Era of the Electric Car Moves Closer with Release of the 2010 Prius Plug-in Hybrid
| Mark Henshaw - December 16, 2009 |
Toyota Motor (TM) announced earlier in the week the introduction of the 2010 Prius Plug-in Hybrid as part of a global demonstration program, and will also debut an electric vehicle around 2012.
Built specifically to support a global demonstration program that begins this month with a total of 500 vehicles, the Prius PHV is based on the third-generation Prius with the introduction of a first generation lithium-ion battery that enables all-electric operation at higher speeds and longer distances than the conventional Prius hybrid. When fully charged, the vehicle is targeted to achieve a maximum electric-only range of approximately 13 miles and will be capable of achieving highway speeds up to 60 mph in electric-only mode.
The program and the vehicles will be used to gather real world vehicle-use feedback to better understand customer expectations for plug-in technology. Vehicles will be equipped with data retrieval devices which will monitor activities such as how often the vehicle is charged and when; whether the batteries are depleted or being topped off during charging; trip duration, all-EV driving range, combined mpg and so on.
But as for investor expectations, Toyota expects sales of plug-in hybrids to account only for “several tens of thousands” of cars a year. At the same time, GM is planning to build as many as 60,000 Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrids a year, starting in late 2010. Other automakers, including Ford and Volkswagen, have announced their own plug-in models, and Nissan plans to mass-produce a fully electric car in 2010.
The New York Times reported on a new study by the National Research Council that says despite recent excitement, such vehicles are unlikely to arrive in meaningful numbers for a few more decades The study also found that the next generation of plug-in hybrids could require hundreds of billions of dollars in government subsidies to take off.
It looks like the era of electric cars may be upon us, but it will be a slow start that won’t be adding fuel to car company bottom lines for years to come.
“The New York Times reported on a new study by the National Research Council that says despite recent excitement, such vehicles are unlikely to arrive in meaningful numbers for a few more decades ”
One wonders where all the gasoline will come from to power us “for a few more decades” or if NRC expects us to walk or bike.
The age of BIG oil discovery ended in 1970 and been dropping precipitously ever since in spite of vastly superior methods of finding it. This year one “optimistic” estimate of discoveries claimed 10 Billion bbls were discovered….ignoring that roughly 30 were consumed (and going UP).
The USA has at most 40 with annual consumption over 8B bbls /yr. I honestly don’t know how any respected journal can fail to question such obviously bogus projections.
The world and especially the USA will hit the energy wall HARD in the next decade unless we invest in MILLIONS of EVs….remember there are 250MILLION, soon to be useless, fossil fuel vehicles on the road today……just in the USA