Featured Prius to be discontinued in Germany......

The Kandi COCO was here years ago and could be free after rebates.

this car isn’t compelling versus a Nissan Leaf

 

Apologies, I think I missed the shift there- what's this Kandi car got to do with Toyota hybrids in Germany?

 

Thanks! that was pretty helpful.

My attempt to catch up:

Toyota dragged the hybrid from the drawing board to the mainstream in ~20 years. I think that might be a useful baseline measurement. I think maybe the right way to interpret it is that such a thing can be done that quickly specifically because they didn't immediately eliminate the outgoing (gas burner) technology. Hybridization by its very nature meant that they were able to apply some of their strengths in engine building, and conferred some improved market compatibility via new technology packaged with familiar stuff and conventional fueling. That made it pretty easy to step into.

It is obvious to me that BEVs will go mainstream at some point in the future, but it is taking much longer than it did for hybrids, and there still a fair way to go. My gut says that answer to "when?" is more likely to come from an economist than a car industry guru.

It is less obvious to me whether PHEVs will ever go that big; personally I expect that wave will get cannibalized by the BEVs behind them.

I still don't quite get the leap to the cheap Chinese EV. It's cute. But if it really were that good, wouldn't it already be rebadged as the Pontiac Spunk or Mercury TRGGR etc?

 

No you don't have to compete but if just about all comparable cars in the same pricerange have higher specs it puts you at a disadvantage without a lot of advantages speaking for it.

I have a Corolla 1.8 HSD and although I enjoy driving it a lot it does leave a lot of room for improvement. Compared to an atmospheric 1.6L engine or a 1L turbo engine it is doing okay but given the pricerange most people will go for the bigger engines which have higher torque outputs. The torque gives for a smoother drive and you would expect that they should be able to deliver higher torque outputs with the electric motors in the PSD.

Compared to diesel engines with a similar driving style the HSD doesn't get the same fuel economy either. I adjusted my driving style considerably to get to 4.9L/100km average over the past year and 40.000km and during the sumer months it dropped to 4.5L/100km. The difference between the hybrid drivetrain and the conventional drivetrains are getting smaller and smaller.

 

I'm less worried about what others want to drive than the cars I want to drive:

• 1991 - bought new, manual transmission Camry and drove it until 'totaled' in rain slick accident in September 2005.
• October 2005 - bought a used, 2003 Prius and drove it home. There after, a new 2010 Prius and later a new 2017 Prius Prime.
• May 2016 - bought a used, 2014 BMW i3-REx.
• March 2019 - bought a new Std Rng Plus Model 3 and traded in our last Prius, the 2017 Prius Prime.

My path to EV enlightenment:

1. Toyota hybrid Prius - doubled the miles per gallon.
2. BMW i3-REx - EV mode cut the cost per mile in half and instant, silent power was great. A '10-stop' EV in Huntsville.
   1. Prius Prime - a '3-stop' EV with modest acceleration and driver assistance.
3. Std Rng Plus Model 3 - 27,000 miles in 15 months with impressive acceleration and driver assistance. The best we've ever had.

If others choose to drive an ordinary, 25 MPH, noisy, impracticability ride, they pay at their fine at the pump and service department. As long as I've got mine, they can 'Go With God.'

Bob Wilson

 

Stopped reading there, for exactly the same reason.

Weren't we just having a discussion about hybrids and electrics in a more detached and general sense? That had a lot more conversational appeal, anyway.

 

a bev south of 22k before or after tax incentives?

 

Eh, I now regret putting a specific number out there.

I reckon the effort-to-electrify (for lack of a better term) is going to need a few years to recover from our impending economic oopsie. By then, inflationary pressures may be enough to make today's pricing predictions fairly worthless.

 

fair enough. imo, prices have to come down (not the mfgs fault) and charging stations have to increase.

it's gonna take awhile, and in the meantime, with polar ice disappearing, it may be too little too late

 

Oh I'm quite convinced it's too late on that front, but I'm still willing to play along in the hopes that I'm wrong.

 

One Million Global Plug-In Sales Milestone Reached

Hybrids came so long ago that its hard to remember it took over 9 years to sell the first million world wide. Plug-ins took less than 5 years to reach the same milestone. At 7 years from when the first leafs and volts were sold, there were 2 million plug-ins sold world wide. Plug-in have progressed partially because incentives have been in more countries much faster than hybrid, and partially they built off the back bone of some hybrid tech.

I agree that it is tough to know when BEVs will get big market share (over 10%). So far Japan is the only country where hybrids have done that. It will take more infrastructure. I expect it will be china first, then the US ;-)

IMHO the Rav4 prime if toyota would sell it is a quite convincing phev. I could see phev trucks, sports cars, and crossovers really taking off, but we are probably 10 years from that being a transition. Regulation needs to change and the smaller packs that require higher power density need to come down in cost, and oil prices need to go up to justify a phev versus a bev or 48v mild hybrid. I can see the full hybrid like the prius going away by then as battery prices continue to drop in favor of a phev.

 

This makes sense. Europe has already shifted from hybrid to Fully electric vehicles. Their green infrastructure is a decade ahead of where the US is. So many EVs like the Nissan eNV200 cargo van have been around in Europe for years And never been released in America. So i think the Prius is safe here for awhile. But as America moves towards a greener future that will change. I heard a rumor that toyota was working on a Prius with a solar panel on the roof to charge the battery in a pinch... but Then I heard they scraped that plan. I would imagine as EVs become more popular in America, the Prius hybrid will eventually be discontinued here as well...but like I said, our green infrastructure is pathetic right now so i don’t see that happening for a few more years.

 

That's never been a great comparison, given how much shorter trips are within Europe. They just don't have the same kind of wide open spaces we do. That means lower demands on both vehicles and infrastructure, resulting in significantly lower costs.

Comparing metro NY to a lot of Europe? Yeah that's pretty fair, but it doesn't hold well for the rest of the USA.

 

4 Gen Prius is off the list, but the PHV Prius (axa Prime) is still in the portfolio in
http://www.toyota.de

Diesel engines have a terrific BSFC range and values, but still you have to make the difference in the Energy density of the fuel. 1 liter of diesel fuel equals 1,11 liters of gasoline.

Urban myth. Absolute difference can be getting smaller, but if you do the math and you will see % is roughly the same.
Can you point a conventional drivetrain car that consumes near to the Prius 4 Gen? Comparable size?

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But the general lack of private parking at homes means they have been more proactive when it comes to street side, overnight charging for those homes and renters. With most US miles being within a single charge of home, even outside cities, that would open up BEV ownership to a lot more people here.

 

I see a lot more "v"s here than Gen 4s. Ours is the 7 seater version.

 

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Agree - PRIUS has improved in efficiency between Generations - about the same amount as ICE & Diesel engines - and CO2/NO/Particulate too.

PRIUS started a little more than to ½ the fuel use +/-; and is still the same.

Hypothetically - the closer to ZERO they all get, the smaller the fiscal difference in cost of running though. But that'll be after my lifetime.