Gen 4 Prius Delayed Until Late 2015 | Plug-in Late 2016

Uchiyamada looks good for his age in that bit, but the end is rather telling.

First they look under the car and its peeing a little water out. Abe praises this, as being very "environmental", and says hydrogen has been a long time coming but now thinks its ready for the government (of japan) to get behind. Uchiyamada comes back and says hydrogen as an energy carrier is new. I guess its a matter of perspective. To someone my age, or even Abe's age (59) hydrogen seems way behind schedule. GM had its hydrogen electrovan before I was born and abe was 11, and toyota has been working on it for over 2 decades, and had fcv on the road that they claimed were almost ready in 2002. For those of us with shorter attention spans, the progress is quite slow.

Perhaps the delay of the prius phv until the end of 2016 is to give the toyota mirai fcv some breathing room. That next gen prius phv + solar panels will definitely be less expensive than the newer shiny fcv. Carbon dioxide is not a local pollutant, and it is doubtful the way these cars are produced that the fcv will have a lower carbon footprint, it is likely substantially higher. That means the substantial lower pollution must be NOx, NMOG, and particulates, and I'm betting the gen IV prius phv will be very low on these measures as well.

 

hee hee,

Come on, at least in north america, its doubtful that there will be more than 1000 fcv outside of California. Even in California the expectations are falling like a hail storm as reality sets in. Now the 100 fueling stations that the $220 million is supposed to pay for in the next decade are only supposed to provide the infrastructure for about 20,000 vehicles, that is 20 thousand by 2024 instead of the 50 thousand by 2017. 20,000 producing water in california is not going to be even measurable, compared to the over 30 million vehicles already spewing water, and other things in the state.

Here was the plan in 2009 http://www.cafcp.org/sites/files/Action%20Plan%20FINAL.pdf
Note california added dozens instead of the projected thousands in the time between the the report was written and today.