Toyota Going 100% Hybrid
Toyota Going 100% Hybrid
(OP)
For you VFD enthusiasts, here's a press clipping indicating that Toyota says the cost of producing hybrids are dropping and they expect 100% of their cars to be hybrids by 2020.
http://www .motorauth ority.com/ cars/toyot a/toyota-c utting-hyb rid-costs/
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RE: Toyota Going 100% Hybrid
Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.- http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: Toyota Going 100% Hybrid
GM didn't go for hybrids then. Their thinking is that you have to team with the gasoline guys. So, they were using the reformer technique to pull hydrogen out of ordinary gas. That way, the infrastructure is already in place. Then, as the H2 technology matures and more and more H2 "pumps" are available, they planned to make more and more cars without the reformer.
I really have to read up on this. Anyone has updated information?
Gunnar Englund
www.gke.org
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100 % recycled posting: Electrons, ideas, finger-tips have been used over and over again...
RE: Toyota Going 100% Hybrid
There are just way too many problems with hydrogen - it doesn't make any sense, especially since the hydrogen has to come from hydrocarbons in the first place.
But this is probably a subject for another forum so forgive my ranting. I only posted this here because of the electric motor/VFD angle. I suspect Toyota is now the largest seller of VFD-driven equipment in the world, and only getting bigger.
RE: Toyota Going 100% Hybrid
RE: Toyota Going 100% Hybrid
RE: Toyota Going 100% Hybrid
http://www
If you can believe Leland Teschler.
It takes MORE energy to produce a vehical than what it will use in its life, but you will not hear this in a "green" circle.
RE: Toyota Going 100% Hybrid
While the point is well taken that you must consider total energy costs and not just user gasoline purchases, the study cited by Teschler is just ridiculous. Look at the study directly, as Teschler encourages you to do -- an easy Google search will find it.
First, use your basic engineering BS detector with some order-of-magnitude calculations. The study assigns a lifetime cost of $325,000 to a Prius (at only 100,000 miles!). Given that a Prius owner is extremely unlikely to spend much over $50,000 total on the car over this entire lifetime, the obvious question is where this other money comes from. Or as one Prius owner put it, "Who do I write to in order to thank them for the quarter-million dollars?"
Look at some of the technical assumptions -- large among them assigning a 100k mile lifetime to the Prius and a 300k mile lifetime to the Hummer. I guess that's because everyone knows that GM cars are 3 times as reliable as Toyotas...
Next, put on your accountant's hat as far as they assign costs. (I would love to see a real accountant go through this in detail.) They allocate all of the Prius R&D costs to only those Priuses (Prii?) built so far. No new technology could ever survive this kind of comparison.
There is horrible double counting of costs going on as well. They assign all of the commuting energy costs for both production and R&D workers to the resulting cars. But these costs would also be ascribed to the cars of the workers themselves. This looks to be one of the main ways the costs are so inflated.
I'd love to see a good study of overall costs. But this one doesn't even come close.
Curt Wilson
Delta Tau Data Systems
RE: Toyota Going 100% Hybrid
Interesting side note: When new, she has never got more than 45mpg, which at the time we bought it Toyboata was claiming 55mpg IIRC. Still, it was pretty damed good for how much zip that thing has for accelerating into California freeway traffic. We had tried several of the high mileage gas only cars and she was deathly afraid of getting rear ended trying to merge into traffic, they were all incredibly gutless for acceleration torque. The Prius is a zippy as any car we have ever owned. I attribute that to the better torque response capabilities of the electric motor. The interesting recent development is that her mileage has been INCREASING with age! She is now getting 50mpg consistently! Try to explain that; I can't.
RE: Toyota Going 100% Hybrid
Judging from the financial performance of GM, Ford and Chrysler, they look to be on a track to prove Fujio Cho, president of Toyota Corporation (when the attached presentation was made) to be correct..
This month Toyota will build its 1 millionth Hybrid (world wide volume). 2012 has been stated as the point where hybrid drive trains are no more expensive than conventional.. and of course 2020 for 100% hybrid in their cars..
Why Change? Enlightened Self Interest..
RE: Toyota Going 100% Hybrid
I have trouble believing GM can look beyond the next stock report.
Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.- http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: Toyota Going 100% Hybrid
I believe that current vehicles such as a Volkswagen Jetta have at least as good fuel economy without resorting to a hybrid system.
One of the guys I used to work with owns a Prius though, reckons its the best for avoiding road rage, as it just sits there silently at the lights. No stress, no thinking about all that fuel you're idling away and the air con keeps working without the engine running.
As an aside, after reading about the 'Toyota Way', a reference I picked up from here no less, I'm a big fan of Toyota's development principles. Clearly they seem to be working.
RE: Toyota Going 100% Hybrid
Same here...
The company I was lucky enough to bridge out of to retirement before the division collapsed and remains sold off, had very similar principles as the Toyota development principles until the MBA wonder boys got control and started the looting the business for short term gains..
My favorite saying in the company as development funds were being cut back was "Unless you invest in the future, there will be no future".. Not very profound, highly disappointing to see it happen.
I have always admired the Japanese for having the wisdom to invest in the long term.. From what I have read the R&D is pretty well complete on the lithium-ion technology the 2009 Toyota hybrids will receive.
I read that they launched in the past year or so, the lithium titinate R & D that was stated would take at least 10 - 15 years of effort to bring that technology to high volume production.. another example of ongoing long term thinking...
This technology will remove the use of carbon in lithium batteries (major contributor to the risk of fire) and employ nanotube technology to attain very high plate surface areas for significant increases in power storage density.