New Rav4 EV and CNG Camry Hybrid

CNG sounds great! Imagine being able to fuel your car at home in your own garage. With a fuel that is abundant here in the US - especially with the fairly recent new discoveries of large quantities (eg., the Marcellus shale, see Marcellus Shale Gas: New Research Results Surprise Geologists!). Unfortunatey I find it hard to imagine that big oil would allow this technology through, given that folks could completely bi-pass gas stations. Big business rules in America today... Very sad.

 

Well, while I agree with the hate of "big oil" they are also the ones who sell natural gas. So there is no conflict of interest as far as they are concerned. Your local government road tax guys might be another matter.

There are two or three companies who sell the kits, which are installed by local contractors. Motorweek did a story on them about a year ago. You get the kit installed in the car, and the compressor installed at your house, usually mounted on the garage wall. Overnight it fills the tank in the car. It's fully automatic. All you do is plug in the hose and press the start button on the compressor. It shuts off when the tank is full.

I don't know if they have a kit for the Prius.

 

And I would have to agree with toyota, any full size (and full price) car that can't be refueled on the road during long trips likely won't sell well. Unless they can make a battery that recharges fully in under 10-15 minutes or can be swapped at a "gas station", pure EV can't work for anything but 2nd cars. People take trips.

 

Exactly my point. As a second car or as a commuter only they may make sense for some. But I believe the vast majority of people would be unwilling to sacrifice the basically unlimited rage of an ICE or ICE Hybrid for the very limited range of an EV for their primary car or even secondary car.

 

at least it only took Toyota 2 years (considering they have an EV in the works, probably was less time than that) to realize they might be wrong about EV's...

how long did GM fight hybrids??...if you consider the Supercar Fund Project, it was nearly 1½ decades!!

as far as people taking trips... sure there will be some, we did a 5 day car trip moving from one place to another all but one day of the trip... but with the price of gas this summer, its already obvious that car trips WILL GO AWAY if a better alternative is not found...

i actually see EV's taking off as people (in their short-sighted, money-grubbing ways) see reducing their day to day expenses more compelling and a cottage industry of large car and RV rentals taking off instead....

i personally have a large vehicle that, quite honestly i have a hard time justifying the $45 tab fees and $250 insurance costs every year because of the very limited use i have for it. its a nearly 20 YO pick up that has seem much better days. even when sharing it among three different households, its used less than once a month

 

This is my opinion also. Toyota ( and GM and Ford ) is a mass market producer/seller. It serves the masses, young/old, poor/rich, urbanite/suburbanite, long distance driver/short distance driver. Currently all Toyota vehicles can be driven by every segment of the driving population.

With the PHEVs there begins to be some exclusions. Certain types of drivers are excluded from using the best features of the vehicles. Imagine the horrible public relations mess this vignette might create.

Inner city dweller with solid job and credit visits T/GM/F store and wants to buy a PHEV.
'Sir/Ma'am, can you plug in your vehicle into an outlet in your garage?' '
Well No we park on the street.'
'Well then this vehicle is not for you, take a hike.'

Immediately following that encounter a suburbanite with solid job and credit visits the same store and meets the same salesperson.
'Sir/Ma'am, can you plug in your vehicle into an outlet in your garage?'
'Yes we can'
'Well then this vehicle is for you, welcome.'

However as an 'option' the PHEV technology makes more sense IMO. When the infrastructure to recharge the PHEVs begins to be built around the Volt and the PHEV Prius then I think we'll see some significant growth. But IMO this is at least 5 yrs into the future. I do think that by 2020 there will be a large number of PHEVs, E-REVs and EVs because this technology makes so much sense for so many drivers.