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Toyota and Tesla May Work Together Again
cartechboy writes: Tesla and Toyota have already worked together a few times. The factory in which Tesla builds the electric Model S? It bought that from Toyota. The Toyota RAV4 EV? The battery and software tuning was done by Tesla. Now it sounds like Tesla and Toyota might have another significant project in the pipeline in the next two or three years. Tesla CEO Musk said such a project could be "on a much higher volume level" than the firm's last project with Toyota, the RAV4 EV. Toyota currently has a 2.4 percent stake in Tesla Motors and has sold 2,130 RAV4 EVs through August. For its part, Toyota has no comment regarding Musk's statements about the future project. Given Toyota's stance on electric cars, Musk's comment is a bit confusing. So what exactly will this joint project be?
Because pure electric cars are new technology that are cool and interesting to read about. Because, for the moment, it still reads like an underdog story(not that I actually buy into that being true). Because are we really that interested in what, say, Microsoft is up to now?
Even though this is really a non-story, it's still much more interesting than Bitcoin.
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The current Priuses and other Toyota offerings are parallel hybrids. That is, they have transmissions that directly drive the wheels using the ICE (Internal Combustion Engine).
In a series hybrid, each wheel has it's own motor, and the ICE engine runs at a steady speed that is very efficient to generate electricity that is then used to recharge the batteries that are fed to the electric motors.
A second part of my guess is that Toyota is licensing the recharging technology from Tesla, so that they can use the supercharger network as well. This way they can have a vehicle that can run 100% off of electricity only, but have a ICE engine that is available at any time to back that up (faster refueling, can go anywhere there is a gas station, etc.)
And yet, nobody started buying them in any significant volume until the last couple years.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Hey, sometimes you just want to make a crash a little more literal.
Or a race condition.
I frequently drive a plug-in Prius at 65mph in pure EV mode. It's really no big deal (unless you're one of those people who insist on stopping at the top of the on-ramp, so you have to stand on the accelerator to get up to speed.) I can hit 70 or more on a downhill with a tailwind :) .
Unless 90% of your driving is under ten miles round trip, and you don't like to rent cars in order to drive more than the 80 mile range you'd get from a 2014 Leaf, in which case the PiP pays for itself.
The Leaf is a great car if you get the 6.6 KWH on-board charger and a level 2 EVSE ($600 minimum). If you have only the level 1 EVSE and the lame charger, you're talking about a vehicle that literally spends far more of its time on the charger than on the road. Not worth the price for most people.
But in any case you can't just buy a car without analyzing your needs - not even a gas car. It's even more important when you buy an EV or plug-in. You have to know what you'll be doing with it, and how long you plan to keep driving it. They aren't for everyone yet, although Tesla is working on changing that.
My spouse drives a Leaf and gets three days driving from one charge; I drive the plug-in Prius and charge every day - sometimes two or three times a day. In firewood cutting season I spend more money on gas for my chain saws than I do for my car.
One thing that does totally suck about both cars is the lack of a spare tire. This offends me so much I am trying to figure out how to mount spares on the rear bumpers! The regular Prius has a spare.