Toyota axes all-electric plans, aims to advance hybrids and fuel cells

May 23, 2014 by Alastair Sloane

Toyota is turning away from a 20-year effort to build a viable battery-electric vehicle in favour of advanced petrol-electric hybrids and, later, hydrogen fuel cells. The Japanese company has ended its 2010 deal with America’s electric-car company Tesla Motors to supply batteries over three years for 2600 all-electric Toyota RAV4s. Its North American CEO Jim Lentz said battery-electric vehicles have a place in the world, if only in a short-range role. “But for long-range travel primary vehicles, we feel there are better alternatives, such as hybrids and plug-in hybrids, and tomorrow with fuel cells,” Lentz said in an interview with America’s Automotive News. Lentz said the deal with cialis dose

Tesla was never about open-ended volume. “It was time to either continue or stop,” he said. “My personal feeling was that I would rather invest my dollars in fuel-cell development than in another 2600 EVs.”

Toyota says hydrogen fuel cells are cheaper on a cost-per-vehicle basis and are more efficient on a well-to-wheel basis. It is helping to build a network of hydrogen refueling stations in California by late next year that it expects will grow to 50 by the end of 2016 and 70 by 2018. It has calculated that it will take 68 refueling stations to meet the needs of 10,000 California fuel-cell customers to not worry about being stranded. Most of the hydrogen fuel will initially have to be trucked in before self-generating hydrogen stations can become affordable, said Lentz. “My hope is that other automakers will see our investment and will invest as well. Unlike hybrids when we were cialis for a 20 year old

on our own, all the major players will be out there with us in fuel cells,” said Lentz.

Meantime, the emphasis on petrol-electric hybrids coincides with Toyota’s development of a semiconductor that could improve fuel efficiency in hybrid cars like the Prius by up to 10 per cent.

It says early trials show a 5 per cent improvement. The semiconductor –developed with Japan’s Denso Corporation, Toyota’s largest supplier – is made of a more energy-efficient silicon-carbide instead of the traditional silicon. Semiconductors sit within the power control unit (PCU) and manage the flow of electricity between a hybrid vehicle’s battery, motor and generator. But they currently account for 20 per cent of all the energy lost in hybrid vehicles. Toyota says the new semiconductors use only a tenth of the energy of the current power-hungry PCU chips.

If you are in a position to shell out upwards of NZ$600,000 for the 60^thanniversary Porsche 911 S/T or optional Porsche 911 S/T Heritage, you’ll no doubt want the signature titanium watch that goes with it. That’s how Porsche figures it anyway. Or, if you want the watch you’ll need to get the car. Both the car and the watch are limited to 1963 units, the year the original 911 model broke cover. The watch – Chronograph 1 911 S/T and Chronograph 1 911 S/T Heritage – and the car carry matching edition numbers. The watch is priced at $US13,500, or around $NZ22,200. The car, says Porsche NZ, starts at $NZ608,000. A “strictly limited number” will go into production for NZ early next year.

Eight European Union countries are pushing to weaken new EU emissions limits for cars, saying they are overly ambitious and unrealistic for carmakers to hit. The eight countries – France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – said in a joint paper that parts of the proposed Euro 7 regulation, including curbs on exhaust pipe emissions, should be scrapped entirely. They said the limits would force carmakers to invest in improving exhaust emissions performance, money which would be better spent on developing zero-emission vehicles. Taken together, the countries would have enough votes to block the proposal.

A go-anywhere EV concept for the US military uses an onboard 12kW diesel generator to top up the batteries on the move. The all-wheel-drive has 800-volt technology and a 200kWh battery pack to power three electric motors, two in the rear and one up front. Claimed output is 745kW/15,590Nm, or 1000hp and 11,500 ft-lb of torque. The four-seater was developed by the defence division of General Motors and is based on the platform of the Hummer SUV. It rides on Fox performance shock absorbers and 37-inch tyres and comes with “exceptional” approach and departure angles for off-road mobility. Maximum range using the generator to keep things ticking over is said to be around 500km.

The outside temperature in Midland, Texas, was 40.5C when staff at the local office of the US National Weather Service set out to show the cabin of a closed car can literally get baking hot in summer. They mixed up a batch of chocolate chip cookies and laid them on the car’s dashboard – the surface of which showed a temperature of 87.7C. A little over four hours later the cookies were ready to eat. “Even though ours weren’t golden brown, we can confirm that they are done and delicious,” the staff wrote on Facebook.

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