Toyota Shows Distain: Even for their Own RAV4-EV

Aha, thank you, I understand better.
Yes, some types of operational aspects of cars has been standardized and should be as you said.
However, batteries are not such a device. There are no operational controls of batteries.

 

I think the OP was on a rant about toyota distorting plug-ins, one that many of us agree with him on. But let's face it the big car companies know best. That's why GM could tell us buyers really wanted hummers and not hybrids, and it worked out well for them, well the executives all got paid. The share holders and employees along with the american people got screwed. The customers actually do tell the car companies what they want, but the car companies try to dictate what they think will make them the most money. I think toyota thinks they will make less money if plug-ins catch on (less service revenue, more change can hurt the biggest companies more than the small). There are only about 8 companies that can do fuel cell cars, so they can control it.

If you have a plug-in hybrid, of course things are more convenient than a fuel cell. You can actually fill up at home with electricity, at public charging stations, sometimes at work, and of course at all the gas stations. If you have a plug and a fuel cell, it may be nearly as convient in 20 years if someone pays for all the fueling stations. Now BEVs are not as convient as phevs, but certainly many have used them to cross the country, with fuel cells you have to bring allong your own hydrogen truck. So then the question? You have a prius phv, a volt, a leaf, and a Tesla S, versus a fcv with today's 9 public stations or 2016s possibly 29. Those first 4 cars will when you add them up get fewer ZEV credits in california than that one fuel cell because according to the fuel cell lobby and CARB that 1 fuel cell car has big advantages versus the other 4. That is a real head scratcher if the ZEV rules are supposed to reduce pollution.

I don't see anyone getting upset about toyota spending its own money to try to produce affordable and desirable fuel cell vehicles. What gets objected to are the subsidies the fuel cell lobby seems to want, and the false advertising we saw by lexus in this post slamming plug ins.

Now california is certainly within their rights to tax motorists to build hydrogen stations. Compared to some of the waste in that government it is really small. But its offensive that they lobbied and got extra DOE funds dedicated to this boon dogle. Nothing wrong with supporting R&D, and even subsidizing the fuel cell fork lifts walmart is about to add, but this stuff is not ready for commercialization on the roads. Let toyota test it in japan and germany, or have them build these cars unsubsidised until they get it right. Just don't tell me toyota is being green in advertising against plug-ins, because they somehow know something we don't.

 

That's a bit overly simplistic.

There's no reason battery cells cannot be standardized. Having a small variety of them available, as we do now for other batteries, would still allow for the flexibility each automaker desires. Internal arrangement within the pack and charging approach would still be at the discretion of the automaker.

After all, that's what an automaker will want anyway. That's how cost will be kept down and risk reduced. They'll spread those cells in different configurations across their fleet.

Battery suppliers will want some type of "same" as well. The manufacturing process thrives on producing high-volumes of similar product.

 

Yes there is.

Battery materials and technologies will be changing for quite a few decades if not longer. Different temperature ranges, current flows, voltages, and a host of safety needs will not be optimized by force fitting them all into certain sizes. Some batteries may need air access, others may be flow type batteries, and still others may need certain physical size or shape needs of cathodes, anodes, or separators. Some chemistries might need lots of instrumentation to optimize. Others might be "fire and forget". The only standard that will be followed is getting the biggest bang for the buck.

 

The battery CELL would still provide that type of flexibility, since materials could change as they have over the decades with the everyday batteries we now have.

The battery PACK is what will support those operational aspects. In fact, internal arrangement will depend upon that very flexibility.

 

The cells and the pack on the Prius are custom to the Prius. This was done to optimize the entire car. Additionally Toyota changed the battery cells and packs for the different Prius generations as they fined tuned the battery. This progression will never really stop. This tailoring of the cells and pack for a specific application will be different for nearly every car. Standardization is an essential element for batteries that must be changed out many times during the life of a car.... but in a EV or PHEV, this "routine changing" does not exist. Battery cell and pack optimization for lasting the life of the car and maximum cost effectiveness matters more than cell or pack standardization. (Look at how many different Lead Acid batteries there are. They vary all over the place to match the different cars. The only standard is "12V".)

