Toyota tests plug-in hybrid car
Toyota Motor Corp. said Wednesday it has developed a plug-in hybrid vehicle for public road tests in Japan and plans tests for the U.S. and Europe.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19952006/

 

Actually, I'm surprised it took them so long to test it. All they need is higher capacity batteries and simple charger, since everything else is the same. I think some Prius owners are already working on such cars, but I think the biggest problem for them is programming the computers which are proprietary with very little info publicly available, but that shouldn't be a problem for Toyota engineers. Either way, plug-in hybrid will be great for people with short commute, but it won't do much on longer distance driving and it actually could lower efficiency due to higher weight. I bet in the future, you'll have option of ordering different capacity battery, just like you have option now for V6 or I4.

 

The biggest problem is dealing with the potential of idiots. All large corporations have to assume that the person that will buy their product is an idiot.

So yeah while there are several people who can modify it and run it, you have to be aware that there are people that will thwart Toyota's efforts and will find any means of suing... tis the sad reality.

 

I'm thinking that until some break through battery technology is discovered that plug-ins can not go main stream. My guess is that there will be a small niche market for them due to the fact that extra batteries will, I'm only guessing, severely limit the size of the trunk as well as add excess weight to the car.

Trust me, I'd be the first one in line if they can pull it off and maintain reasonable usable space, but I'm skeptical they can go mainstream on the plugin without a battery revolution.

Any post suggesting a more optimistic outlook will serve to make me happy.

 

Well, first of all our cars use only something like 30 % of full capacity, the batteries are never discharged bellow 50-60% (not sure of exact number) and never go above 90% so our 1.5 - 2 mile range could be increased to about 5-6 miles if full, 100% charge/discharge was used. Lithium batteries have somewhere close to twice the capacity of NIMH (per weight) that would give 10-12 miles and if Toyota lowered the weight somewhere (plastic body panels etc.) and utilize the space better by using few smaller packs instead of one big, they could probably squeeze another set of batteries, again doubling the capacity to about 20-24 miles. A lot of people, especially commuters drive less than that to work and they could charge the car at work to get full range on the way home. The biggest problem in this scenario would be about 1000 full charge/discharge cycles current batteries can survive before failing (Toyota claims using 30% charge/discharge increases number of cycles to as much as 10,000 and that's why it is used in Prius and TCH). If the battery packs were less expensive, lets say $1000, instead of 3-4k, I could see myself buying new pack every two years since I would probably save more than that on gas. In other words we don't really need some kind of revolutionary discovery, we just need some really good incentive to build/buy such cars if we could push current tech to the limits and keep prices in check.

 

That is odd. My typical trip involves a highway section sandwiched between suburban roads. My mileage is greatest when I can go on EV mode only for as long as possible on the suburban roads, but that means the battery is drained to a rather low level. I am seeing a consistent draw down to 20-25% at the end of every trip.

My commute is 50 mile roundtrip. I do not believe adding additional battery pack is an economically viable option for the current hybrids. A car would have to be designed from top-down to do a 50 mile roundtrip on EV only. The closest I know is the volt.

On the other hand, I would like for Toyota to provide a "retrofit" plugin to the current hybrids that will keep the charge on the existing pack to the optimal level and keep all engine part warm enough so that I can go on EV immediately at the start of the day as oppose to 5 mins later.

Regarding your comment on replacing battery, I just dont see your reasoning. Why woudl you replace it and for how much gain in mpg? Also,doesn't Toyota cover it for 8 yr?

 

I don't think you understand, when the gauge on your dashboard or Nav system shows the batteries are empty, they are not, but are at 60 % of full charge, when they show full, they're at 90%. Batteries are under computer control and computer decides at what voltage level , what charge level to show and it doesn't tell the truth.
If you were going to reprogram TCH computer to allow the battery full charge/discharge cycle, you would loose Toyota warranty and the batteries would never last 10 years, they would last maybe 2 years but they would give you around 3 times the range you have now, therefore you would have to replace them much more often. Now, if your commute was less than 6 miles and you could get a charger to top off the battery at home and work, then in theory at least, you would not need ICE to run at all (you would need to also reprogram computer to not start the ICE unless battery is low, even if the engine was cold). In other words, just reprogramming the computer and adding simple charger, you could make you Camry Hybrid plug-in hybrid with 5 mile electric range. Of course in your 50 mile commute case and my 30 mile, we wouldn't have many benefits. On the other hand many people on this board have a lot of very short trips and that kills their MPG right now, making above mentioned changes to the car they could stop using gas altogether. From technical point of view, changing current Camry into plug-in Camry would be trivial, I could probably do it with off the shelf parts, it's the computer reprogramming required to extend the range and keeping the ICE shutdown, would be very difficult for somebody outside of Toyota. I hope this is more clear.

 

IIRC, there are one or two companies that make a retro-fit kit for the prius that turns it into a phev (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle). The AER (all electric range) is reportedly 30 miles or so, in empirical testing, but limiting speed to 34 mph. Here is the link for those interested, no affiliation:

http://www.edrivesystems.com/faq.html

What bugs me about some of these folks doing the R&D is that they report an mpg increase as up to 500 mpg as possible. They don't take into account the cost of electricity to charge the battery. They could just as easily claim one billion mpg by their way of thinking.

 

The geometry of the Prius and TCH limit pure EV mode to about 40/44 mph respectively. So some engineering of the PSD/MG(s)/ICE will be required to permit pure EV mode at highway speeds. I'll leave that discussion to those more technically versed than myself.

 

2 prius PHEV from Toyota tested by UCs:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...AGJPR75VB1.DTL

AER: 7 miles.