Toyota and Lexus Still Hating on Plug-Ins and EVs

right .... nothing I (or 99% of folks) want more - after driving 300+ miles (once a year or less frequently) than to jump back in - in just 12 minutes - & do another 300. Maybe a 20 minute stop .... 30's even better. Not gona happen either way, on any kind of regular basis.
Funny thing is-the thread claiming "Toyota's planning a Comeback" ..... not with bass ackward statements like that from their leadership.
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So if I'm in EV with range left and get on the freeway to 65 MPH, the ICE will do what or not?

Geez people, just go buy a freakin Leaf already.
Toyota takes a stand for FCEV and they don't have a Leaf competitor. So what? You guys hate Nissan so much you couldn't bring yourself to buy one?
According to most on here Toyota (and the rest) should just dump the FCEV thing, go belly up.

 

It would grieve you to learn that high-speed charging is not ecological.

Electric vehicle (EV) supporters have touted developing high-speed charging technology as the way forward for cars like Nissan Motor Co's Leaf. But Yoshikazu Tanaka, chief engineer of Toyota's hydrogen fuel-cell car Mirai, said that would guzzle so much energy at once as to defeat the purpose of the EV as an ecologically sound form of transportation.

 

What is it you don't understand about PIP? It is a hybrid that can occasionally operate in EV mode. The software decides when the ICE must turn on. Like in February here in New England when the temperature is close to 0F. The traction battery loses efficiency and can't put out as much current as it does at 70F. So when you try to go up a small incline at 0F the ICE has to turn on. PIP is NOT an EV. Note the emphasis.

 

I'm pretty sure no one commented because it is non-sense.
(not) Ecological from what POV?...

 

how does this relate to my reply to the mis statement in post #10?

 

I suppose that is a shot at my post in correcting some of the misinformation Lexus and Toyota are putting out on Plug-ins. Absolutely plug-ins are not replacing trucks in rural areas. You head from LA to the central valley you will see few plug-ins or even hybrids. You need to get further north to the bay area or east to texas and colorado. World wide plug-in sales will probably still be under 500,000 this year, and it will probably take another 6 years for plug-ins to outsell hybrids. And yes completely agree with that lexus dude that plug-in hybrids are "not as a way to save the environment.” But why is toyota implying that fuel cells are a way to save the environment. Huge hubris there.

Why defend plug-in bashing as good business? The following link talks about some of the bashing, although lexus's advertising agency actually did use an i3-rex in filming that ad, and removed evidence of the gas tank in post production.

Lexus is at it again with EV attack ads, still doesn’t get it - Torque News

Here when they say hybrid may soon be obsolete, to me this is about the higher power luxury items like gsh, lsh, rxh - not the near luxury esh and ct200h. Those higher powered hybrids may easily be replaced with better plug-ins in the future (at least according to bmw, audi, and tesla).

+1

Yep that guy just was blowing smoke. I looked at numbers in a this post above to show that it was non-sense.

 

More than 84 million vehicles expected to be sold this year. Toyota/Lexus know more than PC members. A more appropriate thread title: The public is still hating on Plug-ins and EVs.

Limits Of The Electric Car: The Tesla and Volt Vanishing Act Outside Of Los Angeles - Forbes

 

That last link talks about 'EVs like Leaf, Focus EV, etc ... with 80 miles range are not meant to go on "road trips" '

Road trip? So, going from Union City CA to Concord is a 'road trip' ? I think of a 'road trip' as a weekend trip to the coast or mountains.....

But let me get to the point: It is 40 miles one way to Concord. A Leaf is not going to work so well going to see family there. I'll burn half the range getting there and there is not a good place to plug in once there. Plus, we might run around town for dinner once there. Essentially, I could NOT use a Leaf to go to Concord, or Chrissy Field to see the Blue Angels in October.
I would need another car or rent something else. I don't know man, NOT GOOD.

With 120 real EV, highway miles, I would go for Concord or SF, but at 80, forget it.

Some local Chevy dealer or GM's been running radio ad about getting a Spark EV on lease for $99 that's it, just $99. ....

Then the 'fine print' (talking real fast at end of ad) says the monthly 3 year is $279 a month.

Whoooo ... the .... heck is going to shell out $279 a month for a freakin' Spark EV?? Isn't that like a loaded Accord monthly?

So, it seems the Spark EV price is pretty steep, or depreciation is B.A.D.

Love it or hate it is not a bad thing. One link in this thread Toyota is going for more like that in 4th gen: Polarizing, but not boring.

While I'm thinking about it: Is a manufacturers fleet average MPG (for CAFE compliance) based on sales volume OR just having it available to sell (i.e. Honda (had) Fit EV and has Accord plugin but they don't sell squat)?

 

Toyota/Lexus know more how to handle their business, and how to pay for their shareholders.
I possibly know more about other subjects, as any individual customer.

I'm definitely not part of that public, I disagree. 7 million hybrids were sold so far, and public still hates them (not me, once more).

