Toyota aims for hybrid dominance in 12 years

Toyota Motor Corp is “confident that by 2020 we’ll have hybrid models in each of our product lines”, said Justin Ward, advanced powertrain programme manager at the Toyota Technical Centre.

Toyota estimates its sales of more than one million hybrid vehicles have saved about 7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, Ward told a seminar in Traverse City, Michigan. “You can have a positive impact today through hybrids,” he said.

Toyota’s latest fuel cell vehicle - the FCH-ADD, for Fuel Cell Hybrid-Advanced - has a cruising range of more than 800km, double that of Toyota’s previous-generation model.

Toyota had set a goal of having the fuel cell function in temperatures as low as -15.6C. “It was far below that last winter” when the car “survived three freeze/thaw cycles” in cold-weather testing, Ward said.

He said Toyota has made “huge progress” in fuel cell stack durability, but “we’re not anywhere near where we need to be”.

The fuel cell stack is heavy, and costs are high, he said. And questions remain, such as where does that hydrogen come from? How do you store it and move it around?

Ward said that diesel engines, even with the coming Euro 5 and Euro 6 standards for nitrogen oxide reduction, are “not going to be as clean as” the Toyota Prius in terms of nitrogen oxide emissions. He also said hurdles remain with plug-in hybrids, an area where General Motors is placing a huge bet with its Chevrolet Volt.

Even if a plug-in hybrid gets its charge from carbon-neutral sources such as cellulosic ethanol and sunlight-based photovoltaic energy, he said other issues remain - including the cost and life of the batteries and the car’s range.

“Is 40 miles all you need?” he said. “Is it 20, 50, 200?” The debate often turns to a study that found that 70 per cent of commuters drive 40 miles or less a day, he said.

“That number looks fantastic, but you’re only offsetting about 35 per cent” of the total miles travelled and energy consumed, because covering those daily commutes doesn’t cover all the driving Americans do, such as weekend trips.

“We’re going to need other technologies that offset the other parts” of vehicle usage, he

said, citing a study by Simon Mui of the EPA which showed that if four million plug-ins recharge solely at night, that would take advantage of a significant dip in electric demand overnight.

But, Ward noted, the source of that nighttime electricity comes almost entirely from coal-burning plants. That reduces the positive impact on CO2 emissions from those vehicles.

“We have to understand the nature of where that energy is coming from.”

Share This