Why Toyota is not selling electric cars

Another great example!

Why was Tesla so arrogant to not offer Normal Driving Style as an option in their cars?
Was it just going cheap to not include the hardware necessary to have modern Blended Brakes?

"refine"?? You mean like the cheap, inadequate TMS workaround that is in the Prime?
(in their defense it is adequate in some climates.)
Tell us again how the pack is cooled, john....

We have Tesla apologists here on this thread,,, and then we have the biggest toyota apologist ever!
toyota may have a 'master plan', but it appears to not include 'serious' Li-Ion battery packs.. (thread title)

Blended Brakes are awesome tech and all Hybrids/BEV's have them,,, except for Tesla.

In daily driving with my little S-box BEV I'm still amazed how much regen braking I get from just the Brake Pedal, Normal Style.
I have to really be braking hard before I see the Regen display max out. That is when I start making heat at the discs, which is rarely.

 

Understanding the difference between want & need comes from seeking a balance. Your insistence upon the battery-pack requiring liquid-cooling, knowing it will never be DC fast-charged, shows a lack of understanding.

Adding expense & complexity to a system that doesn't reveal the need makes no sense. Toyota's observation of real-world data from forced air-cooling will help identify what's truly necessary.

It's ironic how some claim Toyota is unwilling to take risks, then turn a blind-eye to them when they do exactly that.

 

Forced air is TMS, especially when you consider the popular EV that doesn't have any type of cooling.

Battery improvement is the better choice... in other words, not wasting energy through heat in the first place.

Chemistry changes is what Toyota continues to pursue. A next-gen lithium could provide a less expensive & complex approach. There's the hope of solid-state someday too.

 

Yes, the Prime has a thermal management system. It has battery stack heaters and can draw conditioned air from the cabin for battery cooling.

 

But then the Volt was worthy of the full $7500 tax incentive. And it was a Full Featured EV when it was operating as an EV for ~53 miles, ie. Full HP, Full heating and cooling and possible 2 yr oil changes because of its EV abilities....

And its HV Pack didn't sit in the cabin sharing space and air with the nice people sitting in the car.
It was in an insulated container outside the cabin space!

But alas,,, this is now a historic discussion.... so, never mind.....

Where do you come up with these statements?
I doubt toyota has a Li-Ion battery lab. If they do, they sure don't have much to show for it.....

But when parked and charging in hot weather isn't there some selection a driver must do to have the whole cabin cooling to allow the pack to be cooled?
Driver involvement? At each hot plug in?
I suppose that works, but it sure sounds like a workaround....
.

 

It's dumb of them to ask the question every time, rather than making it a permanent setting. However, the fans can run either way.

 

The smaller the pack is, the less heat generated (all other things being equal).
Different chemistries and packaging also may require different levels of cooling in different conditions.

So Toyota's pack for the Prime may work perfectly fine without a liquid cooling system. This allows them to offer it at less cost.
The proof will be in the results. Seeing how the Prime batteries hold up over years.
From what I have experienced, my guess is they will hold up quite well.

Nissan got into a mess because they didn't properly account for the conditions their batteries would undergo, and their passive cooling system failed.
They have made a number of modifications to their chemistry and engineering and have had better results. If you are in AZ or such, I wouldn't buy a Leaf for a dollar (In MN I would though).

Engineering has trade offs, of cost, reliability, etc. Nissan lost their gamble, Toyota is so far doing quite well with their choices.

 

I took a picture of 14 of our 17 charging stations this morning. I had already moved my Prime to leave room for others so it's not shown.

 

You'd be amazed at what you can find when you take the time to research. You'd also be amazed when you simply take the time to wait for a product-cycle. As for showing prior to high-volume rollout, why would they bother? Remember, they don't play that game.

 

As a point of fact, Toyota doesn't have a Li-Ion battery lab.

They have several.

 

And the Prime is the only result?

I think HV pack development and implementation, using purchased cells, is not the same as working on Li-ion Cell chemistries and Cell manufacturing, as in LG, Panasonic and gadknows how many chinese companies....

Do you have a reference for what you claim toyota is doing in their labs?

 

MIT, Stanford and Toyota Research Institute Use AI to Accurately Predict the Useful Life of Batteries | Toyota USA Newsroom

 

Liquid cooled and heated.
Some of us live where there is a winter time.....

 

Research Progress : Next Generation Secondary Batteries | TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION GLOBAL WEBSITE
Scientists Discover Potential Performance Improvement in Energy-Dense Batteries Used in Everyday Technology | Corporate

 

Good reference. I see where you get some of your boastfulness about toyota.
This is the sort of testing and design that should take place on colleges.

“The standard way to test new battery designs is to charge and discharge the cells until they die. Since batteries have a long lifetime, this process can take many months and even years,” said co-lead author Peter Attia, Stanford doctoral candidate in Materials Science and Engineering. “It’s an expensive bottleneck in battery research.”

"Until they die" Really Peter? You test them to death? (He's a college student...cut some slack...)

I thought Li-ion's have a long slow degradation that begins at birth. Of course a hard life is hard on us all...

My 82 mile rated BEV is currently displaying 72 on the GOM even though I still drive on the interstate at high speeds and still use a little heat in the mornings. This is at +5 yrs and +64k miles.

Will I love it any less when it degrades to showing 62 miles? 52 miles? 42 miles?
I could still use it just fine for my commuting at that point.
I'm afraid I will 'Die' before my HV Pack does!

 

IIRC, Toyota often defines "die" as "capacity drops to 70% of initial capacity". John, is that right?

 

I understand that GM's method is patent-protected and that while licenses are available, the uptake rate suggests that the terms aren't favorable.

On a similar note, I've wondered why they didn't put block & catalyst heaters in. You get in, switch to READY, and (state-of-charge willing, anyway) the car kicks in massive electric heat on those two items to hit operating temp ultrafast, thus shortening the window of high emissions at startup.

I'm sure they've thought of it and probably played with it, but I'm guessing it broke down against reliability, cost or somebody else's patent.

 

It's probably more a case of using the same part supplier for the cruise control. Those companies do develop sub systems on their own and the car company takes it mostly as is.

GM's isn't the only possible way of doing it. What I've heard of Honda's sounds different from GM.

Toyota has cut down block heat up time enough that an actual heater isn't needed. A cat heater was passed over, if considered, because of cost. It will likely happen in future. Emission standards will push adoption of mild hybrids, and with that cat heaters will follow across the industry.