Plug-in hybrid, electric car on Toyota agenda

Toyota is getting back in the electric vehicle game.

The Japanese automaker said this week it intends to develop a small all-electric car for sale early in the next decade. The announcement by President Katsuaki Watanabe is the first indication that Toyota plans to revisit an area of automotive technology that it dabbled in a few years back in the Golden State.

During California’s abortive effort to encourage development of electric cars, Toyota leased electric versions of its RAV-4 sport utility vehicle. Some of those are still on the road, and some electric-vehicle advocates have been grousing that Toyota, the industry leader in sales of fuel-efficient gas-electric hybrids, should resurrect its earlier electric-only efforts.

Other big automakers, such as Nissan and Mitsubishi, have also announced plans for electric vehicles.  And several smaller companies, such as Bay Area-based Tesla Motors, are also developing electric cars or light trucks.

Toyota didn’t release any details of what its proposed electric car will look like or how much it will cost. But spokesman John Hanson said they will be sold to the general public.

That is decidedly not the case with Toyota’s highly anticipated plug-in hybrid, which operates like a gas-electric hybrid but also has a short electric-only range and more powerful batteries that can be recharged overnight through a household outlet.

Toyota has said early versions of that vehicle — widely expected to be based on the successful Prius hybrid — initially would be leased only to fleet operators such as corporations and municipalities.

That plan hasn’t changed. But Watanabe said Toyota now plans to deliver the first of those plug-in hybrids in late 2009 rather than in 2010 as previously announced — indicating that the automaker and Matsushita, its battery-development partner, have made progress in perfecting mass-production techniques for the tricky lithium-ion batteries that will power the plug-in vehicles.

Meanwhile, General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz told reporters this week that GM doesn’t consider itself to be in a race with Toyota because its entry in the plug-in sweepstakes, the Chevy Volt, is a completely different (and, he hinted, better) design.

While the Toyota plug-in is expected to have an all-electric range of not much more than 10 miles, Lutz repeated his earlier contention that the Volt’s lithium-ion technology will give it an electric-only range of 40 to 50 miles.

Once these vehicles exceed their all-electric ranges, it’s expected that the Toyota will shift to conventional gas-electric hybrid operation, while the Volt will still be powered by its electric motor and use a gasoline engine to recharge the depleted batteries.

“It’s wonderful that Toyota is working on this,” Lutz said, according to the Associated Press. “If they have test fleets out next year, that’s great. But it’s not the same thing as a Chevy Volt, which is not a plug-in hybrid.”

Several automakers have some sort of plug-in vehicle in the works. Felix Kramer, founder of CalCars.org, a Palo Alto-based advocacy group, thinks the movement will spread.

"It looks like between 2010 and 2012, every major car maker is going to have something that plugs in," he said.

GM expects to have the Volt in dealer showrooms by late 2010, although Lutz said production versions will be driving in large test fleets late next year.

Toyota’s insistence on providing the first wave of its plug-in vehicles only to fleet users (in what will essentially be a large-scale road-test of the plug-in technology) grates on advocates who can’t wait to get their hands on a plug-in car.

One Northern California Toyota dealer is actually taking $500 deposits to get on a waiting list for the upcoming plug-in, even though the car isn't even on the delivery schedule yet. So far, they’ve gotten about 30 folks to pay the deposit, which is refundable at any time should the depositor tire of waiting for a car with no delivery date.

“The only reason we’re doing this is because the demand in our area is so enormous that we have to do something to satisfy our customers” who have been clamoring for the plug-in hybrid, said Eric Doebert, business development manager at Magnussen’s Toyota of Palo Alto. “Perhaps out efforts here will show Toyota what their market looks like.”

Hanson said Toyota doesn’t “have anything against him taking orders for future products. But ‘future’ is the key word here.”

- Martin Zimmerman

Photo of Katsuaki Watanabe of Toyota (top) by Associated Press; photo of Bob Lutz of General Motors (bottom) from GM. 

Comments

[dave]

Its about time!

[DJB]

I'll believe all this when I see it on the road. Talk is cheap.

[Anton]

Any American who purchases a Toyota is a traitor to the U.S. Economy, and you're forcing thousands of American jobs to go elsewhere.

GM invented the Chevy Volt, and then what happens?
BOOM! Nissan, Toyota, and Mitsbuishi copy it and try to make a replica of it.

The Japanese have never invented ANYTHING.
They copy our cars, cell phones, TVs and make Billions from it.

It's time to stand up to them, and BE AMERICAN, and DRIVE AMERICAN!!

If quality is your concern, the 2008 & 2009 GM/FORD/CHRYSLER cars have much better MPG, look, and according to J.D. Power & Associates, their also more dependable.

