Featured Toyota Reveals EV Prototypes Ahead of 2020 Launch

thanks for the factoid, & points well taken. Even so, one would think a heavy load would come through the cab rather than the cab pressing itself into the load. Rather than pull up another video that can't be disputed, the point still fairly represents many junk/cars trucks - even modernly.
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China is the biggest car market in the world, the US the second. China is at 4% plug-ins on new car sales doubling in a year. World wide we are at 2%.

Each manufacturer does things a little differently. The coolant leaks we have all heard about were caused by a bad design on the volt system that could intrude during a crash test(collision). They redesigned it in 2012 I believe. Fiskar did an early recall because of a bad design for coolant leaks but that was around the same time and less than 100 were in custermers hands. All the manufacturers have a low coolant warning, but that might not come on during a small leak. We have had the biggest fire hazzard problems with non actively cooled lithium batteries (samsung phones was the latest). Crashes can cause battery damage with or without coolant systems, and these need to be inspected in plug-ins because of the high energy of the battery.

I'll just throw some random number out there, others can chime in with the real numbers. Let's say you car building today and pack cooling system adds $2000 to the the price to the consumer of a car. My guess is gm, hyundai/kia, and tesla model 3 are spending less perhaps bmw and tesla model S/X a little more. If you have a 40kwh+ system, that means you need to a temperature safe chemistry to cost less than $50/kwh more than a system that works fine actively cooled. Indications are that temperature safe chemistries cost much more than this depending on the envelope of temperatures. The marketing of cost of repairing/replacing a cooling system versus likely larger capacity loss in batteries is not a winning one. If the battery pack is small (8.8kwh, 68 kw) than the batteries may be much more expensive than those that require liquid cooling, but it may still be worthwhile to use them without a liquid cooling system. Who knows solid state appears to only need to be warmed and operate well without cooling.

 

It is, but as I said, I know more about the USA market than the others. I suspect the same is the case for many others.

I wouldn’t call it fake news, just poorly written and you drew an, understandably, incorrect conclusion.
The first number, 5.3 million, looks to exclude SUVs, light trucks, etc.
The second number, I suspect, includes SUVs, light trucks, etc.

In the USA, when people refer to the auto market, they are generally referring to the Light Vehicle market. That includes SUVs, light trucks, crossovers, etc.

 

I don't know if I'd call the Volt leak caused by bad design. The incident involved a crash tested car with a good chance that it would have been totaled or in undriveable condition that was left sitting for a week. It took that long for the leaking coolant to short the battery and start a fire. In order to reproduce the damage that resulted in the leak, the battery pack had to be crash tested without the surrounding car. GM installed some additional bracing, and a better level sensor, but in 5 to 10 years, such an incident would likely result in just the recommendation of draining the coolant after a crash.

PHEVs also have to engine to fall back on in the event the battery temperature does get too high. Switching to hybrid mode reduces the load on the battery, allowing it to cool.

If the Escape and Explorer NP hybrids and PHEV siblings do have liquid cooling, Ford may have opted for the liquid cooling for better PHEV performance and space saving, and determined using it on the hybrids resulted in cost savings in the part sharing between the models.

 

We think they're expensive - but that's how markets go - they charge what people will pay. Our base models are often more highly specified than USA versions, though. My early Gen 4 base model had more gear on and, I think, some more safety gear than the US base models - eg RADAR Cruise was standard on our base model.

A Mazda3, Corolla etc are about AU$25,000 base model, KIA CERATO and i30 are available from about $20,000. But PRIUS is closer to $40,000 - because they can, and don't sell many as a result. Corolla Hatch hybrid is about $30,000 and Camry Hybrid is about $33,000.

NISSAN Leaf is coming (after 3 or 4 years absence) - later this year probably, no idea of the price. We used to have VOLT - but at $60,000+, they sold very few despite good reviews.

 

Case closed: NHTSA ends Chevrolet Volt fire investigation

 

tl;dr
Let's simulate a worst case crash; side into telephone pole, followed by a rollover, and then not follow manufacturer protocols for handling the car afterwards.

 

Watching a FullyCharged YouTube, I saw the "Toyota Izoa" at a Chinese auto show. A nice car, they don't really go into the technical details so I found: Toyota C-HR Electric launched in China with 400 km range

	Spec	Std Units	SAE units
1	Length	4405 mm	173 in
2	Width	1795 mm	71 in
3	Height	1575 mm	62 in
4	Weight	2220 kg	4894 lbs
5	Battery	54.3 kWh	54.3 kWh
6	Power	150 kW	201 hp
7	Range (*)	400 km	250 mi
8	Top Speed	160 km/h	100 mph

* - range can be wildly inaccurate

Everything was fine until I read:

...
The battery is waterproof, dustproof and also has an anti-rust coating on the bottom. To ensure the safety and performance of the battery cells and the high-voltage circuit, the battery pack is covered with cold air pipes to form a buffer zone.​

Air cooled battery ... again! At this point, I lost all interest because we've seen how well air cooling worked for the Leaf and Prius.

It has the same size pack as our Std Rng Plus Model 3 but weights ~1,400 lbs more with a smaller motor. Add the air cooling and it has no appeal to me.

Bob Wilson

 

In photos of the battery for this, or maybe the Lexus BEV, you can see the blowers.

 

Leaf does not have any cooling system.
Prius is forced air-cooled.
UX300e-CHR EV have controlled (via ar conditioning, AFAIK) temperature forced air-cooled batteries.

 

Air cooled is fine for hybrids, and is okay for PHEVs. A PHEV can always shift to hybrid mode if the battery gets too warm. The issue with air cooling there has more to do with packaging.

Packaging is also an issue for BEVs, but air cooling can work. The higher cost for heat tolerant chemistries will cancel cost saving from not having a liquid cooling system.