 

You know I have no problem with Lexus not making plug-ins. None at all. If you read my post you would understand my objection is that they are putting out false or misleading information out to bash plug-ins, while at the same time putting out false and misleading positive imessages when it comes to fuel cell cars. I already covered that forbes, link and agree with it. Plug-ins are not currently selling in rural areas. Like I said in the previous reply neither plug-ins or even hybrids sell well in the central valley, so you need to get to the next plug-in area the bay area, about 350 miles north of where the Southern california plug-in area ends. Going east you have to go further, Denver to the north east, Austin/Dallas to the South East until you get to good areas. But when you are hyping fuel cells like lexus, that is a small objection. Texas and Colorado aren't even in the plans for decades if ever.

From the article I posted, plus the OP

1) Lexus shows a quick charger and claims plug-in owners have to wait 4 hours to charge their, and implies they can not charge at home. Lexus eventually apologies but then releases a picture from the ad with the same misleading 4 hour caption, but without the video we don't have the implication that they can't charge at home or work. Still why not show a L2 charger? That might let people think well, we can build L3's like the one pictured and only wait 30 minutes.

2) Lexus ad agency pretends that a i3-rex needs to wait to charge and has a hard time searching for chargers. They Remove evidence of a gas tank, taking out the fuel door in post production, that was in the car they filmed. Eventually they pulled the ad because of controversy.

3) Now Toyota's fuel cell head is claiming that Plug-ins aren't green because they may use fast chargers, ignoring that quick chargers A) can be green if built right, and B) most charging is not and will not be done at these quick chargers.

I know people defend fasle and misleading advertising because it makes money. What was it Harry Reid said about his false claim that "Mitt Romney didn't pay taxes"? Oh yeah, sure it was a lie, but people believed it so it worked. Now why are you happy about Lexus putting out this misleading crap again? Do you want to make sure plug-ins don't sell so that Lexus keeps more market share? I don't believe that is what you belive, so stop defending this awful practice. Lutz sold a lot more SUVs than toyota sold hybrids when he was bashing the prius in 2004. Was that right because in the short term the prius was just "marketing" which is Lexus's current claim against plug-ins. Or do you agree with post 2005 Lutz that GM should have invested more in hybrids? Is a low minium wage good for McDonnald's because employees can get food stamps anyway and the frachisees are the important guys and get to keep the money? I mean that is their business case.

That's what you got from the link? I guess I need to point out the single issues here, other than the false Lexus claims.

If you are going even 30 miles each way and don't have anouther car the leaf, spark, i3-bev are not for you. They are mainly sold to people with under 50 mile round trip commutes and they use other cars for longer trips. That wasn't in there, but from other torque news.

For trips like the vegas trip that Lexus made up, or the trip you describe a phev (i3-rex, volt, energi, etc) or a 200+ mile bev (only tesla model S today, bolt and similar from ford and nissan coming soon) are needed.

For cross country road trips even the tesla S and future 200 mile + bevs may be a pain as would be a i3-rex. Here a different car or traditional phev will do fine.

Absolutely and neither I nor that article would tell you different.

Spark is a compliance car placeholder for the future bolt (god what a bad name, hope they change it. I'm not sure whether gm really wants to sell any more. The difference in price is probably rolling the down payment plus tax title and license into the lease. Look at the mirai, its only $499/mo but $3,649 down + tax title and license, roll the down payment into the lease and its $600/mo + tax title and license (not sure how much this is in California today. I'm sure you are better off leasing a fiat 500e than a spark if the lease deal for that is still as good. Or maybe buy the leaf or i3, these are not compliance cars.

mirai styling, no polarizing is a bad thing, but face it they only will build 5700 in the first 3 years, so who really cares. Leaf styling, nissan admits this is a problem, and will try to do better the next generation.

We will have to wait and see if the gen IV prius styling is good or bad. Let's hope that 18 months from now when toyota is finally ready to release an updated prius phv that they stop all this plug-in bashing.

Its weighted by what they sell. Honda bought a large number of zev credits from tesla, in hopes that in the future they would have a fuel cell that would sell.

 

GM just dropped the price of the Spark EV. It is now $139 a month with no down payment. In California with fed plus state credits and rebates and a GM $1,000 added discount it is effectively priced at $15,000 cash. Total bargain.

I'm not sure how that compares to the Fiat 500e in price. The Fiat looks better but the Spark is slightly roomier and has about the same strong performance and efficiency.

2015 Chevrolet Spark EV Price Cut To $25,995; $139 Lease, No Money Down

 

One would think it'd be WAY less costly to Honda to just price their PHEV Accord half way reasonable ... than to have to cough up a ton of dough to Tesla. Plus - that'd be more cars they could make $$ on doing regular services. Strange.
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PHVs don't get ZEV credits.

 

"If you were to charge a car in 12 minutes for a range of 500 km (310 miles), for example, you're probably using up electricity required to power 1,000 houses,"

Should I explain the obvious?
EV batteries are time-inefficient when being recharged over 80%. A practical EV will need 125 kwh battery and 600 kw chargers everywhere in order to be able to refill ~300 miles (80% of battery capacity) in ~10 minutes.