 

We're saying the same thing. The difference the scope I addressed is larger.

 

According to this brief USA today article, this is the last year for the RAV4 EV anyways. Tesla is pulling their batteries, which makes this ad a lot more sensible.

Tesla to stop supplying batteries for Toyota

 

Don't standardize anything until they get it optimized - like gasoline for example.
The next 20 yrs should be quite exciting for automobile propulsion, and a great time to be a chemist or a mechanical engineer.

 

No Tesla is not telling toyota they can't have their batteries. here is the bloomberg piece that USA today cribbed off.
Tesla Says Battery-Supply Deal for Toyota RAV4 EV to End - Bloomberg

Tesla needed to disclose that it may not get more revenue from the toyota deal, but its toyota not tesla that decides.

Maybe toyota will have tesla modify the current Rav4 instead of the discontinued one, or maybe they will have them electrify the Lexus NX, which is longer and could hold more batteries. Or maybe they are just killing the deal, we don't know yet. That is up to toyota. One owner thinks toyota may kill it
Servicing is a Big Issue With the Toyota RAV4 EV (Especially Outside California) | PluginCars.com
Will Toyota Cancel the RAV4 EV? | Inside EVs
If toyota does kill the Rav4 ev, its not tesla's request. Tesla would love to keep toyota as a customer, but not when they advertise the stuff in the OP of this thread.

 

Thanks, I was looking for a better source article.

We don't know what Toyota is thinking atm, and only time will tell if they have something up their sleeve. Electrics still seem like a decent way to go, I don't even have an issue with long charging times, I can sleep while it charges. I do require a couple hundred mile range though, enough to get through a full and potentially long driving work day (at least a range well over 100 miles, but not necessarily quite over 200 miles is needed for me).

 

Well we can tell the PR arm is thinking they hate plug-ins. We do know Uchiyamada hates plug-ins and loves fuel cells. The american management team seems to be backing his ideas, but this IMHO just shows that they don't seem to have much of a clue about PR, one of the reasons for the shake up. The american management at toyota is great at getting government regulatory changes, their pack is strong, maybe this is part of the problem. They got carb to up the credits for their fuel celll vehicle, charge car owners for hydrogen stations, and reduce the zev credits for the tesla. They think this is a political thing instead of an engineering problem. Satoshi Ogiso seems to at least try to be realistic about what hydrogen is going to do in the next decade. He is with the program to push push push hybrids, which makes him not spread any of the plug-in hate that bob carter and uchiyamada seem to display in interviews and collateral material. Akido Toyoda AFAIK hasn't waighed in. If he is smart he will realize the bad PR toyota is generating with this hydrogen push, plug-n hate, and work to at least end the plug-in hate messaging that his management team is espousing.

As for the tesla relationship, Toyota is biting the hand that feeds it. Toyota has only spent $100M for batteries and engineering for its california compliance car, but chose not to have tesla help when they ran into reliability problems. On the tesla side, toyota has had its investment increase about $500M and tesla has taken the PR nightmare NUMMI plant off toyota's hands. I think Carter and Uchiyamada are managing the tesla relationship like spoiled children. While Tesla has boosted Toyota's market cap, and reduced the costs to them to develop a BEV, these great managers go and try to create anti tesla pr and advertisements every chance they get. It seems like a page out of the bob lutz, how to mismanage a car company playbook.

I hope Toyoda and Ogiso end this messaging in north america, and ogiso is working behind the scenes to create better plug-ins.

 

I suppose if Toyota let too much information out regarding PiP gen II, people would stop buying gen I and wait for gen II. So perhaps its not that bad after all. We can only hope.

