Gojirra99

Company Eyes North American Plant for its Hybrid Models


May 21, 2006

Already miles ahead of the competition, Toyota hopes to significantly improve the efficiency of its wildly-popular Prius hybrid and open a new assembly plant in North America, a top company official said, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Toyota Vice Chairman Fujio Cho said the company hopes to shrink key hybrid components, including the batteries, inverters and electric motors, making them just one-quarter of their current size. That would reduce the weight of the Prius and improve its already superior fuel economy.

Cho made the remarks in Lexington, Kentucky, where he was commemorating the 20th anniversary of Toyota's assembly plant there. He said the Prius' popularity in the U.S. gives the company an incentive to produce the car on American soil.

The bulky size of key hybrid components has kept Toyota from building hybrids here so far. If the parts can be smaller and lighter, it would be economically feasible to assembly Priuses and other hybrids in the U.S., Cho said.

The vast majority of hybrids sold around the world are currently produced in Japan.

Smaller components would also make the new hybrids more affordable and improve performance and fuel economy, while perhaps solving the primary problem afflicting the Prius -- Toyota's inability to build enough of the little cars to meet surging demand.

Sales of the Prius slipped 11% in the first quarter of the year because of production delays. Toyota says some of the delays were caused as it ramped up production of other hybrid models at the same plants were the Prius is built.

The demand shortfall hasn't hurt Toyota overall. In fact, it has resulted in strong sales of the company's newest hybrid -- the Camry Hybrid.

The San Jose Mercury News reports that California drivers, frustrating with long Prius waiting lists, are beginning to snap up Camry hybrids as they become available.

At Toyota of Sunnyvale, about 300 people are on the waiting list to get a Prius, creating a four- to six-month wait, owner Adam Simms said, while only about 40 are on the list for a Camry Hybrid, creating two- to three-month wait.

The Camry Hybrid gets 40 mpg in city driving and 38 mpg on the highway, according to its government fuel-economy label. It has a suggested starting price of $25,900.


source : consumeraffairs.com

rominl

iTrader: (4)

man, 1/4 of the current size, that's huge reduction!!! and with the extra space i am sure the car would be able to hold more stuff too (on top of reducing weight), what a win win situation!

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

if they can pull off the downsizing of components it only makes it even more viable for more lexus models possibly a hybrid IS where it would matter the most

XeroK00L

Whoa to make the new components just a quarter of the size of the current ones, that's a big claim. They will almost have to use some pretty exotic (and expensive) types of batteries to achieve that, so I very much doubt the claim that downsizing will mean lower costs even though it will lower the shipping cost.

Hopefully they'll prove me wrong and pull that off though. I'm prepared for a big surprise.

Trexus

Toyota is definitely leading the way of hybrid technology. I'm sure the 3G Prius will be much of an improvement compared to the 1G and 2G Prius. The same technologies can be carried over to the Lexus side. Total win/win situation...

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

it can spread to other industries as well, hybrid drivetrains really push battery development and electric motor development, might even see stronger longer lasting mobile device batteries in the future

UberNoob

ohhhh
thats what they need to do for the GS450H as well

after seeing the tiny trunk space in that, it turned me away from even thinking of buying one...

i think they will be using lithium-ion for the next generation of prius
or go more extreme, lithium-polymer
but that would be a bit too expensive

i read before that the new prius is suppose to get 113mpg???

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

they claim using the new compund battery they can have more total energy inside it and therefore use the electric motor far more often, even using ONLY electric power for 9-10 miles of normal driving, obviously this will make mileage skyrocket

Lexiss_sc430

iTrader: (2)

One easy way to reduce a lot of weight would be to convert the current batteries they use to the types in out cell phones (lithium battries)... that would dramatically reduce the size and weight of batteries needed...
They would just have to make sure the added cost does not out weigh the benefits..


-Tommy

GFerg

Sounds great. I hope the rumors about the next gen are true. By the looks of things they might achieve that 100mpg goal.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

indeed, that's amazing numbers. sometimes when i see news like this, it really gives me sooo many resaons to hold back and not get any new cars for now!

spwolf

1/4 of size is distant future (10 years?). Next Prius will use a lot of technology that has been improved in Camry Hybrid and GS450h.

Trexus

Competition can be a good thing. If Toyota sets a goal of trying to build a hybrid that can attain 100 mpg I'm sure Honda and Ford will try to build a hybrid that will match it as well. We will see what the future will bring...

I'm kinda curious on what's the difference between a lithium-ion and a lithium-polymer battery?

Nextourer

Note that 113mpg is in Imperial gallons AND using the Japanese 10-15 cycle. This means it's 94.25mpg US. The current Prius gets 83mpg US under the Japanese cycle so it's only a 10mpg improvement. (or ~5km/L)

The thing is that the battery location helps distribute the weight and make the hybrid less front-heavy. However, saving weight altogether sounds like a win-win situation anyway - better fuel economy, faster acceleration, shorter stopping distance, and a more balanced cornering capability.

It's rumoured that the next generation Prius is expected to be a PHEV or plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. This means the owner has the *option* of plugging in the vehicle at night IF they want to. It's not necessary but the option is there. The predicted range is 9 miles which is an improvement over the current 1-2 miles. I wonder how the EPA is going to calculate the official mileage lol.

Also, it will use Li-Ion battery and a German magazine claimed it will have a 15% more powerful electric motor and the European (I guess German?) official rating will drop from the current 4.5L/100km (52mpg) to 3.9L/100km (60mpg). Other rumours from other Toyota forums include a possible 1.8 litre engine (maybe the new Corolla's engine?) and a 0-60 time that's 1 second faster.