No More Electric Cars from Toyota

Is this true? This would make the second major player bowing out, the first being Honda.

Toyota’s Executive Vice President and Member of the Board, Mitsuhisa Kato, told Automotive News that his company was not making any real progress with electric cars and they want to try out something new.

Read more at http://usfinancepost.com/no-more-electric-cars-from-toyota-21713.html#3R21DTs31P1FRO1d.99" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Now I'm no aluminum foil wearing conspiracy theorist, but I've been following electric cars for years, and this has Big Oil influence stench to me.

See also Insideevs:

http://insideevs.com/toyota-gives-pure-electric-vehicles/

As Tony Williams writes in the comments to that article, this isn't news. Toyota has been clearly anti-BEV since at least 2010, only doing the RAV4 EV out of short-term necessity. They've hitched their wagon to the hybrid/FCV train long ago. Which is why I don't plan to buy a Toyota (or Honda for the same reasons) ever again, even though their hybrid system was a huge breakthrough at the time.

Worth mentioning that they have not bowed out of the PHEV game.. And we know they are working on a new Prius PHEV. If it is a decent car, it might keep them in the plug-in game.

adric22 said:

Worth mentioning that they have not bowed out of the PHEV game.. And we know they are working on a new Prius PHEV. If it is a decent car, it might keep them in the plug-in game.

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In spite of all the short comings, I kind of like the plug in Prius. Too bad they do not sell them in all 50 states.

Wait until Toyota starts producing the Fuel Cell electric vehicle for a few years.
FC will either take off or (more likely IMO) Toyota will be back to battery EVs.

I'm sorry, but I can not like something that has barely enough battery capacity to have the range to make it from charger to charger. To me, it is just a glorified HEV... Anything less than a 30 mile range is disqualifying for me. And I agree: Toyota's attitude about electric, and their past actions and demeanor in other venues and on other issues, mean I will never own one.

KJD said:

In spite of all the short comings, I kind of like the plug in Prius. Too bad they do not sell them in all 50 states.

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TomT said:

I'm sorry, but I can not like something that has barely enough battery capacity to have the range to make it from charger to charger. To me, it is just a glorified HEV... Anything less than a 30 mile range is disqualifying for me. And I agree: Toyota's attitude about electric, and their past actions and demeanor in other venues, mean I will never own one.

KJD said:

In spite of all the short comings, I kind of like the plug in Prius. Too bad they do not sell them in all 50 states.

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20 miles on a 4 hour charge would be enough for me to drive a PiP on battery 99% of the time. 20 miles on a 8 hour charge and I could drive a PiP on battery 95% of the time. I just can't find one at a reasonable price vs the price I can find a used Prius or Leaf.

I can easily find Prius in good shape below $11,000 and I can easily find Leaf below $13,000 (even with a good 11 or 12 bar battery). I can't find a Plug in Prius below $20,000.

I guess there just weren't enough sold on the new market to leave much supply of them on the used market.

But yes, if they wanted to pump out PiP as the trim level 3, 4, 5 whatever and leave the regular prius as the fleet special aka trim level 1, and the regular trim level 2 to get more people driving the PiP I wouldn't have to have 30 mile EV range on it, just start selling more of them whatever the EV range is.

PS, how long would it take me to drive a 12 bar Leaf SL with no quick charge port from CA to east TN if I bought one and flew out to drive it back? I'd be taking I-40 back to Knoxville it's only 2200 miles . Back of the napkin I'm thinking 8 days. I guess I'd have to pay to have it hauled on a car carrier.

Meanwhile, in addition to fuel cells, HEVs and PHEVs, Toyota continues to pour money into R&D of both solid-state and lithium-air batteries, which, if they can be commercialized, should allow much faster charging as well as much reduced degradation.

http://cleantechnica.com/2014/06/19/toyota-researching-solid-state-batteries-next-step-evs/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

These are all different flavors of electric cars.

I don't buy the smoke and mirrors. I expect that Toyota will continue to develop EVs as they have out side the public eye and once they believe they have battery tech that is acceptable for the market they will release a serious product. They kept the Prius a secret and they are likely playing poker face and waiting to milk the hybrids as long as they can. I do not believe they expect to ignore this market and they may just surprise everyone in the future but if you are not going to sell a pure EV in the near future it makes sense to mislead your competition into thinking you never will.

Let's see ... Sony fought tooth and nail against flat panel TVs back in 2002. Why? Because they were leveraged up to their necks in glass and CRT factories. How did that work out? Toyota was similarly over invested in ni-cad battery technology early on. Along comes lithium ion - and Toyota was slow to convert. Even now - no one except Elon expects lithium ion to be the future of EV transportation. So maybe Toyota is bowing out of the muck to wait and see where the technology takes us?

gReGsKi said:

Is this true? This would make the second major player bowing out, the first being Honda.

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If it is true, this news will likely guarantee that Nissan continues to ramp up worldwide LEAF sales faster than Toyota ramped up worldwide Prius sales.

LeafPowerIsIxE said:

Even now - no one except Elon expects lithium ion to be the future of EV transportation.

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Really? While I expect something will eventually replace Li-ion batteries in BEVs, I also expect a very large part of the market transition from ICEVs to BEVs will be accomplished using Li-ion technologies. It should be able to meet both the performance and cost targets to enable this to happen. This market transition will occur because ICEVs will become significantly more costly than Li-ion-based BEVs for many applications. FCVs will likely be more costly than both ICEVs and BEVs except for a handful of niche applications.

