a "parallel-series and any shade of grey" version like the Prius - but they are talking about a paltry 40/29mpg :-( (I sort of wish they wish Toyota would just stick a little motor on the rear wheels of the Prius for low speed 4wd)
The "mild" hybrids are those that some monster SUV makers have been taking about which are basically integrated alternator/starters (i.e. very small parallel hybrid) that could in theory help out a little with propulsion if it wern't for the fact that the huge hotel loads of some of the proposed enhancements (i.e. 110v outlets for hair dryers and the like) would consume most of their energy budgets.
BTW, like any other car, driving style affects milage. I average 54mpg, my wife would kill me if I told you she only averages about 49mpg.
I recently bought a slightly used pickup truck. 2000 F-150.
I did a comparison with purchase price, gas prices, mileage, etc. between the F-150, and a new Honda hybrid.
The F-150 @ $12,000 and 20mpg does not start to cost more than the Honda @ $22,000 and 70 mpg until almost 200,000 miles.
And that is not including any maintenance costs. Battery replacement, etc.
Yes, the truck uses more gas. But the price differential is hard to ignore on a personal level.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/Aerosols /
please tell me where you see the greatest levels of pollution over the year?
Are you shocked at the polution coming from India, Russia, and Europe? I'm certainly not. Now - compare it to the USA.
That's right.. its a piss in the ocean in comparison.
What amazes me is that the Russians, who have been whining and crying about Kyoto... good Lord! Look at Russia during the winter months.
The rest of the world is so full of crap when they complain about us.. but then, hard facts and evidence don't really matter to hippies, tree-huggers, or liberals.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
E85 is much better for the environment.
By 2015 I would hope to see a combination of E85 Fuel and hybrid electric. E85 is a fuel blend of 100% renewable Ethanol and 15% gasoline. I have seen people claim that American car manufacturers are not paying attention to the "green" car. I say that isn't true. The Ford Taurus, in all it's grand ugliness has been a FFV vehicle for years. An FFV vehicle is a fuel flexible vehicle that can run on 100% gasoline, to any mix of ethonol up to 85%. There are currently more FFV vehicles on the market today than Hybrid Electric Vehicles.
Some include:
2.7L Dodge Stratus Sedan
2.7L Chrysler Sebring Sedan and Convertible
3.3L Dodge Cargo Minivan
3.3L Chrysler Voyager minivan
3.3L Dodge Caravan minivan
3.3L Chrysler Town & Country minivan
4.0L Explorer (4-door)
3.0L Taurus sedan and wagon
3.0L Supercab Ranger pickup 2WD
5.3L V-8 engine Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra half-ton pickups 2WD & 4WD
5.3L Vortec-engine Suburban, Tahoe, Yukon and Yukon XLs
3.0L Selected B3000 pickups
4.0L Selected Mountaineers
2.2L Hombre pickup 2WD
2.2L Chevrolet S-10 pickup 2WD
2.2L Sonoma GMC pickup 2WD
E85 vehicles require no plug either. They also require no infrastructure upgrades like other solutions. Ethanol combustion produces friendly CO2 gas that can be used by plants, and water. Ethanol produces 110 octane, thus keeping your engine cleaner. The biggest myth about Ethanol, is that it requires corn to be efficient. Not true again, many industrial byproducts can be used to produce Ethanol. The byproducts of Ethanol production can be used in many other applications.
Now image all this:
US production of Ethanol - 85%
US production of Oil - takes care of 5% of the Gasoline requirement
10 % of Gasoline is still from foreign sources
Combined with Hybrid Electric technology we can create a vehicle that gets 50+ MPG, reduces pollutants by probably 90%, and changes NONE of our infrastructure requirements!
Why hasn't this technology come to the forefront... because for some reason, no one wants to see Ethanol succeed. The oil companies shot down Ethanol in the 80's and Archer Daniels Midland worked out a deal with the oil companies to save itself from bankruptcy due to bad management.
Visit e85fuel.com and see the truth.
