Toyota's Plug-in Distain - Part TWO

Don't count them out just yet.

They delayed the release of the Gen 4 by a year, and I'd take that as a good sign of things to come. Their instincts have been very good so far, and most other competitors are playing catch-up with what Toyota has already pioneered.

 

agreed. i don't expect anything to sell better than current hybrids without more outside influence.

 

They have a design philosophy and it definitely includes plug-ins. Perhaps more on PHEV but the interest is still there. As long as they can recharge in 3 hours on a standard outlet is one of their basic stated design goals. However, I wish they would put in larger capacity chargers to take advantage of chargers like my Clipper Creek that can supply 7.7kWh. I wouldn't mind being able to charge in 40 or so minutes. And they are investing a lot of time and money into batteries. Mostly they've kind of veered from solid state and lithium air batteries to Mg-S batteries (Magnesium-ion batteries could prove that two electrons are better than one | ExtremeTech), but they've been working on them for a few years now. There are reasons they've been telling you they don't like lithium batteries. They know there is something better.