Featured Slightly Toyota funded coalition calls for weaker CAFE

IMHO:

• 2016 Prius - bust to 9,500-9,600 in June sales
• 2016 RAV-4 - bust to 4,400-4,500 in June

Fix the brain-dead TSS-P for Level 2 ECO; bring a North American Estima; and fix the Prius v, I don't see Toyota having a problem. Soon enough the fool-cell nonsense will have a 'come to Jesus' moment and we'll see the advantages of kizan.

Toyota is not perfect but they are perfectable and in the long run that is what it takes.

Bob Wilson

 

Well then they shouldn't be lobbying for the change. Let's face it in 2013 the hybrid take rate was 3.2%, while in 2016 through may it has dropped to 1.9%. Now toyota's market share has risen, but not by that much, as they dominated the market then and now. It looks like toyota will need to make hybrid trucks and/or plug ins or pay fines if hybrid market share doesn't rise substanially, and buck this trend.

GM and nissan's eggs are in plug-ins that get even more cafe bonuses than hybrids. Honda and Hyundai don't sell as many trucks. Ford and Toyota have been hurt by the down trend. I bet they wish they had continued working together on the hybrid truck program, as they get more bonuses than hybrid cars in the scheme of cafe.

 

Austingreen covered it. The incentives in place on the Prius market introduction were Japan only, and also were for BEVs. So some manufacturers were more focused on the BEVs.

Perhaps that huge scandal involving VW and diesels might have Toyota gun shy on diesel engines in new models. Have they dropped diesels from current models? Besides, no diesel now doesn't exclude a diesel in the future. The partnership that gave Mazda Toyota hybrid and FCEV tech, gave Toyota SkyActiv gasoline and diesel tech. Toyota will make use of it.

Which aren't new or unique to Toyota. The 2009 Escape hybrid used soy based foam in the seats, multiple companies have released announcements on plants and facilities to the effect of 100% renewable energy and zero landfill.

Look, I am not saying Toyota has done zero good in terms of the environment. I am saying they don't deserve high praise for selling a lot of hybrids while also selling lots of inefficient vehicles. I don't know if Honda is a 'greener' company or not, but their stance on number of cylinders and engine displacement has resulted in the loss of some sales. They were also selling the Civic VX and CRX HFE in the US years before the first hybrids came out in Japan. These were high fuel efficiency trims, at a time when nearly no one else offered one(Suzuki Swift/Geo Metro might have been the other), in a land of really cheap gas.

So until Toyota comes out and states they are staying with the upcoming CAFE targets, or pulls funding from this lobbying group, I am not going to give them a pass on this just because they sold a lot of hybrids. A few of which aren't much better than their ICE competition.

 

It has been a long while, because those BEVs did not prevail, and Prius did.

VW scandal went out in sept 2015. Lexus brand got rid of diesels in mid 2013.
Lexus dumps IS200d diesel in favour of hybrid | Stuff.co.nz

Mind to be perfect, few models perform not much better, but all other hybrid models give way to a clear increase in FE.
Also bear in mind there were lean burn Toyotas in the early 90s, like the CarinaE/Caldina 4A-FE/7A-FE engines, delivering really good MPG back then.

I'm also not saying that Toyota should be praised, I went further in discussing because it is true Toyota cares about the environment more than other major companies. That's why Prius is always a step further in terms of footprint.
You may stick with your opinion, I'll stick with mine. Against the wind if needed.

 

You asked way no one else followed the MITI carrot. Honda did, and others did on the BEVs. As for American and European car companies, they were likely excluded from it. Japan also continued with hybrid incentives until after the PiP came out. So there was a deep trough of incentives for the cars in Japan.

My reply was in regards to the Toyota C-HR.
If Toyota is so gung ho on dumping diesels, why did they just put a new one in the Hilux and a SUV.
2016 Toyota Hilux Debuts With New 177HP Diesel [33 Photos & Videos]

Mind to be perfect, few models perform not much better, but all other hybrid models give way to a clear increase in FE.

