Featured Hybrids offer fastest route to reduce CO2, says Emissions Analytics

yes diesel emission controls are improving, but it has been a long fight. It's not over yet either. Most are too young to remember Wally Cox, a regular on the Hollywood Squares during the 1970s. He was also the voice of early Underdog cartoons. He was the consummate nerd. In junior high, I recall a GM Detroit Diesel propaganda film that he was chosen to do ....
Found it !

Yep - some of the best 14 minutes of dishonesty GM ever produced on that film. It almost makes VW's dishonesty not look so bad.
After you watch something like that 60's film back then, you were pretty much convinced how clean diesels are - weather used to move semi-trucks or buses or cargo ships. And that was decades before some of the particulate (through cleaner refinery scrubbing) was removed from diesel fuel - as it is now days.
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But if you want to reduce CO2 emissions by switching to hybrids, you have to do better than moving sales between models.

Rumor has the Tundra getting the RWD hybrid system from Lexus.

 

Some auto analysts say there may be 2 Billion light vehicles (cars, suvs, trucks) in 2035 because of developing markets. That can not mean that many plug-ins. Do we have enough dirt?

A Behind the Scenes Take on Lithium-ion Battery Prices | BloombergNEF
Is there enough lithium to feed the current battery market demand? - Clean Energy Trust
Yep plenty of it.

Think of it this way world wide market is around 100 million light vehicles. I think optimistic estimates are maybe 40% of cars with be bevs and phevs with an average of 3 kg of lithium in each in 2037. That's about 120,000 metric tons of lithium just for cars. 85,000 metric tons for everything mined last year (lots of other uses, but double production and you get there). Currently mines are only on 13% of lithium because this is the cheapest, but It should be easy to expand if prices go up, and prices for lithium can go up a great deal and still have battery packs below $75/kwh in 2035. Technology by then may find a way to use less lithium or even switch to a sodium (plenty of it in salt water) or other chemistry.

We had a shortage in 2017 because it takes years to expand mines, but over a decade its fairly easy. That capacity needed in 2015 is now on-line, we may have glitches. It takes about 3 years to build a battery factory. That means we can probably build as many batteries as plug-ins want in 2024 if companies start now, and when that comes they can decide how much to expand for 2030.

 

No I'm sure they make more profit on a rav4h then a prius, but ... what they do care about is they are selling a lot fewer hybrids in the US and Japan than they were a few years ago. Increases in europe don't make up for these losses. They probably at a minimum get a number of phevs out there in the next generation.

 

But we need to look at it globally - USA may have gone through a phase of hybrids - other countries are just starting at where USA was 15 yrs ago (eg Australia). And there are probably another 150 countries which haven't even taken baby steps.

 

Hybrid sales have climbed in Europe, but they likely replaced diesels, so the CO2 reduction isn't as great as if they replaced a petrol car. Part of that increase is public response to dieselgate. Another part is that Toyota stopped offering diesels.

Other countries 'discovering' hybrids is a good thing. That alone doesn't address the sales issue. Without high fuel prices, or Government mandates like China, the public is going to choose the non-hybrid model if fuel savings is the hybrids' only appeal.

 

I hope that's fast enough for @hill, and also fast enough to make a big-enough dent in carbon contribution from transport.

Of course, the other side of it is economics. It doesn't matter how fast this stuff can be brought online if it can't enable the production of cars at or below the cost of ICE cars.

 

Its much quicker to adapt an existing car to a new country then design and manufacture one from scratch. I suspect that if Toyota or other car manufacturers wanted to bring HEVs/PHEVs/BEVs in scale to Australia or other countries, they could do it in <5 years.

 

true - but how does a country "adapt" to hybrids - when standard hybrids have been tanking ...



as hybrid customers that can afford to - jump ship in favor to even more efficient/less or no gas PHEV's & EV's.
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I think we'd see that trend flip back upwards the next time oil prices spike. You'll notice that those peak hybrid sales coincide with the most recent oil price spike:



Companies who have invested in HEV/PHEV/BEV technology will be ahead of the game when that comes.

 

This'll get 'em into the showrooms.

 

With Hybrids - Aussies have just seemed to wake up to them. Apart from the sales of trucks. Twin-cabs are selling like hot cakes for some strange reason.

But 3 of the best selling other cars - RAV4, Camry and Corolla - the uptake of Hybrid has spiked dramatically in the last 12 months - last I heard, RAV4 - 77% (and out of stock), Camry almost 50%, Corolla mid 30's% with supply constraints.

I read recently that the 3 of them will likely settle at about 50% or even more - unheard of 2 years ago. And Klugger (I think it's HiLander in USA) is coming in Hybrid and C-HR. Not sure of LEXUS, but as a brand it's up (but still behind BMW and way behind Merc), and most I see have a "h".

 

...asides better at reducing CO2, aren't there other benefits in terms of fuel costs savings?
That's where a lot of people in the developing world seems to get confused.
It appears you get some savings from gasoline costs, and when a major issue comes up like battery, etc, you got to spend ALL TGAT SAVINGS trying to fix that car.
That is what discourages potential hybrid buyers over here in Africa, and Lagos in particular.
So who can explain, what savings are made here?

 

Here - my estimate in 45,000km is that I've saved about $3000 in fuel - it uses less than ½ the fuel of a similar sized car.

Major issues generally don't come up - till maybe 12-15 years of age - PRIUS has been one of the most reliable cars on the road.

TOYOTA are putting an unlimited kilometer/10 year warranty on the batteries here now (private owners - not taxis, Ubers etc) - so they're confident most will make 10 years at least. Which, for many cars, that's getting toward the end of life anyway. If the battery lasts only 10 years, at the rate I've driven (much less than when I was younger) I'd have saved up to $10,000 in fuel - which I'd be able to buy 2½ or 3 batteries for.

But - the savings in brakes - many older PRIUS still have their original brakes at the end of their serviceable life - could run to almost as much as the cost of a replacement battery. AND - the transmission & electric motors - almost always will last the life of the car, unlike a "normal" car where the Dual Clutch or CVT - or complex 6, 8 or 10 speed Automatic has a finite life before major, very costly repairs are due.

 

That appears to be the Prius c concept car as shown in 2011.

a bit sneaky of them passing it off as new, eh?

 

thanks, just when the nightmares finally subsided. Those creepy ads were probably written by the same person who designed that creepy Burger King suit & mask.
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But we need people buying them now. Yes, 30 hybrids will reduce carbon emissions more than one Bolt, but can we get that many people to buy a hybrid for each BEV? Plug ins seem to have a greater appeal to the public, with sales growing even with low fuel prices.

Great that hybrids are popular in Australia. I've heard the Camry hybrid makes up 90% of sales in India. They are small auto markets though; with 2018 sales of new cars in Australia being 1.15 million and India 3.39. Europe is over 15 million, and the US over 17 million.

Now China is over 28 million(that might include commercial vehicles), and all new cars will have to be a mild hybrid, at least, in the near future.

Gen 1 Prius are popular in Mongolia. They even mod them for off road use.
Everyone in Mongolia drives a Prius - Hybrid heaven