But I also expect PHEVs will be around for a long while. Those are an important transitional technology that will provide a more comfortable path for most consumers who do not wish to jump directly from ICEV to BEV.

LeafPowerIsIxE said:

Let's see ... Sony fought tooth and nail against flat panel TVs back in 2002. Why? Because they were leveraged up to their necks in glass and CRT factories. How did that work out? Toyota was similarly over invested in ni-cad battery technology early on. Along comes lithium ion - and Toyota was slow to convert. Even now - no one except Elon expects lithium ion to be the future of EV transportation. So maybe Toyota is bowing out of the muck to wait and see where the technology takes us?

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They have many EVs in development and have for some time. They also have publicly stated they are working on other battery technologies. Seems like a reasonable assumption they may be waiting do develop something they think is better. Yes they are also protecting their investments at the same time.

LeafPowerIsIxE said:

Even now - no one except Elon expects lithium ion to be the future of EV transportation. So maybe Toyota is bowing out of the muck to wait and see where the technology takes us?

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JB said that he expects lithium to last only about ten years.

Nicely balanced article at GCR:

"Decoding Toyota's Electric-Car Disdain: A Role For Fuel Cells"

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1093521_decoding-toyotas-electric-car-disdain-a-role-for-fuel-cells" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

GRA said:

Nicely balanced article at GCR:

"Decoding Toyota's Electric-Car Disdain: A Role For Fuel Cells"

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1093521_decoding-toyotas-electric-car-disdain-a-role-for-fuel-cells" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Anyone with a scientific background, who spends a little bit of time examining the competing technologies, quickly comes to the conclusion that fuel cells can not possibly compete with battery EVs. They are inherently more expensive and *at best* about half as efficient. Add in the fact that you would need a much larger investment in infrastructure, and it's a no brainer. If you want more details, I'd be happy to post my PhD thesis, which included a thorough analysis of the options.

The problem is that politicians and business execs don't have any scientific background, and don't really seem to care about the actual science. The push for fuel cells is all being driven by oil and has companies pushing for it, since they see it as a way of recasting fossil fuels as clean fuels. They are funding on board reformers to extract hydrogen from gas, so you could use gasoline in a fuel cell vehicle. It would still pump out CO2, and only be slightly more efficient than an ICE, but they could present it as a clean vehicle- even though it isn't.

I used to know a couple people who were fuel cell researchers. Privately they freely admitted that they saw no future in fcvs, but since there was government funding to research it, they went where the money was.

msbriggs said:

Anyone with a scientific background, who spends a little bit of time examining the competing technologies, quickly comes to the conclusion that fuel cells can not possibly compete with battery EVs. They are inherently more expensive and *at best* about half as efficient. Add in the fact that you would need a much larger investment in infrastructure, and it's a no brainer. If you want more details, I'd be happy to post my PhD thesis, which included a thorough analysis of the options.

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Yes, I would love to see your PhD thesis. Thanks for injecting a note of rationality into the discussion.

Toyota was similarly over invested in ni-cad battery technology early on.

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I assume that you meant "nickel metal hydride." They still use them in the regular Prius, because when managed properly they are still a good battery. Lower energy density then lithium but less degradation when not abused.

It's also worth remembering the Toyota corporate goals statement they made shortly after they developed the Prius. (The statement was made maybe right around 2000. I wish I could find it on line.) They said they were in business for the long haul, and looking at plans for the next century. It was a very impressive statement.

They probably have not given up on the future of high efficiency, non-petroleum driving. They probably just have a better idea, and aren't talking about it yet.

msbriggs said:

GRA said:

The problem is that politicians and business execs don't have any scientific background, and don't really seem to care about the actual science. The push for fuel cells is all being driven by oil and has companies pushing for it, since they see it as a way of recasting fossil fuels as clean fuels. They are funding on board reformers to extract hydrogen from gas, so you could use gasoline in a fuel cell vehicle. It would still pump out CO2, and only be slightly more efficient than an ICE, but they could present it as a clean vehicle- even though it isn't.

I used to know a couple people who were fuel cell researchers. Privately they freely admitted that they saw no future in fcvs, but since there was government funding to research it, they went where the money was.

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It's always been thus and always will be. If you visit the many narrow gauge tourist railroads here in Colorado, or tour the terrific Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, you'll be told narrow gauge was used because it was less expensive. What you will probably not be told is that: 1) this was a myth, 2) 99% of the railroad engineers during the narrow gauge fad (1870s) were fully aware it was a myth, and wrote many technical papers detailing the reasons why, 3) but narrow gauge was dominant for a few years because the industry financiers loved the idea of the cost savings - in fact many railroads were funded on the condition that they were narrow gauge, 4) railroad executives figured this out fairly early on, which is why many narrow gauge railroads quietly began adding 3rd rails or converting gauge by the end of the 1870s, and 5) the whole charade collapsed when a large number of narrow gauge railroads collapsed in 1883 revealing the accounting realities in their bankruptcies - all the "savings" were actually accomplished through accounting tricks, deferred maintenance, and shoddy construction.

And yes, it reminds me of Enron/Worldcom, the housing collapse in 2007-2008, and the current debate over climate change. It just seems like this is something humans do with regularity.

"And yes, it reminds me of Enron/Worldcom, the housing collapse in 2007-2008, and the current debate over climate change. It just seems like this is something humans do with regularity."

And how. We as a species really cant count on common sense or science or facts. And what usually happens to a weaker species? Not good things.

I for one see this hydrogen hoax. Too bad my $$$ isn't worth much in our government by the people.