Where these available in the US? My point was that Honda sold a fuel efficient car trim in a market where fuel economy isn't the priority it is in Europe and Japan.

I think their interest in FCEVs and source of hydrogen for them, the Australian coal, says they care about the environment as much as the other companies. That is they care when it increase profits through sales or cost reduction, or when it is in the interest of their homeland or government. If Japan wasn't resource poor, I doubt Toyota would have put the effort in to hybrids that they have.

 

It's worth noting that they are still developing truck diesels, it's just car diesels that are done - they're either using an engine that dates back to 2002 (their 1.4 liter), or they're buying 1.6 and 2.0 liters from BMW.

 

Toyota does have access to Mazda's SkyActiv diesel tech. They could just use it for trucks, but Mazda has it in smaller displacement models.

 

Understand the Toyota hybrids still 'kick nice person' and the 2017 model year will be much improved. But it is clear Toyota USA has ... no imagination about what their cars could do. When I see what shows up at SEMA, I am tired of beating a deaf horse. But compared to gassers, diesels, and BEVS, the Gen-4 Prius remains the best bang-for-buck.

Diesels have a scaling problem that is solved by using them in +4,000 lb (1,800 kg) vehicles. But as VW and the EU makers have shown, diesels don't work in passenger and smaller cars because they have not scaled the emissions controls. Not even looking at the VW cheat-diesels, all EU diesel makers except for BMW put temperature or in the case of Fiat, a timer, to "protect the engine." ... Liars!

Batteries are much improved but charge times remain a problem. Do the math, the average velocity over multiple cycles leaves a lot to be desired. Fortunately, they only have to reach the nearest hub airport with a concierge charging service and the problem is solved. There is a natural limit of 150-200 miles.

Fool-cells remain an interesting science experiment until in car, reformulation is finally adopted. This nonsense of trying to deal with 10,000 psi (+700 bar) H{2} is nuts! Adopt a common hydrogen carrier and form it on the fly works but no one seems to care and I'm not into building a science fair project ... blue ribbon today and forgotten tomorrow. There is a fundamental problem with H{2} storage:

• volume increases by the cube of the radius - range, quantify
  
• surface area increases by the square of the radius - weight

I do like range-extended, BEVs because there are efficient, low-emissions heat engines that run off of common fuels that could handle the highway load. Heck, even a small fool-cell using a reformulated hydrogen source could substitute. The space is well defined and the power required very reasonable. IMHO this is the way to go.

In the meanwhile, the reason I cited sales figures is the penetration of the fuel efficient technology in absolute numbers. Sales numbers that deal directly with cars-in-service.

Now I have no illusions about the BMW i3-REx sales increasing by an order of magnitude to compete with the RAV-4 hybrid. But I'm not the usual car buyer. I also bought a 1966 VW MicroBus in 1971 and kept it running until 1975 when vehicle inspections made repairs impractical (steering and air-cooled engine emissions.)

Bob Wilson

 

Except... how successful is SkyActiv-D, even? It's gotten a reputation for massive oil dilution problems that Mazda can't figure out (to the point of people in Australia reporting 2000 mile oil change intervals, due to excessive diesel fuel in the crankcase), and the low compression (14:1) causes wear concerns. My impression was that the SkyActiv-G engines were seen as the way to go, and Toyota's actually using at least part of that technology, branded as VVT-iW. (I don't think they're doing the volcano pistons and long, tubular exhaust manifolds yet, though.)

That said, per an ICCT study, the EGR-only equipped vehicles (read: SkyActiv-Ds) do about as badly as the European-market SCR-equipped diesels on the WLTC 2.0 (which is still not meeting the standard, but it's better than the EGR+LNT vehicles). And, another thing to note is that Mazda's tuning strategy on their diesels seems to be, put two turbos on... and then tune a 2.2 liter sequential turbo engine like everyone else tunes their single-turbo 2.0s. So, some of that performance may simply be due to their "no replacement for displacement" strategy, allowing them to always run at low load.

