Toyota Reveals Concerns on Prius Conversions

Other than the risk of not meeting EPA, the rest are just BS for why PHEV conversion should not happen.

Shocks/Springs can be changed.
Crash worthiness, who cares?
Fire? :lol:
Electrical Shock? :lol: EE are the ones hacking, they know as much if not more about electricity.
Flat Tire? :lol:

Merlin.... flame away.... I am on your side with this Toyota memo :lol:

 

What else would you expect Toyota to say?

Also, let's look at who said it.

Charles E. Ing, Director, Government Affairs Toyota Motor North America

Director of Government Affairs is typically slang for lobbyist. Again, this is all spin and no substance.

 

I'm not surprised that they'd take this stance...but I do wonder about the Prius' structure; that it may not have that much extra beef built into it in the first place, and that adding a 'dense' few hundred pounds worth of batteries back there might possibly compromise some aspects of crashworthiness.

I have nothing whatsoever substantive to base that on, however.

 

All corporations produce high levels of mumbo jumbo. Toyota is a corporation and was therefore expected to produce some mumbo jumbo. I am 100% certain that nobody from Toyota hybrid R&D had any input in that memo. It means nothing.

 

It goes back to PRODUCT LIABILITY ISSUES WHO'S GOING TO PAY AND WHEN

 

Toyota's position seems rather logical. However, my gut feeling tells me that the true reason for their statement is because of legal liability. If there were an accident with human injury with a converted hybrid, then Toyota would be sued along with the supplier of the PHEV conversion kit. When you file a law suit, you always include any party that has very deep pockets (Toyota in this case)...

Keith

 

That is a high priority CYA! When you add batteries to the existing pack, you increase the amount of amperage available. DC kills faster than AC can. You can get hit with 220V of AC and not get hurt too bad, but 220V of DC, that crap can kill you, especially if there is a lot of amperage behind it. That may be their biggest concern since the addition of batteries would be in the passenger compartment, not buried underneath it. Some might say, but it is in the back, but this car does not have a trunk, so technically it is part of the passenger compartment. In the event of a crash, these batteries are exposed, and since Toyota doesn't have any control of how the mod was done, the modifier may have bypassed the safety cutoff so these buggers could be hot after the crash, becoming a hazard to rescue workers and trapped passengers. The statement regarding plugging it in basically says, if you plug in a Prius that wasn't designed by us to be plugged in and your house burns down, don't blame us.

yes that is exactly what can cause high Nox, cold cats do not do what they are designed to do and you have higher emissions when they are not functioning at 100%. If the engine controls see a warm engine, they can lean burn, but if the cat is cold at the same time, it does not produce enough heat to catalyze the NoX to the proper levels. Lean burning produces more Nox, which the cats convert into other gases.

 

It seems very clear to me that the entire purpose of this document is to create a liability question such that if Toyota are faced with a suit, they have this to fall back on as the foundations of argument on which to defend themselves. Rightly in my view since, for example, it remains very unclear what safety implications there are in adding notable rigid weight to the rear crumple zone where it was such was not designed to be.

It's Toyota saying 'we know this is being done, and you can do it as much as you want, but let it be known that the car wasn't designed for it' - that's the point, that the car wasn't designed for it, thus whoever undertakes this work can only do so in accepting liability for the consequence. They dress it up with all the other stuff to look like it's a reasonably credible anti-modification analysis, but they don't really care much about the details, just their backsides.

 

Even things like unattached speakers sitting on the package shelf behind the rear window can, under sudden deceleration, have gain quite a lot of energy when flung forward in an accident; I can only guess how many thousands of pounds those 'few hundred pounds' of batteries would weigh if they broke free of their attachment points when the rest of the car came to a sudden stop.

And their potentially being hot after an accident is also, I'd guess, a big issue (as mentioned above).

 

If my Prius ever needs a new battery, I expect by then that Toyota will be offering a lithium-ion replacement battery, with suitable software upgrade.

That's all I really care about. I don't see me coming up with big bucks to convert to plug-in just for the sake of converting.

harry

 

What is the surprise here?
If you were Toyota, you would be saying the samething.
It is the way it is. Liability disclaiming before it actually happens.
And, it probably would at somepoint in the future.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ceric @ Jun 29 2007, 03:26 PM) [snapback]470207[/snapback]</div>

It may well already have happened, or there be an impending threat of it. All it would take is for one modified hybrid to have been involved in an injury-related wreck to get the lawyers sharpening their pens.

 

Toyota should provide PHEVs in all of its models, address all the listed Toyota concerns and move positivey forward. Toyota, quit complaining and get your act together.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(etyler88 @ Jun 29 2007, 01:59 PM) [snapback]470134[/snapback]</div>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pinto Girl @ Jun 29 2007, 01:49 PM) [snapback]470128[/snapback]</div>

I am 100% positive that the memo conforms to what Toyota R&D has been concerned about. Google Bill Reinert to find out what R&D has to say. You will also find out a great deal about the hydrogen program.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ceric @ Jun 29 2007, 12:26 PM) [snapback]470207[/snapback]</div>

I am in agreement that these are valid safety as well as liability concerns which merit mention. Then proceed at your own risk. I would not be comfortable with any Li-Ion battery mod at this point in time. It took Toyota a few years of constant monitoring with laptops just to keep the NiMh batts from catching fire when the Prius was first developed, but what a fine, stable product it is now.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(skruse @ Jun 29 2007, 02:55 PM) [snapback]470290[/snapback]</div>

That won't happen until there is marketplace competitive pressure. Lets hope that GM gets it right with the Volt. Then there is a much greater chance that Toyota will get serious about PHEVs. Until then, they are going to focus on selling Tundras - that is where the margin is.

 

This sounds like Toyota marketing spooling up hysteria so they can
later say "don't buy unsafe aftermarket conversions from these
wankers, they don't know what they're doing -- come buy the new 2010
plug-in super-safe FMVSS-compliant hybrid from US!" Of course they
can do some predictive setup many years out, they've proven time and
again they take a long view but it is always bent toward what's good
for the company, sometimes at the expense of what's good for the
owner. Heck, we see that in the present owners manual: if any tiny
little thing happens, go STRAIGHT to your Toyota dealer. That's one
of the things that started me down the research road -- thinking "do
I own this car, or do they?"
.
Now, how many PHEV-converted priuses have been in accidents?? They
very likely are driven by smarter, more aware people.
.
_H*

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hobbit @ Jun 29 2007, 09:34 PM) [snapback]470434[/snapback]</div>

I think that is stretching it quite a bit. They do have valid concerns and in todays sue happy world, they need to protect their assets every which way it can. Just because the driver is "smart" and "aware" does not mean that crashes cant happen, all it would take is someone falling asleep and rear ending one of these modified cars with disastrous results to start the ball rolling. You need to keep in mind, cars are designed to crumple into a ball when hit to absorb impacts and keep it away from the occupants, and when you do anything that changes the way the structure crumples, like adding a battery tray in the rear, you just changed the entire structure of the car, defeating the crash worthiness of the design. These are all legitimate concerns by Toyota.