Featured Will Biden change Toyota direction?

That's a red herring. It's a matter of efficiency. A Toyota hybrid battery pack is made up of 28 modules of 6 cells each for a total of 168 cells per car. A tesla Model S has 16 modules of 444 batteries each. That's 7,104 batteries per car. That is quite a difference.

"But what about the Prime???" you'll ask. Found this online: The Toyota Prius Prime uses five lithium-ion battery stacks.


Each consists of 19 cells (25 Ah) each (95 total and 8.8 kWh). Battery voltage is 351.5 V (95 times 3.7 V). The Regular hybrid is equipped with two stacks of 28 cells (3.6 Ah) - 56 total and 745 Wh.

The Prius Prime uses a fraction of the batteries that a full sized Tesla uses.

 

Why are you crying about that when you don't even own (and have no plans to own) a Prius plugin?

In order to use a 400 amp charger you need a HUGE battery. Pumping 400 amps at 220 volts is more than any of the PHEVs can handle without burning up. The level 2 charger is well matched to the size of the Prius battery pack.

 

The poster I replied to was concerned about billions of tonnes of batteries. The number pure hyperbole, as it will take decades to reach billions of plug ins sold, many of which don't have a battery pack that weighs even a ton. Which was shown in another thread where they brought up the billions number before.

It isn't a red herring because of that hyperbole, and there are more hybrids out in the wild. Toyota alone reached 15 million hybrid sales in 2020. That is millions of tonnes of batteries by their count that they weren't concerned about before.

What about his post limits it to the Prius Prime?

 

Even a tiny drained lithium battery can handle an impulse current of 400amps which would need to rapidly ramp down to adhere to voltage limits.

Even if the 400amps lasted for a 1/10 of a second and ramped combined with new programming it still would reduce charge time.

Heck, an small ancient gen1 Chevy Volt battery can charge at up to 137amps dc when drained as proven by the French Canadian Volt dealer that modified the car with a Spark EV DC charge components

At the end of the day the car would only command what it can use from the charger, having spare capacity for cars that can use it isn’t a bad thing

 

We already have standards for fast charging and the associated plugs. No need to change the J1773 standard. Besides, why would you want to use wiring for a 400 amp, 400 volt circuit when the average user would use just a fraction of that?

A 400 volt, 400 amp connector would require wires with conductors of almost 1/2 inch diameter (3/0 gauge). And not just one wire. Have you ever tried to handle a bundle of wires with conductors as big as your finger? It ain't easy, and it certainly ain't cheap. And that's not even taking into account the stress that it puts on the plug when you have heavy wires pulling at an angle.

You can get away with pulsing a sufficiently large battery pack at 400 amps for short durations but then you have to wait between pulses for the battery to cool. I don't doubt that people have jury-rigged faster chargers onto battery packs that were not designed for it. Did that French Canadian Volt provide a followup with the lifespan that they got from the pack after doing that fast charge mod?

 

And 5 times as many parts as a tesla, which despite having way less batteries used is a much larger carbon footprint than all the parts in a Tesla... And add to that the fact that every time you fill up the tank it's not a simple carbon footprint calculation of your local energy grid, it's the carbon footprint of the entire fossil fuel supply line from pumping to, to flaring, to transporting, to refining, to transporting again and then to pump nearly all of it into the atmosphere after combustion that breaks up these insidious planet destroying complex hydrocarbons. Don't forget, just one gallon of gas turns into 20 pounds of carbon dioxide: https://climatekids.nasa.gov/review/carbon/gasoline.html

 

How can you say that a PHEV has 5 times the part count of a Tesla? That's just silly. If you use 'assemblies' ( motor, AC, wheels, etc) they are not that different. If you use individual components (pistons, spark plugs, etc) then you have to count those 7,000 individual cells that make up the Tesla battery packs. Either way, it takes a lot of resources to produce the 1,500 pounds of water cooled, electronically controlled, individually compartmentalized batteries in the Tesla. Compare that to melting a few hundred pounds of 100% recyclable iron to cast an ICE for the PHEV.

As for the well to wheel... You need to do the same for the electricity that drives the Tesla. Most usable waterways already have dams*, so future expansion of electricity generation will have to be from solar, wind and hydrocarbons. My back of the envelope calculations say that we will need another 473 gigawatts of base load generation to replace the 337 million gallons of gasoline that is currently used in the USA every day. That's assuming that the cars are nice enough to charge 24 hours a day, and not try to charge at the same time, like 5 PM when they get home or 8 am when they get to the office.

Building that much base load capacity will inevitably use more hydrocarbon based fuels. Natural gas, which burns clean, is very dirty to extract, requiring fracking in most instances or distilling from oil. Fracking, of course, has it's own problems.

* Many of the undeveloped "usable" waterways have encumbrances such as water treaties that dictate where the water will go, and inserting a dam can (and has) interfered with meeting those demands.

 

Alternative energy is ramping up very quickly and an ICE cars won't go anywhere, nor will they pollute anymore once they've been replace with alternative energy that is generated as electricity not as fuel. And based on the weather on this planet in recent years, all ya'll who think fossil fools still has a future will be treated like the people who claimed Covid was a hoax.

 

Use of energy for transportation - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

 

The price of fuel for ICE powered vehicles will be the biggest cause for change. The cost of refining is basically a fixed cost and relies on spreading that cost over the total output to make it a much smaller percentage of the overall cost per ltr/gal. As the demand drops, that percentage will increase making the end product more expensive ... until it is no longer viable to continue operations. That has already happened to our biggest refiner here in Australia many yrs ago. all our fuel is refined in a mega refinary in Singapore ..... but what happens when that is no longer viable to refurbish when it reaches the end of life????

