Featured Is Toyota Prius hybrid simply passe now that plug-in cars are here?

i'll have a venti please.

 

When GM loses all their tax credits by releasing the Bolt, I think the only way the Volt can stay viable is if GM releases a model in the 20-30 Mile EV range, for significantly less cost, and maybe more trunk space. One size model does not fit all.

 

maybe the volt was the bridge to the bolt.

 

A bridge too soon...

 

GM has a HUGE lobby - & there's a better chance that they'll get an extension to the incentive vehicle count, then there is that they'll make a smaller traction pack, imo. Batteries keep getting cheaper and lighter. That, and the statistics showing most people have 20 miles or less one-way trips to work.
.

 

Why would it be significantly cheaper. Say batteries are $300/kwh, and 53 miles needs 18 kwh, 30 miles would likely need 10 kwh, or $2400 cost saving. But .... that 30 miler would likely need to be blended phev. In 5 years maybe cost of batteries is $200/kwh (tesla will be bellow this price next year). Now perhaps the volt is not the best package for a phev, but that is moving it to a different platform, and maybe you drop battery for interior space, but no reason to drop it for cost. With CAFE getting stricter and phev bonuses, gm's real cost is less than $2400.

There is of course the fusion phev, sonata phev, bmw 330e, etc that volt would have to compete with if they dropped battery size down, and I don't think it would do nearly as well with them getting tax credits and gm not.

Gm has been moving slow as molasses, but faster than everyone but nissan and tesla. The volt idea came from the ev-1 surveys. PHEV is not a bridge. The bolt follows on market research gleaned from tesla and the ev-1.

I really think a ground up near luxury phev CUV similar to the Lexus NX/Rav4 hybrid but with the volt drivetrain (perhaps 2L engine for higher weight) and electronic awd, is where gm should go next with voltec. Of course this idea has been around for at least 8 years.

 

GM's design for Volt carries the extra cost & complexity of liquid cooling.

Toyota worked hard to avoid that, engineering a system that could operate with just air cooling.

 

You are not comparing apples to apples. Was the RAV EV only air cooled?

 

$2k+ savings is still pretty significant for a layperson where cost is the majority factor, if they can get a ~30 EV Mile Volt to under $30K MSRP base, they'll see a lot more interest. What I'd like to see from a "1/2 Volt" is more focus on the gas engine side, they could tweak it the same way they optimized the Malibu Hybrid to get more MPG's over the Volt Hybrid mode, this would allow them to effectively compete with the Prius Prime head on.

 

I remember some patent limitations on the NiMH battery formats that had something to do with it too.

There was a time before LiON batteries when NiMH was the most mature battery chemistry around and the company holding the patents was working hard to limit size and capacity. I don't think it just an accident that NiMH batteries for the EV1 showed up about the same time GM killed the EV1.

There are at least five, LiON chemistries which effectively killed the patent monopoly on energy dense batteries. Having done a few studies of Gen-1 Prius NiMH batteries, there sure were a lot of "lessons learned" getting it right. Liquid cooling suppresses a lot of hard problems at the cost of round-trip efficiency and complexity. But the repair cost of a cooling system should be much cheaper than batteries.

GM didn't have to put up with the 'patent sitters' like Pace. Thankfully that nonsense is over.

Bob Wilson

 

The gen1 Volt started at just under $40k with 38 miles of grid range. The gen2 Volt increased the battery by nearly 2kWh for 53 miles of range with a starting price in the mid $33k.

When the credits expire for GM, they will be able to drop the price further as the cost for the pack, which might already be less than the federal tax credit amount, will have also dropped further by then.

Like a Cruze PHEV? GM doesn't need to take the Prime on when there is also the C-max Energi and Ioniq PHEV already doing so. With current sales trends, GM would do better to get the Voltec system into a crossover.

 

Different chemistries is a topic rarely ever addressed.

People just generically refer to "lithium" as if all cells produced are the same.

 

i hope so - but then again, the oilies have a huge vested interest in natural gas reformed into hydrogen. They may swoop in and buy up the next great battery chemistry to stop development, just like they did before.
Patent encumbrance of large automotive NiMH batteries - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Oilies did nothing with those patents but sit on them. Just sayin'
.