Fast forward many years: Stirling cycle engines are much more efficient (actually, Stirling cycle engines have always been very efficient - some say they have the best efficiency - but they typically had a low hp/big size ratio), smaller - overall just better. There is also a growing awareness of them - look around on the internet and you will find a bunch of sites detailing construction of simple Stirling cycle engines. There is also a company that creates Stirling cycle generators that run on propane.
Basically, what a Stirling cycle engine needs is a "hot" and and "cold" side - it works off of the temperature differential. Most of the test vehicles used a propane burner or something similar to raise the hot plate above ambient temperature. This worked, but was slow to start (because the burner had to fire up and bring the hot plate up to temperature before the engine could turn over). I wonder if maybe there is a different way....
What I am going to describe is something maybe those of you out there with mechanical experience and "gumption" can use to jump start a new project - a "free idea" invention, if you will. If you actually get this thing to work, post it on /. or somewhere, and give me some credit - that's all I ask. Or, perhaps this has already been tried - in that case, don't. I hope at least one person tries, though:
Basically, make your hot plate be a solar collection panel, heating up brine or oil or something, and the cold plate be a "multi-finned" panel on the bottom of the vehicle (think of it as a large heat sink). Put the Stirling engine between them, and use the power of the Sun! The engine could be directly connected to the back wheels, through a transmission, or you could have it drive a generator to run electric motors (with associated regen braking, etc via a capacitor/battery bank). At night, allow it to plug into the wall (or gas line), which drives a heater to keep the engine spinning at low-RPM, thus eliminating the "cold start" startup time.
Another idea, not using Stirling cycle engines, but that same energy differential (hot/cold plates with tubing circulating between) is to use some kind of phase change gas, at pressure - which could drive the engine, plus a compressor. The hot plate would heat the liquid, turn it into gas, which would drive the engine, circulate it through the cold plate, then through a compressor to turn it back into a liquid. I am thinking ammonia, freon, or propane as the working gas, though there may be other safer gasses out there which could be used. The key is the phase change (think of it like a refrigerator running backwards). The engine could then drive the wheels or a generator/motor set like above.
I hope this gets people's brains spinning - such vehicles would be nearly polution free, and would have few moving parts. I would also bet that a prototype could be built using off-the-shelf components, or junk.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I like that your car has that ASST/CHRG indicator on your dashboard.
I expect we could save the equivalent of all the oil in the ANWR if all cars had instantaneous MPG indicators on the dashboard. I know for one I would be modifying how I drive to run that number UP, and I don't think I am alone.
If that saved just 1% the 20 MILLION barrels of oil per day (per here) that the U.S. burns...
Why has this not been done? Would it cost an extra $50 per car? I think that the gasoline savings would more than pay for that over the life of the vehicle.
I own a Prius. It's an excellent car. There is a price premium on the car, but if they can minimize this, they'll definitely have a winner. My engine on this 4-cyl compact is a paltry 1.5 L engine, but oomph is way better than most low-cost 2.0 compacts I've come across. Mind you, if you spend similar cash to get a Jetta, you'll get more oomph. But like I said, they just need to get rid of some of the price premium. Also, the Prius isn't as loud many cars in this range. Furthermore, at low speeds when the gas engine shuts off, it's whisper quiet. It's so quiet that I have to extra careful sometimes at intersections - people can't hear a car coming and they just walk in front of the car. Morons - didn't their moms teach them to look before they cross? By the way, continuous variable transmission rules (if you like automatics). The acceleration is soooooo smoooooth.
As to overcompensating for something, if you're trying to imply that the only use for a sports car or a pickup truck is as a penis extension, then you've had some kind of sick self esteem issues pounded into your head at some point.
:p Yeah, you're cool Mr. speedy. You just nearly killed someone.
I can't say what it is like where you live, but around here I frequently see other guys in trucks and sports cars peel out past old women as fast as they possibly can, blaring their engine like hell. If that's not trying to make up for a small penis, I don't know what is. At least, that's what my girlfriend frequently states.
FWIW, I've *never* seen a woman try to frighten others on the road as they pass. They don't seem to need nearly as much attention on the road.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh