Featured Toyota says electric cars with 1500km range are just around the corner

It is always good to have great aspirations but my experience suggests humans will be the limiting factor:

• 2017 Prius Prime - the drive home, I achieved over 600 miles range using the battery from the last miles to a gas station. Yes, I wanted to make sure it could use the battery when out of gas. Later, I found running out of gas and electricity required a 12 V power-reset to the the car running again. Regardless, I had to stop roughly every 3 hours to pee, stretch, and get some coffee.
• 2019 Model 3 - as expected in a 109,000 mi car, the 100% charged, battery range is ~215 miles, about 3-3.5 hours of driving. This matches my biological needs while the SuperCharger network density means I often drive past unneeded chargers.

Now if Toyota puts those long range battery packs in something with a tow bar, GOOD! Or an intercity delivery truck, GOOD GOOD! Put those batteries in something that can use that energy for useful work, I'm all for that! But in a personal vehicle, I have no interest.

If your charging network is dense and fast enough for human endurance, individual EV vehicle range becomes 'chrome.'

Bob Wilson

 

We have different definitions of just around the corner.

a lot can happen in 5 years, perhaps Aptera will be on the road

 

I would expect a Harley-Davidson, electric Trike Motorcycle first ... they get tired of being Tesla dusted.

Bob Wilson

 

More Toyota hype. I long for the days when gm was the hype machine and Toyota turned out high tech products with little fanfare

 

1,500km .... some 900 miles of range. (sigh) is this before? or after their announced prediction of tens of thousands of hydrogen cars running around the landscape is achieved.
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The announcement was quiet on the hydrogen front.

The bipolar LFP will be welcomed for affordable EV models. With the Aqua using bipolar NiMH, I had a bit of an expectation of bipolar Li-ion in the new Prius.

 

Well, if anyone could do it, Toyota could! Comparing their hybrids to ANY other model, they are, still, head and shoulders above the rest. A co-worker has a 2018 Ford Fusion Hybrid and he told me it doesn't even get 40 mpg and, already, is having issues. (Engine and transmission mounts and suspension issues.)

 

a one off is meaningless. ford has had a lotof success with their hybrids overall.

i could tell a coworker about my gen3 egr valve, but it isn't statically relevant

 

Well, I think any of us with a Prius, even an older one, wouldn't be happy with 38mpg, not at all!!

I do like how The Car Care Nut, on YouTube, just announced the best and worst Toyota's to buy and the Gen 4 Prius (2016-2022) was on the best list...and he said the Gen 4 was the Prius with the least number of issues. (But I'm impressed with the Gen 5, so far, haven't heard of anything major, so far, unlike the new Tundra which has been plagued with quite a few issues, some pretty serious.)

 

no argument that overall, toyotas are the most mechanically reliable cars on the road.

gen 4 does sound like a good one, other than the coolant heat exchanger defect.

 

Let me know when you can buy one, until then its vapourware. And range by what standard?

I've driven 500 miles between stops several times in my youth. Not a chance now. Why would I want to carry around 1500 or even 600 miles of batteries?

All the Toyota announcementware is just trying to keep the current management employed in light of shareholder discontent at their lateness ti the EV table.

 

We kept our 72 mi EV range, 2014 BMW i3-REx, a four seater that got 39 MPG at 70 mph. We traded in (*) our 25 mi EV range, 2017 Prius Prime that got 56 MPG at 70 mph. But I may be a special case and this was a first model year:

• 10 mile work commute each way - without charging at work, the 25 mi EV Prime was just a "3-stop" EV. In contrast, the 72 mi EV BMW was a "10 stop" car.
• slow home charging - the Prime charged at ~3.6 kW versus the 7.2 kW BMW.
• no fast DC charging - the BMW i3-REx charged at 45-50 kWh on CCS-1, not that I would recommend CCS-1.
• lying "EV Mode" - below 55 F or above 90 F, the Prime would frequently run the gas engine. The BMW had truthful "EV Mode".
• B pillar obstruction - the Prime B pillar blocked large objects. The BMW, a small mini-van, easily handled large loads.
• acceleration - our Prime was lethargic while the BMW was a pocket rocket.
• maneuvering - the Prime drove like a 'boat' whereas the shorter wheel base and suspension let the BMW zip through traffic.
• sit down - the lower Prime seats were flop down and climb up. The higher BMW seats were sit-in with no climbing or drops.
• limited vision - the Prime was below traffic limiting the field of vision. The higher BMW more easily could see further in traffic.
• bad lane keeping - the audio alert and hands off divergent correction made the Prime less safe. The BMW had no lane keeping which made the driver stay alert steering the car.