I believe different technology fuel burning motors will make a showing as range extenders in basically BEV's ... well until people get over their range anxiety and/or the recharging outlets become a lot more prolific and people basically change their travelling habits to suit the new mode of transport. The distance travelled each day certainly increased when the horseless carriage replaced the horse drawn coach, but it only really increased when the vehicles would do the trip without breaking down half way.
A holiday trip might be more of a stop in at different spots and stay a day or two rather than the rip tear bust to get from point A to point B and then sleep the next day to recover ... well if you didn't go to sleep behind the wheel and die along with anyone else that was involved in the accident.

T1 Terry

 

That's a strange way to phrase things. I'm not sure how to interpret it. The point is... we have limited electricity supplies now, and much of it is being generated by burning fossil fuels. According to Wiki, the alternative energy sector is producing just 3 percent of the total US energy. Over 70 percent is from fossil fuels. I'm including the 23% "natural gas" as fossil fuel since it's also a hydrocarbon.

BEVs are not intrinsically clean, especially the SUVs that use twice the energy that a Prius Prime or Model 3 use. They are only clean in comparison to the dirtier cars. Even the model S uses a third more energy than it's smaller sibling, the Model 3. The problem is that they still use power that has to be generated, and that generation will create pollution in some form somewhere. The only really clean BEV is one that is left parked while the owner telecommutes.

So, in closing, we can promote BEVs all we want, but there will be a major reassessment the first time we run into rationing because our regional generating capacity is inadequate. Or even worse; multi day region wide preemptive outages to prevent forest fires like we had last year.

 

Who?

 

Plug ins do far better than ICE cars in terms of carbon emissions, even on dirty grids. On cleaner ones, they'll do better than a Prius.

The network of gas stations weren't build over night, and neither will EVs replace ICEs overnight. We can build up electric supply as the plug in fleet grows. But any region that regularly sees A/C use will have no problem with charging EVs at night now.

 

Countless times in the past, I have been attacked online for bringing up "electricity guzzler" in discussions promoting BEV. They simply wanted no mention whatsoever about actual efficiency. The quantity of electricity was irrelevant as far as they were concerned. It is still is for some too. Consuming more electricity means you will use the charging-station longer, causing other to have to wait longer. Electricity isn't a limitless energy source either. Ugh.

Anywho, I did some research. Since the theme recently has been the United States falling woefully behind China, I wanted actual detail. Simply stating percentage of marketshare doesn't tell us the actual story. I knew BEV choices in China were quite different. In fact, I had the opportunity to drive a BYD model here on a closed track a number of years ago. That was interesting. It was small, powerless, had rough acceleration & braking... traits that would have a direct reflection of price. So, that's what I researched. Here's what I found:

52 = $40,000 to $125,085
22 = $35,000 to $39,999
35 = $30,000 to $35,999
56 = $25,000 to $29,999
76 = $20,000 to $25,999
42 = $15,000 to $19,999
38 = $10,000 to $15,999
22 = $4,470 to $9,999

That is the breakdown of the 343 models of BEV available. Notice how low the prices go and how many are in categories well below anything we would find acceptable here in the United States?

In other words, asking if there will be a change for Toyota is rather absurd. They already recognize the problem. We need to change. There is a happy middle somewhere in there. Simply building lots of monster-sized BEV that guzzle electricity doesn't actually solve the problem.

 

There are many varieties of BEVs.
You can get a “monster-sized” one if you want, or a smaller one.
If an “electricity guzzler” replaces a ‘gas guzzler’ it is a huge step forward.

 

That completely misses the point of pricing and it simply isn't true. The smaller ones tend to be far more efficient, but they aren't available in this market. You cannot if you want.

No, that is only a tiny step. True, it is in the right direction but only fulfills one of many requirements.

 

The best selling BEV in the US is the most efficient available. It is likely one of the most efficient available globally.

Most of the guzzling(is there a defined cut off for such?) plug ins are higher end models whose price leads to low sales. The absolute worse are power PHEVs. They shouldn't be making heavy use of public chargers on trips. Again, most are of low sales.

Cheaper EVs could be more efficient, but comparing them without an EPA rating is problematic. The Kandi K27 is available in the US as example of such. Its 114mpge combined rating is still bested buy 10 plus others of that model year(2022), including the Model S LR.

Unless the ID.4 or Mach-E start selling in Model 3 numbers, the concern over electric guzzling is over blown at this point. The F150 Lightening may warrant it when it arrives, but most of those will be replacing F150s with fuel economy below the fleet MPG average.

We can't keep people from buying gas guzzling cars. Figure that out, and you've figured how to keep them from buying electric guzzling ones. Until then, guzzle buyers getting a plug in is generally better for all of us.

 

There it is, reason for Toyota not to change direction.

Drawing attention to conflicting goals...

 

That's your opinion, but it is really a step backwards to replace a gas guzzler with a car or truck that is designed without regard for efficiency. It's telling that when I was searching for BEV efficiency charts I encountered a lot that showed range but I had to fine tune it to find the miles per kWH for various cars. The Iconic, Model 3 and Prius Prime were at the top of the list last year with about 250 WH per mile. With the new PHEVs that lineup may change. The worst were about 450 WH per mile.

If we want to do it right, we should not stop with just changing the way that we waste resources. There should be limits on the amount of power a BEV can use to a reasonable amount. There should be no free ride just because the car is massive. There is no reason that a soccer mom's SUV needs a 0-60 of 5 seconds.

As the ecology / conservation movement of the 70s pointed out. It's much better for the planet to use less power than it is to try to make more clean power.