Was Exxon The Father Of The Toyota Prius Hybrid?

It started with the first Arab oil embargo in 1973. Suddenly, America didn’t have access to cheap gasoline any more and the term “gas guzzler” first began appearing in news reports. Signs that said “NO GAS” became a regular part of the landscape as drivers fought to get a few precious drops of gasoline. The federal government imposed the first ever fuel economy standards on automakes. From then on, ads for new cars would focus on miles per gallon instead of cubic inches.

After that first oil embargo, Exxon created a research division under the umbrella of its venture capital group known as Exxon Enterprises, Inc, or EEI. The goal was to find an alternative to the traditional gasoline engine. For a brief moment in time, Exxon — soon to become the largest oil company in history — was at the forefront of automotive research. Its goal was to create the world’s first hybrid car, a vehicle that would couple an electric motor with a small gasoline engine to get fuel economy unheard of until that time.

The goal was to enable a large American car like the Chrysler Cordoba (older readers will remember it as the car that feartured “fine Corinthian leather) to get 27 miles per gallon — approximately double what the regular production car was capable of.

New Technology Needed

But before a hybrid could become a reality, it needed a battery and a newfangled gizmo called an inverter. Exxon became a leader in lithium ion battery research. That quest formed the foundation for the batteries that powered the first portable digital devices like the iPhone.

Today, lithium ion battery cells are the basis for almost every hybrid and electric car in the world, including the Tesla Model S. Breakthroughs in chemistry and manufacturing techniques have made today’s lithium ion batteries possible, but the basic research that started it all can largely be traced back to the pioneering work done at Exxon.

The AC Motor Idea

The automotive team at Exxon, called ELVECS, soon decided to concentrate on AC motors for their proposed hybrid powertrain because they are smaller and lighter than DC motors. They are also significantly less expensive to manufacture. The biggest issue was that inverter thing. A battery stores electricity as direct current. The motors the team wanted to use required alternating current. The inverter is the device that converts DC to AC.

In November 1976, ELVECS hired Richard Baker, a former MIT electronics researcher, aa a full-time consultant. Baker had developed an alternating current synthesizer, or ACS, that could converted DC to AC. Equally important, it could vary the frequency and voltage of electricity to change the speed of the electric motor. Baker had invented the electronic equivalent of the accelerator pedal.

The Exxon automotive team (L-R John Corcoran, David McCalvin, Luciano Forte and Bernard Dennison) stands in front of the Toyota Cressida that was delivered to Japan. (Courtesy: Keith Dennison)

Other labs had built similar devices, called variable speed drives,  but they were too large, inefficient and expensive to be practical. Baker’s inverter was small enough to fit in a car’s trunk. Today, inverters are the size of a glove box, but in the 70’s, anything small enough to fit in the trunk was thought of as “compact.”

Building The First Hybrid

The team realized that the research on lithium ion batteries was going to take years to bear fruit. They wanted to get their prototype on the road as soon as possible so they could pitch it to various car companies. That’s when they outfitted a Chrysler Cordoba with their rudimentary hybrid powertrain plus 10 conventional lead acid batteries and Baker’s inverter. The car averaged 27 miles a gallon, which just happened to be the target the EPA had set for 1985 model year cars.

The powertrain the team came up with included a 50 horsepower diesel engine from Volkswagen and a 100 horsepower AC electric motor normally used in aircraft. It was one of the earliest uses of an AC motor in an automotive application.  “We were young and naïve for the most part. We sort of didn’t know what we didn’t know,” say Kevin White, a member of the team.

Pitching The Hybrid To Detroit

At that time, the Big Three in Detroit were focused on meeting fuel economy targets by building smaller cars. Ford had its Falcon, Chevrolet had the Chevette, and Chrysler had the forgettable Alpine. The Exxon team put together a brochure for the car companies with the bold title, “Detroit, your future can be both as big and as small as America wants it to be.” and set off in search of customers.

Interest from the car companies was tepid at best. Detroit suffered from what was known as “Not Invented Here” syndrome. Each of the Big  3 had nothing but disdain for any ideas that didn’t come from within their hermetically sealed fiefdoms. The Exxon team found little interest from the American car industry.

Enter Toyota

But they did from Toyota. “We discussed back and forth with Toyota what they wanted to do,” says team member John Corcoran. Toyota wasn’t that interested in gas mileage at at the time, he says. Their focus was on driveability. “We kept talking about fuel economy but Toyota wasn’t interested in that yet. They felt that problem would get resolved. They were more interested in whether it would drive the same as a regular car.”

In autumn 1979, Toyota and Exxon signed a joint technology agreement. A small group of engineers from Toyota’s research facility in Susono, Japan visited the Exxon Enterprises automotive group in New Jersey to see the Cordoba. Toyota decided to have Exxon outfit a Cressida sedan with the new technology. In early 1980, a white Cressida arrived in New Jersey where the Exxon automotive team installed, tested and refined its hybrid technology over more than 18 months.

A Hybrid Goes To Japan

In September 1981, Corcoran and the team delivered the gas-electric hybrid to the Toyota research facility in Susono, Japan. They spent two weeks installing and testing the Cressida’s hybrid system. Their Toyota counterparts seemed pleased. The project the two companies had embarked on nearly three years earlier produced the roomy, driveable hybrid that Toyota was looking for.

Toyota began selling its Prius hybrid 16 years later. It was developed in part by a team in Susono and equipped with a gasoline engine and a 40 horsepower AC motor. “We shouldn’t overstate Exxon’s role in hybrid vehicles in the long term,” says Corcoran. “But if we planted any seed at all with anyone, it was that the electric motor in a hybrid could be an AC motor.”