 

$2400 but you are not getting the same car. If you really want less expensive, you go cruze or fit or corrola. Over a decade that $2400 is $240 a year, or $20/month. It really is not that bad to drive all electric if that is what you want versus a blended phev.

I expect the volt to continue to sell in america more than the prius prime when its released. We will see. Definitely I welcome toyota back to the game with the prius prime, but there is lots of competition in blended right now.

True but now we have telsa/panasonic, lg for conditioned batteries, and nissan and panasonic for non-conditioned batteries which all are better than ovonics (less expensive, smaller, higher power). The only sad thing on the battery front is congress decided to give a123 away to the chinese, instead of forcing it to be sold to american jci. Then again soon jci goes through a tax inversion and becomes irish. grr.

 

Right now is a red herring.

Consider the entire product cycle. The generation being rolled out must be able to sustain profitable sales for 5 to 6 years.

 

Or that... a Trax or Equinox Phev with the Voltec system would face virtually no competition at the moment.

The Prime would be lower priced, available in all States, and carry the proven reliability of the Toyota Prius nameplate...doubtful the Volt would continue to sell more when the Prime is released, but we'll see.

 

But there isn't just the Volt that the Prius Prime will be competing against. In non-luxury plug in hybrids, there is the the two Ford Energis and Sonata PHEV available right now in addition to the Volt. Around the time the Prime gets here, there will be the Ioniq PHEV, followed by a Clarity PHEV.

The Toyota badge will count for much among some buyers. So will the high ICE efficiency. On the plug in side, the Prime doesn't look as good. The 22 miles of EV range is on the low side among its competition; the 2017 Energis might match it now. For those 22 miles, the Prime gives up as much cargo space as the C-max Energi, an ICE conversion and middle aged model, and the fifth seat like the first generation Volt.

Without repackaging, I expect the Prime to sell about as well as the Volt. I say this because it is a Toyota, and the PiP likely would have done as well as the Volt if it had been available nationwide.

The Volt won't lose sales once the Prime is out. The plug in market is young with plenty of room to grow. Then there is no longer a $10k price difference as there was with the PiP and gen1 Volt. A best case price for the base Prime is $28k. That's a $5000 difference with the gen2 Volt. At the more likely $30k price for the Prime, it is $3000. The federal tax credit is still in effect for GM, and the Volt is eligible for $2000 more than the Prime. Factor in state incentives, and the price difference is gone or the Volt cheaper in some.

 

Nissan Leaf has air cooling too. Of course many of their packs cooked, prematurely died - because if you are air cooling with 120° AC cooled air - it doesn't do as much good as refrigerated liquid. similarly - when temperatures are Sub-Zero, being plugged in and heating up that liquid is more efficient than trying to get your ICE warmed up, so you get heat to the traction pack. Still - Toyota did the best that air cooling can be. Nissan sang the praises of air cooling - telling us, "even our bodies do well with air cooling" - which immediately evoked the question, "really? Then what is the purpose of sweat?". Spend more - & generally you'll get more.

 

I don't understand this. Plug-ins are strategic poducts. Toyota certainly has said publicly they expect to lose billions on the mirai, and bleeding will last at least a decade. Why would they need to be profitable in the next 5 years with the prime.

Certainly the market has much higher competition than when toyota initialy announced their first gen prius plug-in.

Yep and this is why the prime sales forecasts were just casually reduced.
Toyota will delay launch of new plug-in Prius in Japan

We can read this as toyota no longer expects to sell 30,000/yr (2500/mo) in both Japan and North America. Still even if its only 20,000 in the US it should help continue growth in phevs. I welcome the car back, but we shouldn't pretend it is not entering a much more competitive environment than 2012 when the first generation was launched. No reason for the volt to chep its battery to compete, its segment seems better with mainly the i3 and volt occupying the EVER space.

 

I don't see any end to Federal or state incentives such as HOV in CA. Green HOV stickers expired in CA at 40000 units and you see what happens, they keep extending it.

PiP USA was 13,000/yr for 3 years and 4000 for last year so we get 3 x13000 + 4000 = 43000 total US