Toyota Shows Distain: Even for their Own RAV4-EV

Yet Toyota is toying with an NS4 which is plugin first unlike the Prius.....

I think it's just a Lexus ad and they're playing.

And remember, Toyota bought and is playing around with wireless charging. Unless of course they just want to take it out of the reach of Tesla vs doing anything with it. But then they're almost like the oil companies!

 

The core question in my mind is what is the CEO's vision? In every company, and especially Asian companies, what the boss wants often becomes obvious by what is marketed. What is being marketed here seems to have discarded any sustainability thinking for hedonistic thinking.

 

Is there anything substantive from Toyota on it actually going to production? The reports I find are just on it doing the auto show tour. Repeating rumors of becoming available on its own or as the next Prius.

 

EV advocates lose their sense of humor when it comes to EV support, but admit it: the ad is funny.

 

BEV technology is just inefficient IMO. Packing all that lithium batteries to drive a 1 tonne+ vehicle to move people around is insane. Batteries are notoriously inefficient as an energy storage system compare to capacitors in terms of weight to performance ratio. Besides there are simply not enough Li in the world to power all the passenger vehicles as a BEV or maybe even hybrids...

Any engineers want to chime in on this issue battery vs capacitor debate? remember when you try to recharge a battery too quickly it's really bad for the cell, battery like to soak up juice slowly and release it slowly otherwise you drain it too quickly and have to spend another 4hrs+ to recharge the system again. And that's something BEV advocates don't talk about, dealing with bad battery cells (replacing and maintaing it is a pain in the nice person). Just ask some of the after market kit PiP owners about it or follow their thread. If you don't address these dead cells you end up with lower and lower range...back to BEV's biggest problem again, range anxiety...

This is something which Tesla won't tell you. With a 911 porsche carrera you can slam on the accelerator over and over until you're out of gas refill in less than 3 minutes and off you go again, with the current Tesla battery pack's system you can only it do it a couple/few hard accelerations and you're finished, then tow the dam thing home cause you're stuck. Forget to fully charge it the night before and you have range anxiety again.

 

They can compliment each other, battery and ultracaps, but to explain it requires understanding:

• energy density - batteries excel, caps are weak
• power density - batteries are weak, caps are great

There is no 'free lunch' but rather a hybrid approach that combines the two is the way to go. BTW, I've been thinking about getting some air-zinc batteries, very high energy density, and wiring them up to an ultra-cap, very high power density. It would make a nice, experimental power supply . . . for my rail-gun pistol.

Bob Wilson

 

Cool Bob! I posted it on another thread but looks like the 2 energy sources are symbiotic by nature as a power source in a vehicle??? Stable light weight and high storage capacity battery in conjunction with a "boost" ultra capacitor system for acceleration for a plug in hybrid car would be sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. Beef the suspension with low profile tires and the Prius will be a deadly sleeper car.

 

The Prius does not have enough electric HP for the weight. You really need need more electric HP to be a serious contender. Google up "electric drag racer" and you'll get a clue about what is needed.

Bob Wilson

 

Your post reminds me of the logically challenged anti-hybrid posts we have seen for well over a decade.

Lithium is a very common element.
Mining/gathering it ranges from incredibly easy to difficult.
In addition, no one is suggesting we replace 100% of vehicles with EVs. Putting that up as the goal and then knocking that position down is simply a badly formed argument.

In the second quoted position you simply exaggerate. Another poorly formed argument which is misleading if the reader doesn't realize the extreme exaggeration.

As an EV driver, I find it incredibly convenient to have a full 'tank' every morning and have never had range anxiety in driving 68,000 miles in various EVs.
And I have not felt the need to limit how often I "slam on the accelerator".

It is true that aggressive driving will cut into your range, but not anywhere close to what you state.

 

ICEs and the transmissions required to get their power to the wheels have components that wear out. The difference between them and batteries is that we have just spend over a hundred years improving on them. Even then, the possibility of an automatic transmission requiring some pricy work ever 30k miles or so is within the lives of some posters here.

BEV advocates do talk talk about bad cells. Even hybrid ones do. Whenever the FUD of these cars needing a new battery every 5 years, they are quick to point out, after why that isn't so, that any bad batteries are due to a few cells that can be replaced.

Capacitors can be used in conjunction with batteries to cover each other's shortfalls. Doing so can also extend battery life.

 

I think ultimately there is a happy medium until the infrastructure is there for EVs...at the same time, the infrastructure is coming but it's still at a point where you might grab some lunch until a good charge gives you EV, or you really rest at a pit stop.

I think plugin hybrids are the next logical transition because you aren't always doing road trips, and when you do you have options. And when you're home doing errands, you have options and don't have to rely on gas.