Exxon As Innovator

For a while, Exxon was one of the leading technology innovators in the world. But as time went along, oil prices declined and the senior management of the company elected to shut down any activities that did not have to do with pumping and selling oil. Today, the company is accused of deliberately lying about what it knew about carbon emissions and climate change 40 years ago.

But for those decisions in the boardroom, Exxon could have been then what Tesla Motors is today — a vibrant, exciting place to work and a company at the cutting edge of change in the world of transportation. Exxon chose to put profits ahead of people, a decision that could come back to haunt it as it faces civil and criminal action actions in the courts.

Today, John Corcoran drives a Toyota Prius, a car he may have helped to create 40 years ago. “The gates of history turn on tiny hinges,” they say. Corcoran’s team may have been one of those hinges.

Source: Inside Climate News     Photo credit: National Archives

Toyota Prius May Switch To Plug-In Hybrid Technology Shortly

The Toyota Prius is the gold standard when it comes to fuel economy. The new Prius in Eco trim is capable of going up to 58 miles on a gallon of gas. That would have been unthinkable before Toyota married its hybrid technology to the internal combustion engine. The problem for Toyota is that it has painted itself into a corner. Improving on the Prius with its iconic Synergy Drive will be a tall order. It’s easy to make a Belchfire 5000 with a V-8 engine get 10% better gas mileage, but it’s a whole lot tougher to make a current generation Prius 10% more efficient. Nevertheless, people expect continuous improvements. What’s a poor car company to do?

According to Shoichi Kaneko, assistant chief engineer for the Prius Prime, creating the next generation Prius will be a difficult challenge. Because Toyota wants to lead the way in transitioning to a fossil fuel free transportation model, just making a better standard hybrid powertrain might not be enough. “Ultimately, PHEV may be the way to go,” Kaneko says.

Back in 2013, Toyota’s managing officer, Satoshi Ogiso, told the press, “To beat your own record becomes very difficult.” To get the current car to where it is today took a lot of small improvements. The engine is the most efficient production internal combustion engine ever built. Engineers took a little weight out here and massaged the sheet metal to get a tiny aerodynamic gain there. Now to get the next generation car up to 60 mpg or more will be incredibly difficult.

That’s why the company is thinking it may need to make plug-in hybrid technology the foundation of the 5th generation Prius when the time comes for it to debut. Making a plug-in hybrid powertrain standard equipment would allow Toyota to get to that next level.  It would move the brand forward while keeping the Prius relevant.

The new Prius Prime plug-in hybrid is the proof of concept car for Toyota’s future plans. Kaneko says Toyota poured a lot of resources into making the Prime the best Prius possible. Part of that is the addition of a new double wishbone rear suspension to improve ride and handling over the old beam axle. If the Prius Prime struggles in the marketplace, that could force Toyota to reconsider its plug-in hybrid strategy.

That would be unfortunate. Purist bemoan plug-ins as a stop gap measure, but it seems clear they will be an important part of the electric car revolution, at least for the next decade or so. If the Prius Prime has a lackluster sales performance, it will probably have more to do with its polarizing styling than its plug-in hybrid powertrain. The new car, with its multitude of slashes and creases, and its ungainly front and rear treatments, is unlikely to make anyone’s Top 10 Car Designs list.

Toyota Aims High For Prius Prime, Expects 60,000 Sales

The first version of the Toyota’s plug-in hybrid Prius was “a failure,” says Koji Toyoshima, the chief engineer for the car. But he fully expects thing to turn around when the Prius Prime, the second generation Prius plug-in hybrid, goes on sale later this year.

Known as Prius Prime in the US and Prius PHV in other markets, Toyoshima says his company is targeting sales of 60,000 cars a year. That is more than the prior model sold in in the 3+ years it was on the market. Half of those sales are expected in the North American market and the other half in Japan. The company expects only a few will be sold in Europe.

Getting to 60,000 sales annually is a must for the upcoming Prime, says Toyoshima. “Going forward, there will be much broader competition in plug-in hybrids,” he says. “We have to sell this much. Otherwise, we will not be able to win in the next round.”

The Toyota Prius Prime will face stiff competition from new models coming to market from Honda and Hyundai. A plug-in hybrid version of the Clarity will arrive sometime next year as well as a similar car based on the Ioniq chassis. In addition, the Chevy Volt and Hyundai Sonata PHEV are also in the mix. A host of offerings from Germany will be arriving soon as well.

Toyota targeted three areas of improvement for the second generation Prius Prime plug-in hybrid:

1. Longer electric only cruising range.

2. Clearer differentiation from the standard Prius.

3. Easier battery recharging.

The new car will have 22 miles of electric only range, double that of the old car but less than half what the Chevy Volt offers. Toyoshima says Toyota carefully struck a careful balance between electric only range and overall fuel economy. Adding batteries would boost range but also increase the weight of the car, hurting fuel economy. More batteries would also sacrifice cabin and cargo space, he added.

The new Prius PHEV can reach speeds up to 84 mph on the electric motor alone. In the first generation car, the gasoline engine kicked in whenever the car was travelling at 62 miles per hour or more. That will be useful for people who commute short distances on the highway to complete their trip using electric power alone.

The new Prius Prime will also be more visually distinct from its traditional hybrid cousin. It will get a different headlight treatment, tail lights that are set further apart, and an optional tablet sized touchscreen on the inside. It will also offer a rooftop solar panel to help recharge the battery and extend range. That option will not be available at first on cars sold in the US because the panel does not yet meet US rollover crash standards.

Will the changes be enough to reinvigorate Prius PHEV sales? Toyota needs this car to help it meet ever tightening fuel economy and emissions standards. It has invested a lot of time and effort in making the new car more appealing to shoppers. We won’t know for about a year whether all that hard work will pay off for Toyota.

Source: Automotive News