Toyota Doubts WideSpread Acceptance of Plug-In Hybrids

Yes you can zero out your meter consumption, but any extra electricity you produce above and beyond that is free energy for Edison's grid.

 

Exactly. We all know gas will be too expensive someday($6/gal and plus) but by then, it'll be too late for a lot a people to upgrade their car. When oil prices are cheap, there's not incentive to do make plug-ins. Solution, tax gasoline to create the incentive.

 

Fascinating that CA doesn't pay for excess energy from PV panels. I always thought CA was ahead of the curve on incentives for PV.
Here in Minnesota I actually was getting paid more for excess power than I was paying (only by .1 cents) until rates changed this spring.
Regarding the higher cost of electricity for using more than the base load, that would be a huge reason not to get an EV or PHEV. Any talk of them making exceptions for plugging in vehicles?
Here we have one rate, regardless of the amount used.

 

Most people cannot tolerate too much cost up front for a small car ( i.e. $38k Prius plug-in)

Other big issues ... What would be the Li battery warranty?

How about replacement cost for that battery?

 

I think it is also a lifestyle issue. Until they are usable and affordable as a vehicle for a single car family, they will not sell. Also, a 4 hour recharge time is a real drawback.

 

THIS is the very purpose of the new CAFE regs that were agreed upon last week.



By 2016 this will likely be our national fleet of vehicles.

• a goodly number of very efficient vehicles such as the Prius, Volt, Insight II and others unannounced at this time
• a HUGE segment of ICE-only subcompacts with EPA Combined ratings of 32-35 mpg ( Fit, Yaris, Versa, xD )
• an even HUGER segment of ICE-only and mild hybrid compacts with EPA Combined ratings of 32-35 mpg ( Corolla, Civic, Cruze, Focus + ? )
• a HUGE segment of I4 and V6 midsized full hybrids/clean diesels getting EPA combined ratings of 32-35 mpg ( Fusion, Camry, Malibu, Altima, Sonata, Jetta TDI and Avalon )
• a very small number of high-powered sports cars like the Mustang, Camaro, Corvette and Z.
• an even smaller number of large V8 cars
• a large number of compact ICE-only crossovers like the RAV, CR-V, Venza and Escape
• a large number of hybrid crosovers both compact and midsized
• a good number of hybrid minivans
• almost ZERO large SUVs except a few hybrids
• amost ZERO midsized SUVs
• diesel compact trucks
• hybrid pickups
• ??? non-hybrid pickups???

All subject to new and better innovations over the next 6 yrs.

 

Where did you get that ($38k) figure?
I am interested in buying a plug-in, but was told only available for certain fleet sales until LI battery technology is proven.

I would do well with a plug-in, as my electricity is not metered and is included in my rent.

 

Millions of people could use an electric only car. Yes some people live in apartments. A lot of people live in houses too. A lot of people live in the suburbs, and have two vehicles, one of the vehicles is used to go to work, and back, and absolutely nothing else. Only thing stopping people from buying a plug in hybrid, is nobody makes them. Yes, the cost is a problem, but once they actually start making them, the price will come down drastically.

How can Toyota think there will not be "wide spread acceptance of plug in hybrids"? I'll still buy a Prius, nothing better available right now, but reading that really makes me not want to buy one. I'd like to send a message to Toyota, that people will not "accept" a car that isn't a plug in.

 

I still don't understand how CAFE can be effective unless gas prices increase dramatically. As long as gas remains as inexpensive as it is today (USA), no matter what automakers build - what makes consumers buy more efficient cars? Over the past 10 years when most people bought SUVs, muscle cars, etc. - they ignored more fuel efficient cars, walked right past them on the same lots in most cases. CAFE leaves automakers subject the vagaries of gas prices, which can flucuate wildly in far less time than the time it takes them to retool for the cars consumers want at the moment.