I would have range anxiety taking a Tesla Model X from Boston to NYC or Boston to the Vacation State Maine. 180 miles range, so that's like 3 hours of driving just about before needing to charge? Meanwhile my Prius, we go on for like 6 hours minimum on a tank. The range is also more than double a Tesla, so maybe my minimum is generous anyway...

 

Quite possibly, range anxiety is different for each individual.
The interesting thing is, it is more the fear of something different rather than range. Most new EV owners find their range anxiety, if they had any, actually goes down with familiarity.
On a 6 hour drive, I would normally stop once or twice for a break (this was with our Prius).
The only difference now for me is I would plug in at a supercharger before getting a bite to eat, stretch my legs, etc).

 

What care do you have? And what's the length of "stretching" your legs. What's the next amount of time of your drive? If it's a Tesla then SuperChargers take what, 20 minutes for about 90 miles? Then you find yourself for 1.5 hour drive just about? Meanwhile a Prius would stop, stretch legs, fill for 5 minutes, and might not fill again for the day.

I'm not trying to be a troll or spread hate, just trying to get your idea...Yeah, range anxiety is different for everybody. I get range anxiety at 1 blinking pip left, 500 miles on the road and the next gas station is like 30 miles away.

 

Here is an example of how we travel.
Drive for a few hours, stop, plug in, grab a bite to eat, bathroom break, buy munchies for the road. Time at stop, about 30 minutes which gets us about 170 miles.
Fully refreshed we start up again, stop for dinner and charge up for 45-70 minutes and keep going. Charge up again at end of day at supercharger near hotel. Total distance, about 700 miles.
If we want, we will squeeze in another 15 min stop for another 100 miles.

If you want to cannonball run across the US and EV certainly won't work for you. But then again, I never felt the desire for a cannonball run.

 

There is plenty of lithium in the world, numerous articles have been published, debunking that myth. If the whole world were to go lithium we would need more mines and more expensive mines, but ..... as time progresses less an less lithium is needed.

If you get a chance test drive a tesla S, then tell me how inefficient batteries are, and how bad the power to weight is in the car. Performance is spectacular as is range.

So we have 8 year waranties on those battery packs, and I'm sure the service center for the car will do the replacement of cells under waranty. If you can put 200 miles in 30 minutes in a tesla S, isn't that fast enough, when you don't really have to refuel except on long trips.

Again top gear really faked that. You can do plenty of hard accelerations in a tesla, and the next gen battery will be even better. BMW and Porsche have the solution for those track days though. If you are going 200 mph on a track day you likely won't last half an hour in a tesla ;-) Porsche's best car the 918 and bmw's best i8 are phevs. You can motor under pure electric when you want, but you can fill up in 3 minutes. Why did porsche and BMW go plug-in on their best cars? A gasoline engine by itself would be much less efficient for similar performance than big battery + ice.

lol bob. OK the smallest rail gun I have seen takes a truck to move, or maybe your prius . It was designed in 2005, but I doubt we have shrunk from 4 meters to pistol size in 9 short years. You might be able to make a portable rifle. I would use your prius to charge up regular caps to power it, no need for super caps
CEM Railguns

As for batteries being weak in power density, test drive a tesla I do agree that from a cost point of view the EREV PHEV seems to be ideal. A heavy 38 mile aer like the 2013 volt does provide, good enough power, but it could do better. Batteries are improving power density fast enough that supercaps are limited to racing hybrids.

 

I'm an electrical engineer.
Even the best capacitors only hold 1/10th the energy of a lithium. Instead of a 260 mile Tesla or 70 mile leaf, the capacitor versions would only go 26 and 7 miles.
How is that useful?

I looked at a Civic natural gas & it's only useful for driving from San Francisco to San Diego. I would not be able to drive it anywhere else, because there's no natural gas infrastructure along I-10 or I-40.
The same is true of hydrogen cars.

 

CAPACITOR = fast dI/dt device; electrostatic energy storage.
BATTERY = slow dI/dt device; chemical energy storage.

...and, as Bob (bwilson4web) summarized above:

 

I wish people would research before they opine. A quick stop at tedlamotors.com shows any person that the roadside supercharger can fill to 80% in only forty minutes. That's about 220 miles (far more than 90). And more than 1.5 hours. It's over three hours until you need to refuel your EV again. . So basically:

265 miles + 40 minute break + 220 miles + 40 minute break + 220 miles == ~700 miles in a single day (11 hours)

 

not surprised by Toyota's ad. lets face it. they want to jump from hybrids to fuel cells. hope they dont do a Br er Fox and land in the middle of the brier patch