Don't be a traitor.. buy an American car!! : - )

[Phil]

GM destroyed the electric car, Toyota ran with a design plan all the experts said would fail.

well 1M cars later who's the winner, Toyota never stole anything GM were just to stupid to continue the fight. Now there is $$$ in the kitty and fuel is through the roof all of a sudden they clamour to get back in the race.

Regardless of what you buy, you support a cleaner environment - it's good to have competition that's how we become more innovative.

If you want to support the USA buy USA clean cars - if you just want a clean car just buy what suits your needs - simple really, after all we are now a global economy and only ignorant fools would ignore that fact.

[king]

"The Japanese have never invented ANYTHING.
They copy our cars, cell phones, TVs and make Billions from it."

come on now... if you've been to japan you will see that they are years ahead of the technology we see here in US... what you see now in japan is what what we see here in 5 years time...

I guess we have to stop buying anything walmart sells becuase everything there is not made in US of A

[bnther]

A traitor?!

Let's get one thing straight here. GM had an all electric car called the EV-1 and 80mpg hybrid called the Precept that were both available more than 10 years ago! If anything, American Automotive companies have betrayed us by maintaining the status quo strictly for the benefit of Big Oil.

[Think before Speaking]

Traitor? Do you even know where your car was made?

Just because it says "Ford" or "Chevy" doesn't mean it was made in the USA. As a matter of fact, it probably wasn't. It was probably made in Brazil.

Look on the inside of your driver's side door. You'll see a little sticker there that says what country the majority of the parts and labor are from that went in to your car (among other info). Japanese car makers actually did a lot to bring car manufacturing back to the United States while your so called "American" car makers were closing plants and firing workers in droves.

Way to fall prey to marketing.

[Goh LP]

abc

[Plasmadust]

Traitor??? Are you kidding me!!!!
The ONLY reason GM is 300+ billion upside down (and in at least my opinion, can never recover from such a heavy debt) is because THEY DO NOT BUILD WHAT CONSUMERS BUY.
The 80 years of complacency in what an automobile is has not been washed out by the reality that this is a market driven economy, even is the sacred cow realm of cars that GM basically dictated for so many years.
Good bye and good riddance.

[Jeff]

Once gas is taking more and more of your income, you won't care who's produce drags your butt to work.
If it doesn't use gas and has very low maintenance like all EVs, you will love it.
Vote for people that will make this happen way sooner than later or we are in for a very sorry time.
We need to electrify or cars and trucks, ASAP.
Tell car dealers, No plug, No Deal!

[Ron Wagner]

U.S. automakers are seeking federal loans to bail them out. This is due to their course of only making vehicles that are maximally profitable for them. G.M. deserves credit for the Aveo, but they refuse to put air conditioning in their base model. At least for a fair price.

I hope that congress demands that the loans be used only for high mpg vehicle development and production.

[Ron Wagner]

Make it clear to the automakers and dealers that you are not going to buy another vehicle until it is a plug in.

[sandiegodan]

FOOLS!

You extol the virtues of globalization, and whine like a little girl about "patriotism"! What a tool!

Let GM fail. I enjoy my Prius, and with the tax credits, I bought it new for about $18,000. Where's my Chevy Volt? Where's my EV-1? Where's my Probe?

Pshaw. America wants to sell it's Coca Cola in any market, but whines like two little girls when science, technology and marketing best what we have to offer. Complacency won't cut it. Protectionism won't cut it. You think Americans are going to buy a $40,000 GM car versus a vastly better Toyota? Dream on.

This is it, America. If you let these bozos continue to take their huge golden parachutes and obscene bonuses, you get what you deserve.

Gas at $4/gallon? How you like GM now? How's that Hummer, babies? "But gee, we didn't think we'd ever have to pay so much for gasoline, sir!"

Man up, America. The man in the suit has just bought a new car on the profits he made on your dreams.

Any questions?

.

[green kitty]

I cannot wait to get a plug in car....no matter who makes it. Let's just work together to solve this problem....it is the world's problem...not just the US's.

[Nikerin]

Anton,

Thanks for your advice! (sarcasm)...you want us to buy 2009 model and beyond American cars...lol...the only catch is the new American car designs are all copied from Japanese designs of yesteryear or are directly designed by imported foreign engineers and designers...haha

Pull your head out of your butt and see: the 2008 Buick Enclave looks like a cross between a 2001 Lexus RX and a 2003 Nissan Murano.

I will agree that the Americans are getting better by copying Japanese designs. But I will stand for principle: where were these car manufacturers when we needed them the most to make reliable and good-looking cars for us instead of making the boxy, bulky yank tanks for ages?