Although, that may not entirely be a lie - look at how unreliable the emissions controls are, even on the cheat-diesels. (Granted, the ones that are breaking are the ones that are actually being used.) Honestly, light-duty diesel emissions control technologies are not sustainable... but the solution isn't to cheat, the solution's to not use light-duty diesel. (For that matter, from what I've heard, heavy-duty diesel emissions control technologies are too unreliable, too. And, turbocharged (especially direct injection) gasoline has its own emissions problems that will shortly become unsustainable (with gasoline particulate filters), the moment Euro 6c comes into effect. So, is it time to go for a naturally aspirated, port-injected, large displacement gasoline engine in semis, even (with wide-authority VVT and/or cylinder deactivation as required), and then hybridize to handle high power demand situations?)

I'm wondering if Toyota saw the writing on the wall there, and that's why they stopped developing light-duty diesel for anything less than trucks (where the other ways to get the required torque delivery are a lot of displacement (and the subsequent fuel economy hit - Europeans likely wouldn't accept something like the 2GR-FKS (EPA in a Tacoma 4WD double cab manual is 17/18/20), even, and that has less torque than the 1GD-FTV), heavy turbocharging of a gasoline engine (and the durability and real-world emissions hit - I mean, you could use the 8AR-FTS in a truck, but would you want to?), or hybridization (and the cost hit... and that isn't SUSTAINED torque, although you could certainly map in a tow mode that aggressively keeps the battery at a certain level)).

 

speaking of CAFE & heavy vehicles is a pet peeve for me, because the auto lobby always pays enough to legislators to assure that the largest/heaviest/least efficient of their products remain exempt from the CAFE averaging formula. Thank-you Toyota GM et al.
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Nissan recently announced they will bring ethanol FCEVs out in Japan.

That's my stance, and the decreased demand for the long range fuel could make renewable replacement feasible.

I've heard of the issue in Australia, but was not aware it was one elsewhere. I mentioned the Toyota/Mazda partnership because Toyota did also grab the diesel side while they could. They could just be thinking of using it in larger truck diesels.

Mazda currently dropped bringing diesels to the US market because they couldn't meet emissions without compromising on efficiency and performance. After VW was caught, they are probably rethinking their no SCR stance.

How old diesel emission control technology? Gasoline emission controls weren't all pain free, and they were given a more gradual increase in pollution limits to meet than diesel have been in the US. The BMW in the study that caught VW performed as it should. It didn't completely stay under the NOx limit during testing, but few cars likely would in real life testing. Perhaps it is too early to abandon emission controls.

For commercial trucks, we might start seeing commercial hydraulic hybrids. I don't know for sure, but wouldn't controlling emissions of a single speed diesel range extender be easier to do?

With the proven technology in HSD, Toyota doesn't have the need for light duty diesels like other manufacturers. It is still lacking in applications like work trucks though.

 

since there's simply not enough 'biofuel' switchgrass ... that'd most likely mean keep the petro chemical pesticides & fertilizers a flowin' ... because only corn type products seem to be feasible to date - at least as long as farms inc. keep getting subsidized. Never mind how low the water table has dropped over decades of deep pumping across the flyover states ... nor the juice to run the deep water pumps needed for huge corporate agro-biz.. All that, just to reform hydrogen. Hardly carbon neutral - much less 'renewable' imo.
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The problem is that the BMW in that study was a $50,000 car, not a $20,000 one, and likely with a lot less profit than a similar gasoline car. (Which is fine if it's subsidizing the gasoline cars in CAFE, but ultimately unsustainable if you want to replace everything with that.)

And, part of the problem is that the hardware isn't really dropping in price, and it keeps breaking... and now it's being introduced to turbocharged DI gasoline motors, due to their emissions problems. Meanwhile, we have an alternate technology that's now simpler, and is more effective at controlling most emissions than a GPF+AdBlue system (except for PM) - port-injected Atkinsonized power split hybrids (the hybrid system making up for the power loss across the board), like the Prius. And, they're more thermally efficient than the turbocharged DI engines, too...

