TTAC: Toyota’s Prius Chief Engineer Reveals The Future Of The Automobile. Part One

Great article. Thanks. I look forward to reading Part Two when it is published tomorrow.

 

part 2:

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/20...bile-part-two-what-will-we-drive-in-10-years/

 

In part 2, the subway map of future energy is displayed. Interesting that Toyota thinks the base stock for hydrogen is petroleum.

 

Now wait just a minute . . . .

That's just nonsense. Bob Lutz said Toyota's hybrid system was just a clever P.R. stunt . . . a halo car. C'mon . . . Who you gona believe.


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Good stuffs.

Surprising, there is no PFCV (plugin fuel cell). I think FC would make a better range extender than a combustion engine.

 

Today H2 can be made from natural gas or naphtha (raw gaso) the latter is perhaps more common in Japan. Isn't he saying H2 can be made from anything? bio, oil, gas, nukes,

 

Yep because of this the infrastructure to deliever the 'feedstock' of CNG for vehicles is already in place. Every major metropolitan area already has a system of nat gas pipelines everywhere. Building H2 conversion stations off these lines wouldn't require a huge investment. If there's enough demand the stations will be built because there's money to be made at the retail level.

For me the key question that needs to be addressed though is how much energy is required to be inputted in order to extract H2 from Nat Gas. I don't know frankly.

 

I have a feeling, just a hunch, that there are other programs in the works at every major vehicle maker. These are 'black programs' that no one can speak about.

For example.... the 100 mpg carburator :rockon:

Seriously though. One of the best benefits of the hybrid systems of TM, FMC, H and even GM's 2-mode is that these systems address the most pressing fuel usage demands of our driving. That would be the City-driving component that we each do.

The Prius, the TCH and the FFH took the worst fuel usage situation and made it the best!!! With hybrid technology there is no fuel usage penalty for our worst driving situations. Using only the Prius vs Matrix as one example...

• Prius City EPA value 51 mpg
• Matrix City EPA value 25 mpg

I'm a firm believer in attacking the worst situations first, or IOW, apply the new technologies to the situations where they will do the most good most effectively.

Now to the point of this lengthy preamble. What now are the most inefficient uses of liquid petro-fuel in the driving world?

• In the US we use about 21 million bbl / day of liquid petro-fuel. Roughly 14 million bbl / day go into transportation.
• 20% of every well on earth provides liquid petrofuel to the US, IOW we currently use 20% of the world's supply of petrofuel every day

I believe that the charts shown in Part II of this interview are spot-on and only a reckless gambler would ignore them. So in order to keep driving through the end of this decade and into the next decades we must address our worst and most inefficient usages of liquid petrofuel right now. The lead times for vehicles is 5 yrs at a minimum and 10-15 yrs to bring mature effective technologies to market. As they implied in the interview our vehicles of 2015-18 are in the final stages of design/acquisition/fabrication today.

What then are the worst usages of liquid petrofuels today that need to disappear or be redesigned? For me it's trucks.

We absolutely need trucks in every facet of our daily lives. We may not drive a truck ourselves but..

• everything that we don't grow or bring home ourselves is brought to us in trucks.
• all of our trash is taken away by trucks.
• our snail mail, our packages? all delivered by trucks.
• workmen who build and maintain on our houses and businesses nearly all use trucks
• nearly every city bus in the world is at its core..a truck
• tractors that farm the lands, dump trucks that mine iron ore, coal and other raw materials ( even petrofuel ) are ... trucks.
• then of course there's the personal truck

Think of just how many trucks you see every day. Right now the best of these trucks gets 15 miles per gallon on average, i.e. it uses 6.7 gal to drive 100 miles ( the Prius uses 2 gal to drive 100 miles ).

The most pressing issue IMO for maintaining our way of life in the face of rapidly declining petrofuel supplies is .... fix the trucks.

This is the 'black ops' research that is not spoken about in this article. This article and interview is directly mainly toward the daily auto driver. I firmly believe that every vehicle maker which is also a truck maker is in the process of testing and finalizing technolgies that might make trucks as fuel efficient as midsized autos or even as fuel efficient as the Prius ....with no loss in capability.

