Featured Finally! Toyota is investing in large scale battery plans

Correct. They won't have a prototype battery for at least another year, and they won't have a commercial battery for at least two more years. The future stock price will be based on whether they will actually succeed or not in making an actual battery.

Today, they announced that they plan to manufacture both high-energy-density NMC-cathode lithium-metal batteries (still cheaper than lithium-ion batteries) and lower-energy-density but much lower-cost LFP-cathode lithium-metal batteries—only 1/8 the cost of the current lithium-ion batteries yet the same energy density thanks to the lithium-metal anode. Again, whether either will actually be delivered remains to be seen.

Lithium iron phosphate on the QuantumScape solid-state lithium-metal platform—QuantumScape

 

It means nothing unless you bought it at the peak, which I didn't but was tempted to, decided to just watch.

 

Didn't Toyota promise something like 50,000 fuel cell vehicles on the road within the near future? Does this mean they're going to abandon that goal and give another goal anyways - w/out meeting the other?
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Could be. That's what you and I would do if I were them.

 

It would have been awesome if they had 50,000 fuel cell 18-wheelers and buses. Nobody is going to build a lot of million dollar hydrogen filling stations with >$200,000 of recurring costs to dole out 1 and 2 kilograms of hydrogen to 20 or so cars per day. I personally like Hyundai’s drive in fuel cells to buses, long haul trucks, and construction vehicles. These expensive stations can then dole out 10, 20, 30 kilograms of hydrogen to dozens of vehicles. This is the way to get economies of scale in R & D to develop better and more robust methods of compression/storage.

On a side note: here is the link for Toyota’s actual presentation for their battery plans:

Video: Media briefing & Investors briefing on batteries and carbon neutrality | Corporate | Global Newsroom | Toyota Motor Corporation Official Global Website


iPad ? Pro

 

There is a also good summary at Inside EV's ... Toyota Outlines Its Strategy On Batteries And Electrification

 

I also agree that large fleet vehicles is the only way to get hydrogen fuel cells into the market.

However, you can sell/lease a FCEV to an individual based on emotion since many can't do any math.

Not so for companies and government agencies (usually).
They are going to compare purchase prices, fuel prices and maintenance (which is likely unknown). This is the TCO as everyone knows.
FC city buses have already had a few trials with some cost disasters.

Mike

 

Toyota hints at a new structure for Li-ion batteries. My guess is bipolar.

It could change, but Toyota isn't investing at the level of some of the other legacy car companies. VW is doing $29 billion in the same time frame, and GM $35 bil by 2025

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-15/vw-plans-europe-s-biggest-battery-push-in-electric-offensive
G.M. to Boost Electric Vehicle Spending, Build Battery Plants - The New York Times

 

To be honest, it doesn't sound like there was much new in this announcement. There were some specific technical details that were interesting, mainly Toyota thinks localized heat buildup is a big cause of battery decay and the solid state battery was already being tested last year, but is delaminating. Otherwise we knew Toyota is working with BYD and Panasonic already to ramp up lithium ion battery production.

Oh, the mention of ethanol was a big surprise to me actually. I didn't know Toyota was interested in biofuels.

 

That was true with the NiMH batteries in the Prius. A localized spot would melt the separator and short one of the six cells. Thereafter, the module was unusable.

Bob Wilson

 

Yes it looks like the 'New Structure' may be bipolar ... but for solid state does 'laminated' also mean bi-polar ?

 

Yes I have replaced about 6 cells in my Gen 2 2005 battery.

 

CFO said ... "We did talk about different regions having different energy situations. To give you one example, for Brazil in Latin America, the bioethanol carbon-neutral fuel is already commercialized and used. For these kinds of regions, for us OEMs, it will be important to prepare and develop the technology so that we will be able to adapt to the bioethanol fuels and also further to commercialize that. Toyota has already been taking initiatives in this direction.

