https://www.forbes.com/sites/billroberson/2019/06/20/why-is-there-no-all-electric-prius-toyotas-big-ev-miss/#336d2d3e1c34 Where Is The All-Electric Prius? Toyota's Big EV Miss Jun 20, 2019 Bill Roberson
[image https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5d0af67b142c50000a33787e/960x0.jpg Toyota Prius A well-traveled Toyota Prius hybrid, captured in the wild. Why hasn't Toyota taken the next logical step and made it a full-on electric car? PHOTO BY BILL ROBERSON https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5d0ad8534c687b00085a2525/960x0.jpg?fit=scale Toyota's "new" EV lineup from a press release includes six chiseled renders that may or may not ever see production. No model names or performance details were released. PHOTO COURTESY OF TOYOTA ] Toyota Prius A well-traveled Toyota Prius hybrid, captured in the wild. Why hasn't Toyota taken the next logical step and made it a full-on electric car? PHOTO BY BILL ROBERSON If there was ever a car that was - and is - primed and ready to go full EV, it's the Toyota Prius. The first truly popular hybrid and definitely the most iconic (and sometimes hated) "green car," it's still in production a tick over two decades later. Millions of them are still putting around spewing exhaust (albeit in small amounts) even though it's forward motion is aided and abetted by an electric powertrain. So where the heck is the all-electric Prius? Back in March, Road and Track took a closer look at this conundrum and came away with the conclusion, with an assist from Toyota's Gerald Killmann, vice president of research and development in Europe, that the carmaker's internal math indicated they could sell a boatload more (or several hundred boatloads more) hybrids than they ever could pure battery-powered electric cars, known as "battery electric vehicles" or BEVs in auto industry speak. Sure, we're looking at BEVs, Toyota seemed to say, but for now, please continue to buy and enjoy our many hybrids (and our hydrogen car). That approach has certainly seemed to make sense economically: Toyota absolutely can build a zillion trusty hybrids instead of a lesser volume of battery-intensive pure electric cars, thereby stretching its precious battery inventory - something that's beginning to show some strain in the U.S. and across the auto industry. And so far, it has been a good plan: Millions of eco-minded drivers are satisfied with 50mpg or better, and with that little engine on board, there's no range anxiety. And then, in the space of about the last three months, everything seemed to changed. As calendars turned to June, word came that Toyota had (ahem) perhaps miscalculated the rapidly growing BEV market and had decided to move it's back-burnered all-electric car plans up a bit - by, say, five years, from 2025 to 2020. As in, to right now. Toyota then quietly showed off a slate of new machines that could best be described as hopeful renders; cars, SUVs, minivans and so forth (but no trucks!!) that have a new "faceted" design and a modular construction plan that should save money on the back end. One model that seems to be a bit closer to market is the C-HR, an all-electric crossover shown in China several weeks back. But the C-HR isn't a Prius, and it's difficult to understand why Toyota has not leveraged the enormous brand equity of the world's best-known hybrid to land a giant, immediate footprint in the EV space. It's not like electrical powertrains are a new technology for Toyota; they helped invent the whole EV system of battery propulsion. Would a Prius EV not be a home run, or at least a solid triple? What better branded eco-vehicle is out there to compete with a Model 3? Or a Bolt? Or a Fiat 500e? How myopic on the future of transportation is the Toyota leadership that they did not see the future written for them by car companies like Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, or even stodgy Chevrolet, all of whom have clearly said EVs are the future, have dozens of models in the pipeline and are working on EV infrastructure and so on. Wasn't nearly half a million pre-orders for the snub-nosed Tesla Model 3 a rather bright signal flare? What about the tsunami of EV production in China? And still they said: Hybrids and hydrogen. I get it: We're still in the early stages of the EV era. Multiple futures could still play out, including versions filled with BEVs, hybrids, hydrogen fuel-cell machines and legacy gas-burners. But time and tide wait for no one, and neither does the inexorable and exponential pace of technology. Petrol cars are rolling dinosaurs and everyone knows it; hydrogen cars are neat but will never be able to compete with BEVs in terms of ultimate simplicity and infrastructure buildout unless some technological miracle takes place where hydrogen can flow through copper wire. Toyota, father of the trusty Prius, is missing a massive opportunity by not taking on Tesla - or even GM - by bringing a fully electric car with a familiar face to the millions of people who already often drive electric (at least part of the time) in a car they love, often with a quiet passion. And don't even get me started on how GM missed the boat on the EV2. [© forbes.com] [dated] https://priuschat.com/threads/all-electric-prius.85924/ ALL-Electric Prius + (tmc still pushing hevs) https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/toyoto-wins-24-hours-of-le-mans-race-with-hybrid-electric-vehicle/1615068/ Toyota wins 24 Hours of Le Mans race with hybrid electric vehicle June 22, 2019 The self-charging hybrid electric vehicle, the TS050 driven at the endurance event this year, has been further improved with a 1,000 bhp hybrid electric ... ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_TS050_Hybrid The Toyota TS050 Hybrid is a racing car developed for the 2016 Le Mans Prototype rules in the FIA World Endurance Championship. The car is the direct successor to the Toyota TS040 Hybrid ... For EVLN EV-newswire posts use: http://evdl.org/archive/ {brucedp.neocities.org} -- Sent from: http://electric-vehicle-discussion-list.413529.n4.nabble.com/ _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
