Columnist wildly speculates Toyota making EV.

2847 Views 3 Replies 4 Participants Last post by Texas, Jun 12, 2008

Jason M. Hendler

Discussion Starter · Jun 12, 2008

Douglas A. McIntyre wildly speculates that Toyota is developing an EV, based on Toyota developing Li Ion production capacity:

Link

First, he makes the illogical leap that Toyota is developing an EV based on Li Ion production capacity, then makes the unsubstantiated claim that Detroit's automakers are wondering how Toyota got out of the box faster than them. Typical media hyping an overseas competitor over domestic automakers, but this is completely without any basis in reality.

GM's Volt is an EV with a range extender. If GM decided that the market was clamoring for a BEV, they would dump the range extender, and add pure EV range by enlarging the battery pack, so even if Toyota was developing an EV, GM would be able to respond instantly, but only if the market wanted it.

What the author won't admit, is that the Prius is just an electric assist ICE vehicle, from which Toyota cannot develop an EV, so they must start from scratch. Toyota is WAY behind GM in EV / REEV development.

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dagwood55

· #2 · Jun 12, 2008

Jason M. Hendler said:
Douglas A. McIntyre wildly speculates that Toyota is developing an EV, based on Toyota developing Li Ion production capacity:

Link

First, he makes the illogical leap that Toyota is developing an EV based on Li Ion production capacity, then makes the unsubstantiated claim that Detroit's automakers are wondering how Toyota got out of the box faster than them. Typical media hyping an overseas competitor over domestic automakers, but this is completely without any basis in reality.

GM's Volt is an EV with a range extender. If GM decided that the market was clamoring for a BEV, they would dump the range extender, and add pure EV range by enlarging the battery pack, so even if Toyota was developing an EV, GM would be able to respond instantly, but only if the market wanted it.

What the author won't admit, is that the Prius is just an electric assist ICE vehicle, from which Toyota cannot develop an EV, so they must start from scratch. Toyota is WAY behind GM in EV / REEV development.

Yeah. That explains why 99.99% of the gas-electric vehicles I see on the road are GMs. No... wait... they're TOYOTAS.

It's a two-fer, though. McIntyre's probably barking up the wrong tree, too. Toyota's announced that they'll be making 20K or so Li-Ion batteries/year in 2010/11/whenever the factory comes on-line. That's not a lot of BEVs.

At least, it's not a lot of Li-ION BEVs... Toyota's also investing heavily in a NiMH facility of some sort. Toyota introducing a BEV of moderate range based on NiMH is not out of the question. Such vehicles DO work and could well be cost-effective. See EVNUT.COM and look for the Rav4-EV owner's gallery. There's about 50-60 happy Rav4-EV owners pictured there. Somewhat more than half have a 2KW+ solar installation, too.

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