What if...Toyota was building the Volt?

I'd like to believe that I would still say "too little, too late" or "not a big enough step forward".

 

This is a great question, and I can't wait to read some of the answers.

Different than the GM Volt? Not really. Same limitations apply. Now if it were in the configuration of the Prius with the Volt guts, my opinion would be quite different! The current configuration of the Volt is a big negative in my book - no matter who makes it.

Without a doubt... as long as it was a PriusVolt.

Nope. I'd buy the second gen.

It isn't continuing to require fossil fuels, that's for certain. I think EREVs are a nice stepping stone to where we have to end up - pure EVs. And eventually, we may get all they way back to where we were in 1996. You never know.

You mean leap BACK 14 years to when they were the leader in BEV tech?

Indeed. Which 2010 promise will be the first to slip into 2011?

 

Hope Toyota Volt won't place the battery between rear passengers.
Would like to see full 5 seater cabin.

Ken@Japan

 

Which brings us back to my "configuration" concern.

One thing Toyota did better than anybody else with their "production" EV is that they left the passenger comparment alone. Nothing intruded in the passenger space. In fact the Rav4EV was chosen for their EV because of the relatively high ground clearance so all the batteries could be hung under the car. I find it interesting that the GM EV1 had the batteries in the passenger area down the middle, and they chose to continue this design "feature" with the volt. I'm not a big fan of that either!

 

GM's obsession with power & bragging rights at the sacrific of size & price pretty much doomed Two-Mode right from the start. It was more than what people really needed without a affordable configuration available.

Sound familiar? GM actually started out with Volt on the right foot, stating a price goal of "nicely under $30,000". But the specs made that totally impractical. So, it was abandoned.

Toyota has held true to pricing. Prius was priced starting at $20,000 back in 2000 (when the first outside of Japan were offered), which was considered affordable for the masses back then. Look at where the price is now. It is still realistic for joe consumer.

In short... Toyota is far more interested in sales to the masses. Their "volt" configuration would be much different due to their priorities differing so much from GM.
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Exactly! A Toyota Volt would not be costing $40k. I would guess a base model T-Volt would come in around $28-32k with the tax credit dropping it near $25k.

 

I was inspired by this question. It's a good one. I was forming all of my answers as a scrolled down the replies, but darelldd has said it all. No need for me to repost it in a less eloquent fashion.

Tom

 

Yes. Unfortunately (as an American) I have a lot more faith in Toyota than any of the D3, I'd rank them Ford, GM, Chrysler -but...

At $40K, even with the tax credit the car doesn't make sense to me and I'd buy the Prius. I envision owning a full range car (Prius) and a pure EV for commuting/around town. I would expect the pure EV to cost less than $40K+. The Volt seems like a misfit for me, something celebs and other eco-chics will buy for image mostly, YMMV. As always, GM appears to be off on a tangent, but maybe they'll surprise us all.

That's for sure.

 

Based on my Gen II Prius, if Toyota made the Volt:

It would be designed to get exceptional emissions, even at the expense of mileage, if needed.

The computers (and there would be a lot of them) would protect battery life at all costs.

The car would have as many electonic gadgets as owners would pay for.

The bottom of the Volt would be aerodynamic, like the rest of it.

The Volt would be introduced in a small test market, then rapidly enhanced.

But think of all we would miss, or if GM made the Prius:

There would be 4 versions, with the only difference being where the fake vents on the hood are, and the shape of the taillights.

There would be an SS version Prius, with an engine introduced in 1955, and a single laptop battery, so it is a Hybrid.

Ten years later they would be selling the exact same Prius, with new paint stripes, and more chrome.

The Hummer Prius would be all chrome and jacked up 2 feet in the air by using SUV tires.

The Prius would still be rated at 50 MPG, but no dealer would have THAT version, all the ones anyone can buy would have the 3.8L V6 with soft Corinthian leather.

The 'NAV system' would be calling Onstar and seeing if they had a map at their desk.

 

GM want to revolutionize the car with a fully electric car. Their problem is the electric car problem of the last 100 years: the battery. To keep their promise, they had to include in the design a gigantic battery, which cost way too much. The Volt, will probably become a niche player for that reason and this won’t change until new accumulator technology become available (e.g. ultra-capacitor).

I think Toyota would have adopted a more grounded approach: keep the final cost reasonable, hence design a much smaller battery. Also, build on existing Gen II Prius technology and make the Toyota Volt a synergy drive (series and/or parallels) instead of a series hybrid, to avoid the ICE-generator-motor-wheels inefficiencies. Toyota would have built the Toyota Volt and the Gen III Prius on the same platform, saving costs and therefore being ready to put the Gen III Prius on the market few years before the Toyota Volt is fully tested.