I'm a free market guy, but I am afraid the only effective approach for all concerned is gas taxes. The US is going to have to increase tax revenues in the years ahead, why not do it at least partly through gas taxes instead of just income taxes? The "schedule" can be debated, but what if automakers and consumers knew in advance that gas prices would be $4.00/gal in 2010, $4.50/gal in 2011, $5.00/gal in 2012, $5.50/gal in 2013 and then increase as a slower rate thereafter? Automakers could expect demand for smaller, more fuel efficient cars (unlike what they've seen in the past) and consumers could see if coming and would (mostly) make their buying decisions accordingly.

CAFE leaves automakers and consumers to the vagaries of gas prices, which are far more volatile nowadays than they once were. I've read about CAFE, and I'd love to know that I'm wrong.

FWIW...

 

I don't know if higher (gas) taxes will be as effective as you might think. Granted a reasonable percentage of buyers will seek out fuel efficient cars - but plenty - if not most - will still want to buy large SUV, minivans, and V8 sports cars. CAFE standards will make it much more difficult to go big.

 

I also wonder where the price is derived from. My personal experience is new 2008 base prius at MSRP ~22000 (demand was very high last summer @$4.00 gallon) my hymotion kit was 10400 installed cost just over 32000. Still much higher than any standard prius. I wanted the technology and nothing beats 900+ miles on 9 gallon of gas and the ~200 kW of electricity every 7 weeks.

 

It looks like there are two major opinions expressed so far. One is that the PHEVs will not succeed until gas prices get high or some other economic factor appears. The second is that the market is here and the car makers have decided it is too small to bother with.

How well is the Prius doing? How well is Tesla doing? How well is Hymotion doing?

As far as the economic factors go, they will be here sooner or later, no matter what politic or taxes are discussed.

Am I the only one that thinks car manufacturers dithering on making PHEVs is the only real "problem"?

 

Yep. You'd probably pay $18,000 for enough LiFePO4 batteries to have a 30-mile range. li-ion are cheaper, but require more expensive/extensive/complicated control mechanisms. The Tesla uses a liquid cooling system for its li-ion pack, which is NOT quiet, and which is not needed for LiFePO4. A volume buyer would probably pay less. Maybe $15,000. A lot of people will balk at that extra cost up front until gas gets expensive enough that there's a bigger savings in operating cost.

My electric Porsche gets around 346 wh/mi (watt-hours per mile) at 55 mph, and around 435 wh/mi driving close to 70 mph. But these figures are measured at the battery while driving, not at the wall (where I presently have no way to measure). But they told me I'd be drawing 36 amps at 220 volts, which is 7.9 kW and that (according to my car's meter) puts 25 amps into my 144-volt battery pack. I don't know if my chargers are unusually inefficient, but if Toyota could get 75% efficiency on its chargers, this suggests around two miles per kWh from the wall. But my Xebra gets 3 miles per kWh from the wall. It's lighter, but probably less efficient.

So I think three miles per kWh is a good guesstimate for a plug-in Toyota.

You can do the math from there using your electric rates. I pay 6 cents per kWh here in Spokane, so the Xebra costs two cents per mile, and my Porsche costs four cents per mile if my chargers are really drawing 36 amps. It's possible they are not. One day I'll have the electrician measure it at the entry box, just so I know.

 

I'll repeat a concern I have about PHEVs that I've mentioned before:

The advantage of a PHEV is that you can commute on grid electric power and still take road trips, or if your commute is greater than your EV range, you can get part of your energy from the grid.

But the disadvantage is that you have all the maintenance of a gas car (which an EV does not) plus you are carrying the weight of the batteries on your road trips. The Volt will burn a lot more gas on a road trip than a 2004 Prius does, making it advantageous to leave the Volt at home when you need to drive much farther than its EV range.

A PHEV makes sense IF AND ONLY IF you have only one car AND you mostly drive it to commute within or very slightly over its EV range, with only very rare road trips.

If you are going to have two cars anyway (as most families do) then it makes more sense to have a pure EV and an efficient (i.e. Prius) gas car for longer trips.

When pure EVs become more widely available, the market for PHEVs will be even more limited than would be the case today.

A year ago I thought a Volt or PHEV Prius would be perfect for me: electric in town, gas on long trips. Now it would be useless for me. The electric Porsche is all I need in town, and the Prius is much better than a PHEV for road trips.