 

That doesn't explain this advertising, but yes, I hope toyota will take what it has learned and put out a much improved prius phv. IMHO they have plenty of engineering tallent to do it. They also may want to build a plug-in hybrid from the ground up, with batteries as a structural element which they should have learned from the RAV4 EV experiment.

 

YEap ... IT time to DUMP Toyota .. They dont seem to have seen the LIGHT .... ( Solar charged BEV/PHEV vehicles)

 

I'll hang around a bit to see what's up their sleeves.

 

I won't/didn't. I'll buy the product out there that best fits my needs and supports lowering gas and GHG emissions.

However, I certainly look forward to seeing what they have up heir sleeves and may certainly be back if they come out with another winner technology as they did with the Prius.

 

Care to elaborate? What does "much improved" signify?

Look at how a few Volt owners turned the "6 mile" nonsense into a brainless game of misleading, just because they viewed EV purity as vastly superior. Their success depends upon people not actually taking the time to consider detail or goals.

The "0.2 gal/100 mi" listed on the window-sticker means the 11 miles of blended driving would consume 0.022 gallons of gas. That's a drastic reduction of gas usage compared to a vehicle averaging 35 MPG, which would consume 0.314 gallons for the same 11 miles.

Isn't reduction the point? If not, how does electricity usage apply? It has to come from some type of fuel. In most cases, it's no renewable or even clean. Neither coal nor natural gas offer the purity they portray.

Also, let's not overlook how much effort Toyota made to keep cost in check. They adhered to that important $30,000 price-point, rather than sacrificing affordability for the sake delivering more range & power.

In other words, we're back to asking the question of what mainstream consumers will actually purchase. That's a big difference to what they say they want at auto shows.

 

I don't quite understand. Do you think toyota should not listen to their customers?

Well according to those pesky surveys, no its not about slightly decreasing gas usage. Perhaps you didn't read the california survey that I posted. 39% of plug-ins there use solar, I would wager similar or maybe higher percentage use wind in texas and colorado. Plug-in buyers don't buy that line that you have to use dirty coal. In fact its dishonest. As plug-ins go up, coal usage goes down. Don't you think adding plug-ins might not add as much coal as the anti-plug-in crowd seems to think?

Here is another

2012 Chevrolet Volt vs. 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in - Comparison - Motor Trend Page 2

Ok again like the information in the california survey, this didn't come from GM or toyota marketing, it came from prius phv owners, and 53% in bolder's survey aren't happy with the range.

Which means that toyota hit their technical goals, ... but buyers don't think that pay back is the most imporant thing. OK what do these initial adopters want

That is the article author's opinion, but I'm sure if Toyota talks to their customers instead of dictating to them, they will try to add more range, better acceleration in electric only mode, and better handling. Or they can say, but the payback is fast, and not address the market. Remember the insight? Honda said they did everything the prius did only cheaper. Well they went to cheap, and lost some major reasons people by the prius.

I don't understand which sells better in the US the Tesla S or the prius phv?Perhaps that price point wasn't all important. With less than 4000 sales in Japan last year, perhaps they should look more at american customers. When they changed the gen I prius to suit american customers better with the gen II, it also sold better in Japan.

Hey I don't know what mainstream customers are but more people bought leafs and volts/amperas than prius phvs last year, and the volt didn't sell in japan. I think mainstream customers want F150s, but there are a lot of initial adopters that will buy the second gen leaf, volt, and prius phv if the car companies listen to customers with what they want, or? You can blame the customer and say they really should want what you give them. Remember Henry Ford, they can have any color as long as its black, attitude, which dropped ford behind gm. His wife drove an electric (detroit electric, not ford). Black is cheaper and looks better, why would anyone want a different color.

 

Then there's no reason to continue this discussion.

For everyone else, they know extremely well who the mainstream customers are. They are the ones who continue to purchase CAMRY, COROLLA, MALIBU, CRUZE, FUSION, FOCUS, ACCORD, CIVIC...