Add to the equation the fact that oil refineries will not stop producing oil- industrial goods and electricity consumption wont be affected thanks to production diversification, just because some million gasoline cars will be converted to EV's.

Also, some people claim that refineries use 6 Kwh of electricity from power distribution system to produce a gallon of gasoline. If that's true then any gasoline car that gets over 18 mpg in real life, is better than EV, because it needs less grid power to go 300 miles.

Then, you can imagine having a large number of such EV's, being recharged across the country. This will put the electric power distribution system under tremendous stress and it will become very inefficient. Providing that you care about ecology, you will recharge your EV, only when this will be environmentally friendly and you will end with an un-practical car.

It comes like neither a mystery nor a surprise. EV's are a hoax just like the European scam brainwash about the "clean" diesel.

 

+1

hybrids and phev can only be counted for one piece of the zev mandate. This is an entirely California ARB regulation, and I agree with much of the criticism of forcing zevs. There are 3 that really are fighting the bev part of the zev mandate - Toyota, Honda, and Fiat/Chrysler. Toyota is by far the most vocal.

Honda is planning on satisfying the zev mandate with a combination of fuel cells, cng civics, and past sales of the fit ev, and past and future purchases of zev credits from tesla (future may come from nissan).

Fiat/Chrysler seem to be satisfying the mandate fine with the fiat 500e. The ceo claims that each one costs $14000, and they get 3 per vehicle. That means that they are spending almost $5000 per credit today. Buying from tesla or nissan might be cheaper, but .... losses per vehicle should be going down with battery prices, so most of this $5000/credit could be thought of as an R&D expense.

Toyota Satisfied zev through 2015 with the rav4 ev and a tiny number of fcv. They are planning to satisfy 2016-2017 with 2800 fcv. If they can't sell them prices of zev credits will go up as toyota starts buying them. This risk is why all the other automakers have bought most of their credits already, or are planning to make bevs.

Well yes you need to explain the obvious. Why are not most miles charged when the car is parked at night or at work? why don't these fast chargers have battery or supercap buffers? If a toyota factory can use the electricity of hundreds of thousands of houses, why cant the grid adopt to fast charging. Why is that bad for the environment.

Here is the claim? Hydrogen can come from renewables. The clarity gets 59mpg/kg h2. Lets pretend toyota is magic and can get 70 miles /kg h2 in mirai version 2 (version 1 0-60 in 9 seconds) Right now it takes about 80 kwh to produce 1 kg of hydrogen into a 10,000 psi tank, lets pretend it will be 50 kwh in this fuel cell future with some major production breakthroughs. The current i3 gets 124 mpge (0-60 7 seconds), the 240 mile range tesla S 70d 101 mpge (0-60 5.2 seconds). Say 50% of the hydrogen is made from renewable electricity, that tesla that you can buy today and get shipped in a few months can go 75 miles. How is more electricity for hydrogen than plug-ins better for the environment as that quote later claimed? Is it magic?

Well those refineries world wide will refine less oil, and consume less oil, electricity, and natural gas. Think 20 years out, not 1. Toyota's big fuel cell idea (well it was others first that rejected it),may take a hundred years according to them.

woah man, put down that inane idea. Burning oil is not a positive for the environment. Oil is much more scarce than electricity. Oil production causes much more harmful pollution in North America per unit energy than electricity. I'm sure you can find some countries where it is different, but not here.

Wow just wow. The US can power about 50% of our vehicles from electricity without putting much stress on the grid, and no one thinks it will go 50% soon. Where do you get this stuff.

 

from the ev haters forum, haven't you perused it for good ideas?

 

I guess that explains why surveys repeatedly show very high satisfaction ratings even though the Model S has only a mere 85 kWh battery and charges at only 135 kW.

So, obviously, it's not true.

I've documented elsewhere on this site that the actual number is around 0.25 kWh of grid power to refine each gallon of gasoline.

 

I think you missed his messed up point. He was assuming the only bad environmental impact of oil was the electricity used in refining it. But yes agree that 7 kwh in energy to refine a gallon of gas is mainly oil and natural gas not electricity. It takes about 41 kwh mainly of oil, but also some natural gas and electricity to make a gallon of gasoline.

The collaroy is also wrong that oil energy is mainly used to make electricity. In 2013 It took about 43 kwh of coal, 23 kwh of natural gas, and 1 kwh of oil to produce the a average gge (33.7 kwh) of power over the 26 regional grids in the US. That on the face of it looks bad 67 kwh of fossil fuel to get a gge of energy to the wall versus 41 kwh until you realize just how much more efficient plug-in cars are than those that run only on gasoline, and the US grid is getting less coal intense every year. The prius uses about as much fossil fuel as a 82 mpge bev. Most plug-ins run marginally on much less coal intense power than the average grid.

 

I could totally use a BEV for my 30 mi r/t commute. But to Nissan: I won't disrespect my body by trying to fit it into that crappy@$$ driver's seat.
Fiat, Smart, Spark forget it. i3 an eyesore. Focus ok but no space. Tesla, yes but way too $$$$
I'm no EV basher.
Getting along better with Prius these days.