Long view of Prius

I'm very surprised by the lack of application of hybrid technology in larger fleet vehicles.

Every major city in America bought a half dozen Priuses for their municipal fleets, some went back for more. Some went for many more. But they all bought small Toyota passenger cars and used them as passenger cars.

Where are the trucks? Light trucks, medium-duty, class 8, municipal buses etc... although I don't just mean government-owned stuff. Why don't we see package couriers, waste collection, grocery wholesalers or other frequent-stop vehicles adopting hybrid technology in the heavy fleets?

The technical complexity of non-hybrid vehicles is rapidly approaching that of the hybrid, especially where commercial diesel is involved. What about battery size? Is there some problem with making batteries big enough to benefit large mass trucks? I know there were patents encumbering the use of large NiMH batteries until recently, but I don't think there was ever anything like that for other chemistries.

 

@Leadfoot
All the large vehicles you describe use diesel because of the torque required and the actual running cost, small lightweight vehicles are a good model for hybrid and electric because of the amount of weight, starting with three thousand pounds is one thing starting with thirty thousand pounds is quite another, then there's the cost, let's assume it's 33% more for a hybrid like the Prius vs the Corolla.
Who is going to pay to develope and market a hybrid Mack dump truck?

On the other hand, hydrogen trains are starting to appear, with large heavy vehicles it's all about the torque, trains and ships should be getting "converted" first, then as hydrogen ramps up, commercial trucks and busses could,might get converted.
Will autos go with hydrogen, Toyota thinks so, would I buy a hybrid hydrogen/electric battery small passenger vehicle, in a minute. Would I buy an electric only vehicle, not in the near future, or only as an errand vehicle.

 

I'm not buying the torque argument. It's a simple force, and you can produce that just as well with an electric motor.

Now, the cost? That I absolutely understand. We paid roughly 25% more for our Prius vs. the straight gasser we were comparing it to.

 

following trucks from boston to the catskills friday, they definitely need powertrains that allow them to make the speed limit uphill and restrict them downhill. diesel doesn't cut it.

idk enough about hybrid powertrains to know if there is a possibility for improvement over current designs

 

The long view of the Prius and Toyota?

Toyota ‘led the way’ with the Prius [family].
I think the biggest detriment towards widespread adoption of hybrid technology was due to Toyota having such a commanding lead in the hybrid market.
Nobody could, or at least be willing to, compete in the hybrid arena. The patents on batteries didn’t help, but wasn’t insurmountable.

Sadly, Toyota has been one of the most resistant companies when it comes to expanding into all electric vehicles. It is a leader in the plug-in hybrids since Toyota started making them. I believe the only market they have plans for a BEV is China, basically because they have to.

Hybrids will continue to play an important role in lowering the CO2 foot print of the transportation sector, and Toyota will continue to play a big role in the hybrid market. However, I don’t see the hybrid market ever growing beyond 5% in the U.S.

 

i still think we're being stifled by gas prices and that hybrids will play an important role in personal transportation for the next 10 or 20 years, maybe longer, hard to predict.

 

Not selling the torque argument, hydrogen powered trains are on the tracks, refuel in minutes, no pollution, batteries weigh, well increase the weight of the vehicle by 50-100%, and take time to recharge, hydrogen torque is torque, electric torque is torque, diesel torque is torque.
Busses and Trucks already weigh 50 tons.

 

A Prius gets 5/3 of the MPG of a Corolla, and 50 vs 30 sounds impressive; it isn't, because a Corolla was not using much gas to begin with.

A potential Light Pickup (most likely to be used as a passenger vehicle) with 25 MPG with a 25% higher price is a tougher sell as 25 MPG does not LOOK as impressive. (It would save WAY more gas)

Some pretty reasonable SUVs and Light Pickups have been introduced and discontinued: low sales.

 

When hybrids cost the same as diesel of equivalent size and offer significant savings in fuel and maintenance cost is when we'll see the change. This may never happen. Same with all electric. If and when BEV cost becomes comparable to a diesel, the fleets will change. This is a world of business we are talking about. It has to be more profitable to run an electric truck than a diesel for businesses to adopt it.

As for passenger sector, much of the same applies. I would have never bought my '07 Prius in '07. Just did not make sense financially. Most of us have fiduciary responsibilities to our families just like businesses to their stake holders. I love my '07 as a used car! It is great and I am very glad that someone did buy it new back then, but most people and businesses will do the math and if the math is against it, they will not invest. It is that simple. Most municipal buses these days run on CNG, which is much cleaner than diesel or petrol. Natural gas is fairly abundant and burns relatively clean. For long haul transport, diesel is still king and probably will remain so mostly because of energy density of current batteries. Commercial flight is physically impossible with today's battery energy density.

So, we need a major breakthrough in battery tech to really move into electric age. No matter how loud the Tesla fans, we are still not there for the BEV to take over. I do believe that we will get there at some point, because many very smart and motivated people understand and are working on the batteries today. But until the breakthrough this is going to be an uphill battle.

