I've been enjoying all the posts from the PHEV testers and was wondering what is going to happen to the evaluation cars? They obviously belong to Toyota but can we expect to see any of them on the market?
At the end of the trail period, Toyota engineers are going to take them apart and study them for Kaizen. There is no substitute for the knowledge to learn from the real-world wear and tear. They will use that knowledge to increase reliability and even tune it for the better. I am sure they won't need to take apart all the PHVs. I wish they donate the remaining to the fans. =D
Not likely. They'll probably end up recycling the parts or donate the car to museum or schools for further studying. I mean this is the first modern PHEV test vehicle offered to the public. It's part of automotive history much like EV1, the first modern production electric vehicle.
So does that mean Toyota will ship them to GM, who will then, despite being offered a great sum of money for the cars, instead will crush them and go bankrupt, again?
Probably. Since having first made the OP, I now know I was being naive. Toyota is not going to sell or donate their 2010 PHEV's. Instead, they will study them for a year while their competitors grab the PHEV market out from under them.
I don't know about that. Getting it right the first time is better than fixing / recalling and trying a second time with the loss of reputation.