 

This is Nissan's complinance FCEV for Japan. It shows that onboard reformation is advancing, and with that we can more away from pure hydrogen and its issues to nearly anything else that contains hydrogen; gasoline, diesel, ammonia, alcohols, etc. Which can be made renewably. Add a plug, and we might be able to completely remove petroleum based fuels out of the system.

The diesel Colorado passed the EPA recheck, and GM didn't cancel their plans for a 2017 Cruze TDI.

I don't want to replace gasoline cars with diesel ones. I want diesel around as an additional option in the event that renewable replacements for it become commercially viable. Having options is good because one solution is not going to work in all cases when it comes to pollution, CO2, and using fossil fuels.

[/quote]And, part of the problem is that the hardware isn't really dropping in price, and it keeps breaking... and now it's being introduced to turbocharged DI gasoline motors, due to their emissions problems. Meanwhile, we have an alternate technology that's now simpler, and is more effective at controlling most emissions than a GPF+AdBlue system (except for PM) - port-injected Atkinsonized power split hybrids (the hybrid system making up for the power loss across the board), like the Prius. And, they're more thermally efficient than the turbocharged DI engines, too...[/QUOTE]We might be able to blame CARB for the DPFs. The KISS solution would have been to use replacable filters in the exhaust. They wanted something that was maintenance free and harder to bypass. So we got today's DPF. Which burns more fuel instead of replacing a filter, and gets bypassed because it is easier and cheaper than repairing them when they break.

 

I would find a bit of irony if the hydrogen cars of the future reformed gasoline into hydrogen. I know that would never happen because it could in no way fein being clean. It's even kind of humorous to think about - in a folly kind of way.
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It can be clean.
We can refine it form renewably make syn-crude.
Microbes have already be made that can make it or precursors to it.
Fuel cells are more thermally efficient than an ICE, so we would need less of it to go the same distance, which means less of some of the pollutants.
The reformation process might also reduce pollutants compared to burning the fuel in an engine.

 

And GM does not?

DBCassidy

 

@Jeff N and I have discussed this privately and I think the real problem is the "Alliance of Automotive Manufacturers" which is somewhat like the 'Chamber of Commerce.' Good news, they support industry and commerce advocacy. Bad news, there is evidence suggesting advocates with another agenda have taken over the leadership of both. For example, the "Bell the Hybrid" effort received passive if not active support from the "Alliance of Automotive Manufactures."

You can't say enough bad about the Alliance of Automotive Manufacturers that I would most likely agree. However, in some respects they are also a 'trade group' who play a role in keeping the regulatory organizations 'in touch with reality' with technical expertise not shared by City, State, and Federal regulators. Just when this organization ventures outside of technical expertise, they quickly get into trouble. So who are they?

Source: Members Overview | Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers is an association of 12 car and light truck manufacturers, including BMW Group, FCA US LLC, Ford Motor Company, General Motors Company, Jaguar Land Rover, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz USA, Mitsubishi Motors, Porsche Cars North America, Toyota, Volkswagen Group of America and Volvo Car USA.​

Now if I understand @Jeff N, PriusChat is a Toyota friendly place and a posting calling out Toyota here will have the effect he wants. That is certainly true. But this also comes close to another practice of posting with the intent of inciting a strong reaction.

Personally, I think this thread might more properly reside in "Environmental" or "Fred's House of Politics" since the title alone suggests both. But this is not my call.

Bob Wilson

 

Toyota ranks quite high here considering both domestic and imports and tied to legacy internal combustion engines.

Would be interesting to see manufacturers international CAFE if such a thing were possible to acquire and with all the convolution of different international fuel efficiency standards.

 

i don't care if toyota is at the bottom of the list. i'm driving one of the most environmentally friendly cars on the road today. the fact that it's one of the most reliable is just another benefit.

show me a manufacturer who puts the environment before their bottom line, and i'll take a serious look at their model line up.