Featured Warning from Toyota President - Akio Toyoda

Toyota must have picked up all the old GM marketing people.... because these are the same crap from old GM... before becoming Obama-mobile.

Vaporware and protect dealership is silly.

Go Tesla! Make them be dinosaurs!

 

I bought my 2016 in November of last year off the showroom floor. It was manufactured on 03/2016 so it was well over 2.5 years old and had a dead 12 V battery and had 38 miles on it. Lithium batteries store well. I didn't test drive it either, after all it was a Prius.
It now has 6,500 miles on it.

 

Wonder how long till a 2.5 year old Tesla is waiting to be sold... Lol....

 

Did the salesman tell you your Prius 4 has lithium batteries?

Another reason dealerships should go away, not supported like Toyota wants.

 

I think the Prius Two has NiMH.

 

My understanding is only Prius eco has Lithium and everything else is NiMh

 

The Eco does, and the Three and Four might.
It also varies by market and equipment. I don't think Europe has any Li-ion models, and the low powered AWD Japan has NiMH.

 

Partly on-topic is the current sale of Electric Aircraft for pilot training. The initial cost is higher than the ICE version of the trainer, which must still be usee for the required multi-flight-hour cross-country flights, but the basic electric trainer allows for the majority of the 1-1.5 hour pilot training sessions to be done very cheaply. But the bottom line is that the long-term savings of this aircraft occurs because the typical cost of the required major overhaul of the ICE (many thiusands of dollars) is replaced by replacing exactly two pieces on the motor, the front bearing and the rear bearing, and I recall the representative saying that that cost was about $400.
Back to automobiles: my view is that all engine-related routine maintenance will pretty much go away with a full electic vehicle and that will impact the viability of the dealership network business model.

 

all gen 4 packages in the usa have lithium except package two. and maybe package one if they make it.

it is right in the gen 4 package sticky.

 

Current. The US Prime models are all lithium ion too.

 

I have never heard that before for USA. Even their website only put the eco as the only one with it.... not including prime of course.

 

look at the sticky, and you will have read it. i'll look at the website.

 

according to the website, the one and two have nimh, the two eco has lithium, and the 3, 3t, 4 and 4t don't have batteries.
although, one time, when i put in 3t, it said lithium, but the next time, it said -----.

 

Toyota tends to be very quiet about upgrades, quite unlike some other automakers. In fact, GM launched an attack ad on Prius belittling it use of "outdated" battery tech. Right after the commercials started to get noticed, detail about gen-4 was quietly released. Toyota didn't tout the switch to lithium. GM abruptly pulled that attack off-air though.

It's is quite reasonable to expect the same for mid-cycle updates. Have you heard anything yet? Stay tuned.

 

Why, hydrogen shortages?

 

Labouring the point, I know, but I suspect he was referring to the Hindenburg disaster. You'llneed to look it up of you don't understand.

The Hindenburg Disaster | Airships.net

 

That link didn't give a clean answer on which Prius trims used what battery. This one does.
2016 Toyota Prius Technical & Package Information | PriusChat
In North America, assuming no differences for Canada and Mexico, and that is possible, only the Two has a NiMH according to Danny's posted Toyota 'pamphlet'. The One does too, but it was fleet sales only in the beginning, so not discussed in the consumer release.

This is why Tesla didn't want to use an existing dealer network. They were rightly worried an independent dealer would actively try to avoid selling their cars.

They make the One. It was fleet only until the Ioniq arrived, and then Toyota released it to the general public, but you can't order one like the other trims. IIRC, it is essentially a Eco with a NiMH, so very stripped.

All plug ins at this point are Li-ion in one form or another. Large format patent holders kept NiMH out of plug ins since the EV1 days. Once those soon to expire patents do, then cost will keep to special purpose EVs, if in any at all.

Switching back to NiMH wouldn't be an upgrade. It would increase costs, and require EPA retesting that would likely lower the MPG numbers(or cut the under reporting in place). I only see such a move if Toyota felt they needed all their Li-ion supply for plug ins.

Increased Li-ion capacity would be interesting, but that would also require retesting. Li-ion was mainly used to cut weight and meet test weight categories.

 

Why would you even suggest something so bizarre ?