After almost three years of testing, Toyota in August ended road tests of 126 Prius hybrid sedans in the U.S., Japan and Europe that began in 2006, a company spokesperson said. The objective of the evaluations was to determine the viability of lithium-ion batteries instead of the nickel-metal hydride batteries presently in the Prius and other Toyota vehicles.
While Toyota’s lithium version performed well and gave “small” fuel economy gains due to the lighter weight of the lithium-ion packs, nickel is favored for conventional, mass-market hybrids for its cost, said Kazuo Tojima, the carmaker’s senior staff engineer for batteries.
“We now know that a lithium-ion battery can work; that’s not really the question,” he said. “Cost is critical, and we still don’t know enough about long-term durability.”
Toyota has sold more than two million hybrid cars and light trucks worldwide since introducing the Prius in Japan in 1997, almost all using nickel.
This year, Toyota will begin delivering test fleets in the U.S., Japan and Europe consisting of plug-in Priuses that can run 12 miles (19 kilometers) solely on lithium-ion battery power after charging at an electrical outlet. The car is being shown this week at the Frankfurt Motor Show.
The company also plans to sell a small electric car for urban commuters, powered solely by lithium packs, by 2012.
Nissan Motor Co. will begin offering battery-electric Leaf compact cars next year, which the Yokohama-based company says will travel 100 miles on a fully charged lithium pack. Mitsubishi Motors Corp. is selling in Japan the i-MiEV, a 4.6 million yen ($51,000) electric minicar that also travels as far as 100 miles using only lithium-ion batteries.
Toyota doesn’t expect battery-powered cars to succeed in the mass market until 2020 because batteries are too costly and capacity limits their range.
“Electric vehicles of today are less costly than in 1990s, but if you compare them with the other vehicles out there they are still too expensive,” Executive Vice President Takeshi Uchiyamada said today at news conference at the Frankfurt show. “Unless there is a very big breakthrough in battery costs I don’t think electric vehicles can take a large market share.”
Comments