News on the 09 Prius?

some rumors will never die...

GW is a myth

troops will be home by christmas

hybrid batteries are unreliable

besides, i thought the new battery chemistry would be 2010?

 

There will be an 09, but I think it will be pretty much like the 04 - 08. I think the 2010 will be the start of the next generation.

 

From whom? Do you have any article you can cite?

 

At various times on this site, there has been lots of speculation about this. The most current and consistent speculation that I've read is that the '09 will be basically a redesign, but with similar batteries to the previous versions. Then, the new batteries will be dropped in in a later model year (MY10, perhaps?)

But, I'll just stress again that this is speculation. Toyota seems to keep a lid on these things pretty well, so we won't know much for sure until they make an announcement.

 

At one time we thought the 2009 would be a major model revision with lithium batteries, having a greater capacity, and therefore better FE. (The battery acts as a buffer between engine output and power demand. Greater battery capacity increases the size of the buffer and therefore increases FE.)

The new rumor seems to be that the hoped-for major model revision, with lithium, will be the 2010 model year, rather than the 2009 MY. This isn't really a delay, since it's all just rumors anyway. What we can be certain of is that Toyota is constantly working on development, and that when they're ready there will be a major model revision to the Prius, as there generally is to any car model. At this point any specific date is a rumor. The prevalent rumor has dropped 2009 and is now talking 2010. Toyota will make an announcement when they're ready to.

 

You should see a new Lexus dedicated hybrid in 09

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/autoexpressnews/208660/toyota_prius.html
rumor mill: The redesigned prius appears to be delayed from initial estimates, because of li-ion fire possibility. Current guess is coming out in late 09 as a 10 model.

Also Toyota appears to pushing back their estimate of selling a million hybrids by 2010 to 2011.
http://www.reuters.com/article/tnBasicIndustries-SP/idUST33122520070629

 

Toyota have already sold their 1 millionth Hybrid globally.

I don't think Toyota will do a complete redesign untill the batteries are ready as I expect they will maximise the utility of the vehicle around the new batteries when they redesign the Prius. Until Li Ion batteries are ready I believe they will stick with the current shape. Prius sales volume just isn't big enough yet for major retooling for one or two model years.

 

Maybe they'll get smart and dump Li-Ion in favor of LiFePO. It would make sense.

What I'd really like to see is for them to scrap the full hybrid HSD and beat GM to the punch with a plug-in serial hybrid. Or, more subtly, not scrap HSD, but mainstream HSD to all their conventional cars, and, with Prius always being their showcase for their newest technology, advance the Prius to plug-in serial hybrid.

 

While lithium-Iron-Phosphate batteries appear to be the obvious choice, I believe that the intellectual property for the technology is owned by Americans and it's unlikely that Toyota will want to license or outright purchase the battery pack from an American supplier since the Asian car manufacturers appear to prefer to only use their own technology.

 

In a few days my Zap Xebra will go back to the dealer, who will remove the lead batteries and install a LiFePO battery pack. I believe that pack was imported from China.

But whoever owns the patent, I would hope that Toyota would be willing to use the best technology available, either by licensing it, if necessary, or by developing their own version.

 

HSD beats serial for efficiency

Why would you want to do away with the HSD which is what makes the Prius more efficient than any other gas-powered car ? As for plug-in EV's, they don't really reduce CO2 emissions as long as most electricity comes from fossile fuels, perhaps even to the contrary.

 

My new Popular Mechanics magazine (Jan.08) has a pic and small story saying the 09 will be a plug in Prius. The pic shows the car basically the same. They say it will have 2 of the current generation battery packs.

 

Large power plants are at least twice as efficient as automobile engines. Running a car from grid power will indeed reduce its CO2 footprint.

Further, a properly-designed serial hybrid can be just as efficient as the HSD full hybrid: The Prius's efficiency comes from the fact that the engine does not need to provide high torque for acceleration (because the battery and electric motor can provide it) and the fact that the engine can run more nearly at its most efficient RPM and power output level. A series hybrid matches HSD on the former and exceeds HSD on the latter, as its engine can be run consistently at exactly its optimum RPM and power output.

The Prius can be Toyota's platform for its most cutting edge technology. Once demonstrated on the Prius, that technology can move in following years to their other cars, and the Prius can advance to the next new technology.

I suspect that article is based on the rumors we heard here a year or two ago, and which have been discredited.

The present battery pack holds enough energy to go about a mile and a half. Two of them would take it 3 miles. Hardly worth plugging in for.

 

Even if a power plant is more efficient than a Prius (which I doubt, as they are using turbines and need inverters, plus the transmission loss) you have to subtract the loss in the generator, converter, batteries and electric motor, hardly less than 30% total (have you noticed, the converter in the Prius is fluid cooled; the batteries are air-cooled even though the motor only has about half the power it would need to replace the ICE).

As for the the series hybrid vs HSD, the series hybrid loses energy in the electric roundabout, while the HSD also allows the ICE to run at optimum RPM at modest speeds. A two-speed transmission would be a better improvement, I'd think.

 

Are we all forgetting about nuclear power? Totally non poluting to our atmosphere. Nukes are the future. Who needs OPEC.

 

Sorry, I think we already have too much nuclear power. I feel bad enough pumping CO2 into the environment without leaving a waste product that is hazardous for 100,000+ years for my descendants to deal with.

We have no problems selling you uranium but we don't want the waste back thanks.

 

I suspect that nukes probably will be the choice our politicians make. That's because, if we go solar everyone will have their own energy plant on their roof, and the energy conglomerates won't be able to sell us anything. With nuclear power they can make us pay for our energy.

The problems are waste and weapons proliferation:

As Pat noted above, the waste products will be deadly for over 100,000 years. It's only been about 6,000 years since the first human civilizations. We cannot even decipher the earliest writing. Nuclear power will condemn the human race to extinction when the waste finally breaches its containment and becomes distributed over the earth.

Conventional nukes won't be able to meet our energy needs once fossil fuels run out or we finally stop burning them to avoid turning the Earth into a Venus-like greenhouse. It will require breeder reactors. But the technology for processing the fuel from breeder reactors is the same as the technology for making weapons-grade fissile materials, and technology cannot be kept secret forever. Sooner or later every nation on earth, and a few large non-governmental organizations, will have nuclear weapons. Thus a decision to meet our energy needs with breeder reactors creates an unacceptably-large risk of global proliferation of nuclear weapons, which would probably lead to all-out nuclear war long before we'd have to worry about the nuclear waste mentioned in the above paragraph.

Nukes are a bad choice. But they're probably the choice our corrupt politicians will make, for the simple reason that sunlight is free and their corporate backers cannot make a profit on it. One more case of our national religion (the profit motive -- capitalism) leading to choices that are contrary to the public interest.

As far as nukes being "non-polluting," every nuclear weapons facility in the U.S. is now leaking radioactive pollution into the groundwater underneath it. The Columbia River is now contaminated by Hanford, and the list goes on. Also, uranium mining is very dirty. Uranium mines are toxic pollution disasters. Although a properly-functioning nuclear power plant does not release pollution, the entire chain of development, mining, and refining of uranium pollutes. Calling nuclear power "clean" is like calling Bill Clinton celibate.