Toyota Drops Electric Car (eQ) Sales Plans

How disappointing

 

(shaking head)

 

I am not surprised given the sales of the Smart fortwo ev and imev with less than 600 US sales this year, that toyota is not going to try hard to establish this car

Toyota drops plan for widespread sales of electric car| Reuters

What is a little suprising is them not touting something else.

Someone at Toyota PR is asleep at the wheel, pushing the EQ.
Toyota beefs up green vehicles, plans electric car for this year, fuel cell vehicle by 2015 - The Washington Post

 

from a company that pioneered "synergy" towards a difficult goal, i am very disappointed they have chosen not to stand beside Mitsubishi, Nissan and other EV manufacturers.

 

The article doesn't mention impact of Japan Tsunami disaster, but IMHO the now defunct prospect of EV's running around based on nuke power may have hurt the Japan market for EV's, whereas Japan and USA are the major EV/hybrid market movers. This probably puts more pressure on USA market to take EV leadership, but the situation has changed here too.

 

and Japan's electrical supplies would affect American EV sales how??

better get an email off to Mitsubishi and Nissan (which already has a nearly complete quick charge network planned, installed and running)

 

Oops

 

Yes the Chademo quick charger network in Japan is tremendous compared to the US. There are quite a few models put out by various manufacturers in Japan that take advantage of that network. What I find to be a huge irony is that gm is planning an electric version of the Chevy spark. Yeah I know its only going to be leased, but still. The idea that Toyota has chosen to let another be the banner carrier for EV's . . . . That'll take some getting use to. Equally exasperating - Toyota is a Chademo member - and yet Toyota chose to not install quick charge ports on the Gen II RAV 4 EV. Yet people's biggest bitch with the EV is how long it takes to charge. Sheesh ... between CA sales only policy, and no quick chargers on the new RAV-4 - is it any wonder "sales aren't what we expected"? It's like somebody's not minding the store there at Toyota.

SGH-I717R ? 2

 

I haven't read the articles carefully yet, but I think Toyota saw that the demand/market was just too small to justify the costs (of development, tooling, certification, marketing, etc.) based on the sales of other BEVs and PHEVs.

I'm sure they got a good insight into the costs w/the Rav4 EV and maybe they figured that given the Leaf AZ/TX battery apparent degradation issues (still ongoing, hoping that Nissan comes clean and gives those folks a reasonable accommodation) that they would need to include an active thermal management system, further raising costs.

 

Unfortunately it makes sense. Car sales in Europe are going down the drain so a niche like a 60 mile range IQ EV is not worth the hassle. In the US, they'll have a job selling the IQ full stop, let alone an electric one. I thought it odd that the Rav4 EV was only sold in limited markets in the US rather than other world markets and this new stance on EV's explains why.

I wonder if they know something about HV battery issues that Nissan and others don't or they've been stung by supply issues from China?

Well it's a business gamble. Nissan are to release the Leaf 2.0 over here next year and apparently a high percentage of EV owners traded a Prius. If the EV market takes off, Toyota might find that hybrid sales decline.

A bizarre decision from Toyota.

 

Great deal, smaller than a Leaf with worst range and much pricier. I'll take two.

I can't speak to the numbers of this. I assume Toyota knows what it's doing and just doesn't see any money in this in the near-term.

I read, though not confirmed, that 90% of pre-orders for the Leaf were Prius owners. Toyota could lose some customers, but I'm sure they could come out with an EV again quickly and gain them back if they really feel they need to.

Prices on EVs are still generally too high, but the feeling I got when I first drove a Prius, looking around at the other dinosaurs on the road without regen--that's the same feeling I got driving a Leaf. Everybody else is burning gas, most of their energy shed through the radiator; dinosaurs again. EV really has some nice positives as a second car. I really hope it's finally here to stick around this time.

 

Electric Car Sales

The Chevy Volt will probably hit 20, 000 this year. These numbers, even with HOV stickers in California, will not encourage car makers to plan thousands of EV's anytime soon.

The 5 top-selling electric cars in the US - Houston weather, traffic, news | FOX 26 | MyFoxHouston

 

Toyota is continuing to develop a better battery (lithium air). They believe fuel cell vehicle has greater potential that is coming out in 2015.

 

Are fuel cells purely hydrogen or can they be powered by a variety of fuels? I'm sure I've read somewhere that you can power some on petrol.

 

Most fuel cells (including Toyota) are powered by hydrogen. The best way (cleanest and most efficient) to make hydrogen is from natural gas. It can be made from electricity but that's inefficient.

BMW uses hydrogen to combust in a modified gas engine but that's not fuel cell vehicle. FCV uses hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity to drive the electric motor.

 

There are also fuel cells run on natural gas and methanol. I think that is what GC was asking. The natural gas versions are bigger than they want in a car with today's technology. They have methanol versions powering lap tops. Both of these other fuels have less expensive fuel tanks and easier to build infrastructure, but the fuel cells are less mature for automotive applications.

The latest press releases made it sound like BMW was going to use toyota's fuel cells if they get viable.

It seemed to be that Toyota is focusing on PHEV and HV from the stories, and don't expect much from BEV or FCV anytime soon.

 

I woudn't say that no one is planning large sales of BEVs, Nissan and Tesla certainly are. The Rav4 ev certainly gives an alternative Toyota vehicle leveraging a tesla drive train. The EQ just didn't seem competitive with the leaf and tesla S in the american market. I'm sure the leaf and imev also make it not look like a great investment in the Japanese market.

 

What I read was... the near-term focus is to have every Toyota with a HSD option. By 2015, there will be a FCV sedan because the progress in FC is moving much faster than the battery. Until the battery improves, PHEV will be the solution.

 

Toyota beefs up green vehicles, plans electric car for this year, fuel cell vehicle by 2015 - The Washington Post

Bold italics mine . Toyota has 2 EVs, one for sale, one for demo fleets this year, but will have very limited sales. These are metioned before fcv. They have not much detail about their fcv, other than the fcv-r concept and $50K. But PHEV sales will already be in the tens of thousands by next year. They are only predicting that in the 2020s for toyota fuel cell vehicles. They do seem to be saying they favor fcv over bevs because of potential, but they actually can build BEVs this year because Batteries are at this point at time a much less expensive technology than fuel cells.