 

Right . . . and it'd cost what . . . the better part of $100 to add a couple plugs to each street light (just for starters) and a few more here and there on apartment dweller's car pool stalls etc. sheez ... it makes one wonder how we ever made it to the moon back in the 1960's when we're so easily overwhelmed now days by adding a few plugs around town.

 

The phev is already obsolete. EVs are going too kill the gas car in short order. I give the ICE ten years...

 

Thanks daniel for your calculations.

Based upon your calculations and the cost of energy here in the San Francisco Bay Area, it looks like it is more costly to operate a Prius size vehicle on electricity than gasoline considering the energy cost figures in my earlier posting.

[ a gasoline powered Prius gets 50 MPG and gas costs $ 2.50 / gallon (current price here in Northern California), then the fuel (energy) cost is 5 cents per mile.

Here in Northern California, PG&E charges residential customers using a graduated pricing formula. Baseline costs is only 11.531 cents per KWH (Kilo-Watt Hour) for the first 378 KWH per month. However most consumers use more than our baseline allocation. Now if we had a plug-in Prius, we would consume electricity (charge the batteries) at a premium rate and would pay PG&E 25.974 cents per KWH. ]

At 3 miles per 1 KWH, the cost of operating a Prius size vehicle would be approximately 8.6 cents per mile for electricty.

[Note that I understand that these calculations are based upon energy costs alone and do not cover the inefficiency going from metered AC to battery storage and the total cost of vehicle ownership.]

Thanks,

Keith

 

No question there will be some people who want gas guzzlers no matter what. But how does the CAFE standard change buyers irrrespective of gas prices? Maybe I should start another thread...

 

Major manufacturer PHEV choices = Zero
Major manufacturer EV choices = Zero

I certainly agree with your assessement. I'll just expand the original comment. The core problem is with the auto manufacturers being too inert to bring an EV or PHEV to market.

Because the CAFE standards recognize that gas prices will not stay low. What do you think the price will be in 2016? When the prices go above $4, then SUV sales plummet. We have already seen that proven completely on just one spike of gas prices.

 

We are basically agreed on this. Except that I have no idea when the gas car will die. It depends on how long gas remains plentiful, and how long the government is willing to provide the subsidies that keep its price down.

I gave figures and estimates with which to determine how much electricity it takes to operate a mid-size car.

It is completely in error to imagine that you can merely compare electricity cost to gasoline cost. For an EV there is virtually no operating cost other than the electricity. There is no oil to change, no air filter, no muffler. My converted Porsche has a transmission, and does not have regenerative braking, but an EV designed from the ground up needs no tranny, so there's a major repair item eliminated, and with re-gen brakes like the Prius has, there's hardly ever any need for new brake pads. A gasoline engine has a thousand moving parts, every one of which wears away and is subject to breaking, leading to repair costs and replacement costs. Injectors and lifters and cam shafts and timing belts and fuel pumps and 995 other things I could not name if my life depended on it. An electric motor has one moving part, and if it's brushless, nothing to wear but the bearings.

It is not valid to compare only energy prices. You need to compare total cost of ownership.

And gas prices will go back up faster than electricity, because petroleum is an import, while electricity is domestic. And the only reason you pay such outrageous prices for electricity in CA is that Enron screwed CA and sucked billions out of the state and into the pockets of its top executives. Rational locations have time-of-day metering and discounts for off-peak use, allowing EVs to be charged at a lower rate. And if you want to, you can make your own electricity, as Darell and others do. Try making your own gas! Put PV panels on your roof and re-calculate your relative costs for electricity and gas.

There's a niche for grease cars, but it's being filled, and when all the french fry oil is being diverted to cars, market forces will put a price on it, and it will no longer be free. If too many people build grease cars, used french fry oil will become as costly as diesel.

If the major auto makers don't start making EVs, they'll be left behind. In a decade, GM, Ford, and Chrysler may be gone, and the new "big three" may be Tesla, Aptera, and Zenn.