NPR: Japan Is Betting Big On The Future Of Hydrogen Cars

When is the Y coming? Need it as no one wants sedans anymore. Need to keep up with Jones.

 

i'm waiting for the model 5

 

The 5? You have a long wait. They need to use all 24 letters of the alphabet first!

 

The "Y" designation & all the alphabet have been reassigned.



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thanks. looks awfully small to be stuffing 7 seats into.

 

Keep in that batteries and motors take up less space than engine, exhaust and fuel tank.

More importantly, the wheelbase will likely be the same as the Model 3's, which is two inches longer than the Camry's and an inch longer than the new Highlander.

 

yeah, it must be larger than it looks

 

While the Model 3 has the longer wheelbase, the Camry and Highlander are longer overall.
I'm thinking the Model Y will have better legroom for the back rows than the Highlander, but will have compact SUV cargo space with the third row up, though there is the front trunk. Third row head room might be an issue, but if you regularly need to sit 7, a minivan would be best.

 

I had an awful lot of questions for those statements when I read that article. Like how does the Prius Prime fit into that? Did they include that battery capacity (8.8 kWH) with the hybrids or take it away from the EVs? And does that 1.5 million hybrids include NiMH battery capacity or is it just Lithium battery based hybrids? That’s a large number of hybrid vehicles produced so I’d assume it includes NiMH battery base hybrids which leads me to another question. Are they thinking about NiMH based EVs? That doesn’t even seem reality based although they have pursued the NiMH battery technology pretty much alone in the industry and have made pretty good strides.


Unsupervised!
iPhone ?

 

a ½ truth is true, but it's not necessarily the whole story. It makes sense - that if it takes 6X-10X as much battery capacity to make a pure EV as it does a plug-in hybrid - & a manufacturer doesn't have a big enough lithium supplier lined up, that you'd still want to make sales with whatever you got. In this case - it might just be that the "whatever-you-got" is really great, & it sells, & it's profitable. That especially works, especially if you don't have a bigger battery manufacturer lined up for another product anyways. If something like that were true, there's no need for Toyota to run that ½ if the scenario up the flagpole.
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Never been to Japan, so I don't know their vehicle situation, but where do they park their cars? Even if you live in an apartment building, as long as you have access to, or can install, an outlet and/or EVSE, then an EV is feasible.

I would say the better anti-EV argument in Japan is that they are having trouble with keeping up with electricity demand after the post-Fukushima shut down of all their nuclear power plants.

 

Considering how big the automotive Market is, it seems like NPR ought to worry most about what China is doing. China is mostly betting big on all electric. That's why Toyota is being forced back into the ev market. No pluggy .... No sellie

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