You see where I’m going…

To me, the main difference between GM and Toyota is the latter makes evolutions based on known and tried technology while GM intent was to make a revolution. But the reality is harsh: the battery cost will drive the Volt price much too high, the series hybrid efficiency losses, and the chosen generator is very cumbersome (big ICE, under the hood), making the revolutionary car look like a regular car/regular hybrid, unless you look closer to see that there are no mechanical link between the ICE and the wheels (compare the success of the Accord/Civic Hybrid of the first year with the Prius…).

As someone from Quebec, I regret HydroQuébec not going forward 15-20 years ago with the technology they developed at that time, which was a lot more advanced than what GM or Toyota has to sell (patent, see this translated summary or look for a video on “moteur-roue, Hydro-Québec, Pierre couture, Découverte” from 1997). Most probably have never heard of the short venture of the national electricity provider in the EV territory:


1. wheel-hub linear motor design:

• each wheel-hub motor: 1200N-m (>1500N-m from a stop), 80kw (x2-4 wheels, about 10x the torque of a Corvette)
• no friction brakes: acceleration in both direction (acceleration and slowing down), is achieved by the motors (power limiter/resistor to dissipate extra energy)
• can accelerate the car (or slow it down) up to the adherence limit of the tires

2. accumulator:

• 200kg, set on top of the rear axle
• 10kWh, 150kW peak power

3. compact generator (about 1 cubic-foot of space for the engine):

• 25kW
• 90% efficiency (mechanical-electric energy)

For the whole car:

• Almost no moving parts: only the motors and the direction. Maintenance-free cars (a very bad thing for the auto industry). Compared to a regular car, remove the ICE and all its components, the transmission, the torque converter, the axles, big gas tank. The trunk becomes essentially empty, add the battery, replace the wheel-hubs with the wheel-hub motors and the small generator with a small gas tank where you usually place the fuel tank at the rear of the car (trunk is left empty)
• There was a 120-140km/h limitation on extended range for a 1600kg car, due to the generator power.

We will never know if the issues of this technology could have been fully addressed, although TM4, a HydroQuébec subsidiary which commercialize the technology, have deals with Peugeot and Tata.

That would have been a revolution. GM's Volt will not change the rules of the game.

 

You would have no floor mats and the car would drain the battery uncontrollably accelerating?

It's a joke. Laugh.

 

Don't knock Cunningham stripes. They make the car go faster.

Racing stripe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

If Toyota made the Volt and was serious about the serial hybrid concept:

1 ) It would have an Atkinson cycle engine that would run at a single speed regardless of demand in CS mode.

2) The batteries would be used as a buffer and would allow for demand swings

3) The ICE would turn on and off when it needed to be the most efficient, not when expected due to demand to satisfy the drivers 'needs' to hear it when they expect

4) The MPG in CS mode would be better maybe as high as 60mpg

5) No ad or pre-release would have touted a high mpg before the real one was known

6) There would be no Toyota Volt dance

 

The reason for that is because of the battery's active cooling system.

The Nissan Leaf cheaps out and uses just passive cooling (like a laptop's fan), which gives the car space to have five passengers.

Four passengers, while not ideal for all families, is fine for almost all drivers. And it's for the benefit of the battery.

 

Two-part answer:

Number one: In spite of recent flap over some problems with the Prius, Toyotas overall are a thousand times better designed and better built than GMs. So any Toyota car will be better than any GM car. This would make a "Toyota Volt" a better car than a Chevy Volt (assuming the latter is ever built).

Number two: It still depends on the numbers: How far does the car go on pure EV, and how much does it sacrifice on FE for highway trips where EV is an insignificant part of the total? I'm inclined to think that a better solution is a pure EV for EV-range trips, and a hybrid like the Prius for road trips. This is my present configuration: The Zap Xebra for all in-town driving, where it is 100% adequate, and the Prius for road trips where the Xebra cannot go the distance and hauling the extra weight of an EV's batteries would reduce FE.

 

I think the placement of the battery in the volt is more of "there's no other place to put it" because of the extra ICE components. Both the Volt and the Leaf have very large capacity battery packs, but Nissan has the luxury of spreading out the battery along the floor of the Leaf while the front half of the volt is partly dedicated to the exhaust system.

Nissan also uses it's own battery chemistry that holds more energy per kg than the Volt. I don't think a liquid cooled system would add 2 ft to height of the battery pack.

 

Consumers don't care what kind of system are used on a vehicle.
They just won't to see any sacrifice of space.

Ken@Japan