Our 2017 Prime was the first model year and lowest trim version. I understand other Primes were better and more recent ones improved. Toyota has been very good about fixing problems in subsequent model years. But I only had the lowest trim, first model year Prius Prime and it actually pissed me off.

Bob Wilson

* - the 2019 Model 3 Std Rng Plus shares some of the Prius Prime problem but more than exceeds in others.

 

Well, the vision Hasn’t improved. In fact, just the opposite

 

This has a couple of charts and tables presented by Toyota.
Toyota Shows Electric Crown And New Solid-State Batteries With Up To 932 Miles Of Range | Carscoops



The range improvements are being based off the bZ4X's rating on the CLTP. I think that's currently the easiest official test. The cost reductions are for a battery that yields the same range as the bZ4X.

What isn't addressed is target production levels. The competition also isn't standing still

That Fusion is rated 42 combined mpg on the EPA. 40mpg is better than average of Fuelly users.

 

900 miles? That would be awesome, wouldn't have to plug in every day, even on a longer trip. Can take a bathroom break without topping off. and that would be a generous reverse energy to power a house during an outage. But it depends on weight and whether Toyota can actually produce these things.

I ran across this ad in an old Backpacker magazine I found in my garage during spring cleaning....



Not so sure Toyota's running on brain power anymore....

 

Wonder if this is related to Toyota Planning Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles With Over 124 Miles Of Electric Range ?

I mean the first use for a bipolar Lithium battery and keep costs down would be to double the current batteries that are used for Toyota's current and future crop of PHEVs. I know Toyota's current plan is to use solid state batteries in HEVs first.

So everybody thinks Toyota will use LFP including most news sites like: Toyota unveils sweeping plans for new battery tech, EV innovation | Reuters
Partial quote:"Toyota will hedge with better-performing lithium iron phosphate batteries, a cheaper alternative to lithium-ion batteries that have spurred EV adoption in China, the world's largest vehicle market."

Yet directly from Toyota's little presentation:
Partial quote: "　The best part of these two next-generation batteries is the high-performance version, which will be put into practical use in 2027-2028. It uses a high-nickel material for the positive electrode and combines it with a bipolar structure. As a result, the cruising range is expected to increase by 10% compared to the performance version, and the cost is expected to be reduced by 10% while quick charging is less than 20 minutes." I bolded the relevant part.

Doesn't sound like LFP to me but more like their normal NMC.

 

Stock exchange power

 

The chart didn't link in my post, but the article I linked has the summary of Toyota's plans for batteries. They are working on two next gen batteries after what the bZ4X has. A high performance one that is NCM prismatic, and what Toyota refers to as popularization, a LFP bipolar. I take it the former is for longer ranges, and the latter for less expensive trims and models. Toyota is saying 2026 for them, though the LFP is listed 2026-27 challenge

Then there is a gen planned after the NCM prismatic performance Toyota is hoping to release 2027-28. It is bipolar, and will be some type of nickel based on what Toyota released here.

With LFP being lower energy density, it needs more individual cells to match nickel Li-ion in capacity. Bipolar's advantages increases with the number of cells, making LFP a better place to start with it, and Toyota actually started with NiMH.

 

For traveling through places where charging networks are sparse and slow.

Though I agree that this announcement smells like vaporware.

This certainly helps the many people who generally take their bathroom and stretch breaks at places with minimal or no services.

And also the fewer people who often travel by car camping, staying overnight in wilder scenic places without services. Though this is a much smaller market.