Why do I feel so strongly? Given the shortfall in supply and the resulting spike in liquid fuel prices heavy vehicles will be the first to bear the brunt of the economic storm. Those that make these vehicles in great numbers TM, GM, FMC, Volvo, Daimler, etc. all have strong interests in keeping the lines running on these cash cows. Also I find it interesting that all the vehicle makers are now solidly behind the new CAFE standards here. Are they going to still sell 12 mpg Yukons and 15 mpg F150's when the fleet requirement is 35 mpg? What are they planning to do when the CAFE standard is 54.5 mpg in the 20's? Give up making trucks? Not likely.

I think that in the next 2-5 years we will see a revolution in the fuel delivery systems of these workhorse trucks that will lead them from being pariahs to being shining examples what technology can do to create a solution that addresses the worst problems. But like most innovations in this industry it's at least 10 yrs from inception to implementation.

The technology exists already but it has to be tested and verified. The first truck maker that can bring it to market will have a huge advantage over the field. Imagine Bob Carter springing this surprise at a not-too-distant Detroit Auto Show.

[/dream]

or is it?

 

Really interesting article.

I tend to agree with the idea that more and more people will have a dual automobile situation.

That is a (as presented in the 2nd part) a small electric City Commuter, and a larger Hybrid. This makes sense to me, as I have already witnessed this dynamic in it's more archaic form in England and Ireland. Where it appeared to me that many people owned a smaller, relatively efficient "City Commuter" and a larger more comfortable "Road Trip" Vehicle.

Really interesting article though as the ultimate answer seems to be that all technologies and possibilities will advance going forward. Hybrid, Electric, and alternative fuels...which tells me nobody is exactly sure what the change will be..but that change is inevitable.

Interesting to me that you also have evidence of Toyota, looking ahead 10, 20 years or more...

Is this something American competitors do? Or are they just more concerned with how many Chevy Cruze's they are selling this month?

 

Every vehicle maker has a view out 5-10-20 yrs. It's necessary in the industry ( I was a supplier ). The only question is what data are they looking at out into the future.

Obviously in the 90's the D3 didn't put much emphasis on developing fuel efficient vehicles. In fact they fought it step of the way. Since their near-death experiences I believe that the D3 have a completely new view of the world.

The charts and info that Toyota showed are readily available from our own EIA.

 

Yes I agree. But to make a generalization, American companies immediate outlook and even P.O.V. looking forward has always been almost singularly profit driven. In other words, what will make us the most money now..and tomorrow.

Japanese companies have had IMO a better long term outlook. The Prius is a good example. On paper? No American company would of ever even tried to produce The Prius. It would of never even got out of the proposal/paperwork phase. But because Toyota was willing to project ahead as to what societal/economic needs would become over the course of a decade or longer...The Prius exists and has become a huge flagship seller for Toyota.

Toyota's Chief Engineer may say it didn't take a much to divine these needs...but I would say he is actually being humble. If it shouldn't take much to divine these needs, it certainly took foresight and guts to then tangibly produce a vehicle like The Prius for mass consumption.

The fact that 15 years later, it STILL stands more or less alone as the Class of The Class is testament to Toyota's foresighted vision.

 

1++

I never had any interest in Toyota before the Prius; now my family do not really think of other manufacturers when we car shop.

 

... I do not want to dwell on the hydrogen, but your *key question* is pretty easy to answer because H2 manufacture is a very common industrial process. A few years ago, I would have said H2 manufacture is expensive because you need to use a lot of natural gas to make it. Now of course, nat gas is very cheap here. The $64000 question is future cost.

Presumably in Japan, nat gas is more expensive, so that is apparently why Toyota was talking about making it (H2) from other things, oil etc.

 

Hopefully, most do, but there was this.

 

I thin that this is a good understanding of why the Prius was an acceptable project for Toyota to undertake. Japan being poor in almost all natural resources, especially those needed in the auto industry, is continually at the mercy of world demand/supply factors. Until recently we here are blessed with an over abundance of most natural resources which allowed all of us and all of our businesses to take a more individualistic ( profit first ) near term outlook. Societal needs could take a seat in the back of the bus.

Again in the 90's. Gas was dirt cheap, the stock market was booming, housing prices were esclating faster than anyone could imagine, productivity was up, inflation was down...what could possibly go wrong. The D3 took the individualistic route to make the vehicles that the suddenly niveau riche were willing to pay big bucks to own. Hey, gas was $.90 a gallon what could go wrong?

I think, I hope, that the D3 learned their lessons by their collective near-death experiences.

 

Part 3 posted.

Toyota