 

The two mode hybrid GM tried selling in full size trucks and SUVs was a scaled down version of the system they sell for buses, and the buses have been available for nearly as long as the Prius in the US.
Global Hybrid Cooperation - Wikipedia

For trucks, you need a hybrid system that can still provide the payload of the non-hybrid truck. Toyota's power-split system can't do that without the electric AWD to help in taking some of the load off the transaxle, and then we see the SUVs have lower tow ratings than the non-hybrid model. Even GM's two mode trucks had lower ratings than the ICEs.

A parallel hybrid might work since it is an add on to the non-hybrid the drive train. It will be an option on the F150 in 2020. There may be aftermarket companies offering systems for commercial trucks.

Since locomotives have been series hybrids since the 1960's, no question that they could work for trucks. They just suffer from lower efficiency at highway speeds.

I think the lack has more to do with the low cost of fuel in the US than in there not being commercial hybrid vehicles available.

 

We have plenty of hybrid transit buses here:

One of the garbage hauling companies runs a natural gas fleet, predating hybrids. This became better known last week when a major natural gas pipeline supplying our region exploded, and many large natural gas customers were briefly forced to shut down.

 

I just read Sear's obit in the paper.
I'm thinking....actually HOPING that the guys in Aichi are reading the same thing, and since their English skills are almost certainly better than mine, there will NOT be anything lost in translation.
Sears was once a retail innovator.
They were.....quite literally....the Amazon of the 1900's and 19-teens and now they are about to go out forever from a variety of illnesses that all go back to basically the same root cause which, ironically, is failure to adapt to change.

It nearly killed Ford and GM.
It DID kill or is killing ToyzRUs, Blockbuster, Eastman Kodak, Dell, Motorola - ALL companies that made their bones through disruption and agility.

It's currently happening to Toyota, because the VERY IDEA that they're not even as far out on the sharp end as GM.....Honda....and others in BEVs or arguably even hybrids....SHOULD be keeping their board of directors up nights worrying about their companies trajectory.
Instead?
They're pimping ever-larger trucks and sedans, and they're concentrating on moving units and something that looks to this untrained observer exactly like the 'planned obsolescence' that we saw in the 70's and 80s.
That's great as far as it goes, but if their customer care for those appliances is anything like what I'm seeing in this forum for one of their edgier products is any indication????
Then inertia is going to keep them viable until the MASS that sustains that inertia kills them.

YMMV!

 

i would put every carmaker in that bucket except tesla, which has the opposite problem.

toyota is no worse off than the others, and with their electric experience and knowledge, probably better off than most.
we're a long way from market change, unless there is a geopolitical upheaval.

 

Technology changes:

PRIUS - and excellent, core technology, it is already up to Gen-4. In contrast, the Honda hybrids didn't really compete until they went dual-motor, 18 years too late. As for the other hybrids, in particular the single motor models, they really didn't get it. Yet the first plug-in hybrids were user modifications to the Prius. Sad to say, Toyota needlessly derated low speed performance of the Prius and that led to a well earned, weak impression.

PLUG-IN HYBRIDS - a necessary transition to pure BEVs, initially just owner mods to Prius, they address the near total absence of high-speed, DC chargers. It gives the long legs of gas with half-the-cost of urban driving.

BEVS - Tesla's 24x7 available, SuperCharger network makes cross-country driving possible. In contrast, the dealer networks lock up their chargers outside of business hours. VW's Electrify America network is being built but no one else, especially the 'Tesla killers', are lifting a finger to help, much less maintain. There are isolated, fast DC chargers but they cost 2-3x as much as gasoline. Hence, they make a plug-in hybrid a better choice.

Recommendations for Toyota:

• Remove the gas engine and fuel tank from Prius and replace with an equal weight of batteries.
• Resized or dedicated cooling and heating for the battery packs. Separate cabin HVAC from battery HVAC.
• Change control laws to allow wheel torque at the tire-road traction limit.
• Provide 24x7, fast DC chargers at dealers
  • fast, 125kW, at-cost charging for Toyota key fob owners
  • less-fast, 25kW, higher cost charging for others
  • 8kW, L2 chargers
  • or license SuperCharger technology

Bob Wilson

 

Honda's foul up was in pushing the NiMH batteries to abuse levels in order to get Prius like performance from a mild hybrid system.

full, one motor parallel hybrids may surpass two-motor, power-split ones in performance and cost. Consumer acceptable ones may have required finer control of the system than a power-split, which gave P-S a development lead. With the goal of BEV like performance, the parallel system may not make the best PHEV, since they will require shifting to maintain the lower cost advantage of a smaller motor. Then again, BEVs will likely be available with shifting in the future. One of Volvo's commercial BEV trucks going on sale next year has a two speed transmission.

Honda's two motor system is more accurately described as a series hybrid that has a parallel mode during highway cruising.

 

With the elephant-in-the-room pricing problem faced by BEVs today, I think it it is silly to pile on the shared costs of a public charging network. If I were shopping for a BEV right now, I'd specifically seek out the ones that don't have that overhead.

I recognize that others desire access to a network and should have the choice to buy in, but it's not universally beneficial.

 

I think that is an excellent choice ... for you.

Bob Wilson

 

the price is the price. what matters a charging network or not?