On the other hand, for these types of carbon-neutral biofuels, I also understand that in Europe, there is the biodiesel that maybe not has penetrated too much yet, but I understand that the biodiesel has started to be introduced to the market.

In China, there is also an active movement of utilizing hydrogen. Hydrogen for the fuel cell commercial vehicles. There is a movement to introduce these types of hydrogen fuels to commercial vehicles already. And even in the world of races, sport car races, there are movements to introduce the e-fuels to racing cars as well. For Toyota, we have started to use the hydrogen engine in Japan for these racing cars.

Therefore, I believe that while we place BEVs at the core of what we promote, in addition to that, we'll need to carefully watch the energy situation and the infrastructure situation of each country and be able to prepare and provide products, specific products to meet the individual needs. That will be important for us to do. Toyota will be working on development projects to be able to do that and also to deal with these different situations."

 

This following summaries the split of electrified vehicles to 2030. I don't think this is new, but I had not seen this slide before. Now interestingly PHEV remains low and so I guess they think that its relatively expensive and so better to stay hybrid or go straight to BEV.

Also the 'volume of CO2 reduction from HEV converted to BEV units" is really the core part of Toyota's CO2 reduction strategy up to 2030 given the target markets they sell to.

 

Also on solid state ... Q. When did the first hybrid using the all-solid-state battery appear? I understand the all-solid-state battery could appear in hybrid before BEV. A. Keiji Kaita, President of CN Advanced Engineering Development Center: "As we promised probably several years ago, the all-solid-state battery will be equipped on hybrid in early 2020. As we explained today, the performance of the all-solid-state is very good, it charges and discharges very fast, so good for the HEV battery. We will discuss to use the all-solid-state battery for both HEV and BEV."

Also ... "As shown in slide 17, with the characteristic of fast ion movements and higher tolerance to heat, we are currently aiming on high output and a shorter charging time. For this reason, we believe focusing on the application to HEV is the fastest way to deliver the product to our customers. However, there are still challenges remaining. For example, longer use will result in creating spaces in the solid electrolyte which leads to deterioration. We need to continue developing the material for the solid state, leveraging our experience over the years."

So whilst they have the bipolar NiMH for hybrid as a cheap option, maybe we will see a more expensive solid state battery first also on a hybrid. Also this suggest that a major focus for BEV battery is still liquid Lithium Ion.

 

There are two types: (1) series, and (2) with transmission. Our 2014 BMW i3-REx is a series PHEV that eliminates the transmission. The 640 cc, modified motorcycle engine drives a ~35 kW generator that feeds the battery. Without a transmission and complicated control laws, the car is an EV that carries its charge sustaining motor-generator, Sad to say, not fully optimized, it gets only 39 MPG but keeps running 24x7.

The other PHEVs take a regular hybrid with a transmission and lets the drivetrain mechanically power the car. But transmissions are heavy and complex. They get better highway mileage, 56 MPG in our Prius Prime, but at the penalty of 25 mi EV range. Our BMW i3-REx has 72 mi EV range. So the Prime became 'driveway art.'

Bob Wilson

 

Parallel hybrid is generally more efficient as when you convert from mechanical to electrical and back again you loose energy. This is offset somewhat as a series ICE can be optimised for generation. Also I suspect a Toyota transaxle would not be that much heaver than series motor, generator and differential.

 

I think laminated just refers to how it is assembled. The layers can be arranged for a bipolar design, or not.

The optimized engine generally means it is smaller and lighter. Which can be more important to an EV w/range extender design than hybrid efficiency.

Power-split transaxles require a second motor to work. Toyota got it to help out at times in the Prime, but a slightly more powerful main motor would accomplish the same for less weight than M/G 1 and 2 combined.

 

Series hybrid requires a motor and a generator but the motor operates as a generator during regenerative braking. Toyota power split transaxles have two motors but both can operate as a generator. The Nissan e-power series hybrid is fairy close in efficiency to the Yaris hybrid.