Current costs of batteries for EVs is between $1000 and $1200 per kwh.
Rav4 EV has "mid 30's" kwh.

Even at 1/3 of the cost, it is $10-$14k just for batteries alone. I read somewhere that Chevy hopes to have Volt batteries cost around $600 by the time they are made in quantities and car manufacturer backed battery group hopes for $400's in 2015.

So you can see how much of cost these batteries are. Not to mention issue of lithium ore and how China just banned the exports so you have to refine it there.

Toyota have invested in 2 JV's with ore mining companies to produce lithium ore by 2012-2013.

 

The Volt and Leaf are in trouble with pricing alone.

Both also don't have the street-cred of a Prius, just because of the name, even if the electric/gas combo is a first for Toyota...

 

yeah, thats because Prius can use 3x smaller batteries than Volt, plus they use batteries of their own production, in their own factories, from their own research, which is a lot cheaper than everyone else paying 3rd party supplier for everything.

 

don't forget the Prius PHV will also be eligible for a $2500 tax credit....(like the Volt and Leaf, but $7500).

 

toyota just announced setting up of lithium ion batter production in two of their battery factories in japan, with 100,000 capacity per year in 2011.

http://www.automatedtrader.net/real-...-begin-lithium

 

Good news, although according to the report the Li-ion batteries will only be used in Toyota's plug-in hybrids. Hope they'll gradually switch their regular hybrids to it soon too.

 

^^^ Toyota has said they don't feel they are durable enough on their own for hybrids.

 

We'll see. Not yet, but I think they're close to being green-lighted for production Toyota hybrids.

The Prius plug-in uses 3 lithium ion battery packs, and from Toyota's own words, they are built to last the life of the vehicle. This is the same as the Ni-MH batteries used in current Toyota hybrids. Prius plug-in production model doesn't arrive until 2012, and I think in 2012 we will see other Toyota hybrids start to move to li-ion batteries.

 

thing is, you dont get much from moving to lion for hybrids... you save around 20kg which is not much but you also have much bigger costs of batteries.

this is why toyota, honda, ford are still using nimh for hybrids... there are not cost competitive yet (lion).

now for plugins, you need a lot of batteries and nimh is not only too heavy, but there is patent on large nimh batteries owned by one of the large petrol corporations who doesnt want to license it out

 

Yes you're right. I think once production of li-ion batteries is ready on a very high scale, Toyota will slowly move to li-ion batteries in their vehicles, once economies of scale come fully into play and the batteries are cost-competitive with Ni-MH batteries.

Also Toyota might learn a thing or two in terms of reducing battery costs from Tesla.