Toyota Launches EV Sub Brand…In China

California Toyota is discontinuing its EV program in favor of hydrogen fuel cells, but in China Toyota is launching the Leahead brand devoted to cheap electric cars. CarNewsChina reports that when it launches next year, the Leahead brand will hawk cheap electric cars to young buyers (just as we predicted earlier this year).

Toyota currently has two joint-partnerships in China, one with FAW and the other with Ghuangzhou, with Leahead being formered with the latter company. Toyota first hinted at the new brand last year at the Shanghai Auto Show with an unnamed concept car, and the Leahead brand will supposedly launch with an electric version of the Corolla EX in 2015. There are no other details of the brand except that its name is supposed to mean “Leap Ahead” in a nod to its electric roots.

When I hear “Leap Ahead” in reference to anything from China though, I think of Chairman Mao’s disastrous “Great Leap Forward” program wherein millions if people died through flawed national policies. Toyota’s new electric car brand is far more benign than that, but maybe not the name I would have gone with. The idea of a youth-oriented EV brand specifically for China is a good idea though, and perhaps Toyota should consider a similar revamp of Scion here in the US.

It seems Toyota hasn’t given up on EVs entirely, as long as there are government incentives on hand to encourage EV sales. With China predicted to be the biggest EV market in the world in just five years, investing in EVs is probably the right move…but what about that bullishness on the superiority of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles? Outside of Toyota’s home market, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have little support, and without that support a hydrogen fuel economy seems like little more than a dream.

Toyota Executive Puts Kibosh On Electric Cars

Toyota is about to pull the plug on electric cars. Production of its last EVs – the eQ electric minicar and RAV4 EV crossover – will be finished by the end of 2014, and there are no plans for any future Toyota full-size electric cars at the moment (though the Toyota i-Road three-wheeler is making headway as a rental). Recently, Mitsuhisa Kato, Toyota’s head of research and development, told Automotive News;

The cruising distance is so short for EVs, and the charging time is so long. At the current level of technology, somebody needs to invent a Nobel Prize-winning type battery.

He says today’s EVs need more batteries to offer the same driving range as a gasoline or diesel powered car. That in turn would increase the cost and charging time, leading to a “vicious cycle.”

Kato’s remarks came at the unveiling of Toyota’s hydrogen fuel cell powered car, the FCV, which is set to appear in showrooms in 2015. The Japanese auto industry as a whole is placing a huge bet on hydrogen being the fuel of choice in the future with automakers like Honda and Mazda also committing to hydrogen. At the same time, much of the rest of the automotive industry is pressing ahead to bring more electric cars to market. Somewhere down the line, there will be much weeping and wringing of hands in the board rooms of some of the world’s biggest car manufacturers. We just don’t know which ones yet.

Kato says if electrics turn out to be the way to go, Toyota has the technology already on the shelf and can ramp up production of EV’s whenever that “Nobel Prize winning battery” becomes available. In the meantime, no one is going to be buying fuel cell cars unless tens of thousands of hydrogen refueling facilities get built.

In the end, the key to the EV vs. fuel cell battle will be determined by infrastructure as much as technology.

Source: Toyota

The Electric Scion iQ Lives! (in an electric car-sharing program)

The electric Scion iQ is – finally! – roaming the streets of Pleasanton, California. After a long wait and several false starts, 30 of the tiny electric Scions assigned to the Dash program will be positioned at 15 sites, with two vehicles available for pick-up/drop-off at each location.

Believe me on this one, I’m more excited than you are. See, back when I first encountered Scion’s iQ in the flesh at the 2011 Chicago Auto Show, I was instantly smitten. The car was small, cleverly packaged, inexpensive, well-built, got great mileage, had room for four, and had some seriously high-spec (for the price) suspension and chassis bits. The car promised frugal fun in a cube-shaped face that seemed, to my eyes, much less goofy than the Smart and much more sincere than the Mini. When Toyota announced an electric iQ, I decided I had to have one. When they cut the roof off of another and fitted it with a multi-thousand-watt sound system I sang David Gray songs to it.

I like the little Scion iQ, is what I’m saying – and, when Toyota announced that they’d never sell the electric iQ that I’d had my heart set on … well, I bought a bike.

You can read more about the electric Scion iQ car-sharing scheme in the article, below, originally posted to Cleantechnica. Enjoy!

30 Scion iQ Electric Vehicle Fleet For Car-sharing Program (via Clean Technica)

Electric vehicle and Scion enthusiasts in the Pleasanton, CA area may rejoice. Thirty electric Scion iQs have been provided by Toyota to City Car Share for the Dash program in Pleasanton. They will be positioned at 15 sites, with two vehicles at each…

Sources | Photos: Cleantechnica.Scion iQ Electric

The electric Scion iQ is – finally! – roaming the streets of Pleasanton, California. After a long wait and several false starts, 30 of the tiny electric Scions assigned to the Dash program will be positioned at 15 sites, with two vehicles available for pick-up/drop-off at each location.

Believe me on this one, I’m more excited than you are. See, back when I first encountered Scion’s iQ in the flesh at the 2011 Chicago Auto Show, I was instantly smitten. The car was small, cleverly packaged, inexpensive, well-built, got great mileage, had room for four, and had some seriously high-spec (for the price) suspension and chassis bits. The car promised frugal fun in a cube-shaped face that seemed, to my eyes, much less goofy than the Smart and much more sincere than the Mini. When Toyota announced an electric iQ, I decided I had to have one. When they cut the roof off of another and fitted it with a multi-thousand-watt sound system I sang David Gray songs to it.

I like the little Scion iQ, is what I’m saying – and, when Toyota announced that they’d never sell the electric iQ that I’d had my heart set on … well, I bought a bike.

You can read more about the electric Scion iQ car-sharing scheme in the article, below, originally posted to Cleantechnica. Enjoy!

30 Scion iQ Electric Vehicle Fleet For Car-sharing Program (via Clean Technica)

Electric vehicle and Scion enthusiasts in the Pleasanton, CA area may rejoice. Thirty electric Scion iQs have been provided by Toyota to City Car Share for the Dash program in Pleasanton. They will be positioned at 15 sites, with two vehicles at each…

Sources | Photos: Cleantechnica.

Toyota Teases Hybrid-R Concept For Street And Track

Thanks to cars like the GT86/Scion FR-S and the record-setting P002 electric race car, Toyota has started to rekindle a passion for performance that helped them climb to the top of the sales charts. Coming next month is the Hybrid-R sports car concept  that is the product of those passions.

The only details that Toyota has thus far released is the Hybrid-R logo, and that the same (unspecified) technology found in the Toyota TS030 hybrid Le Mans racer will be in the concept. The Hybrid-R concept will be designed for the road and track, bringing racing technology to the streets.

The Hybrid-R won’t be unveiled until the Frankfurt Auto Show next month, and Toyota will probably dribble out a few details here and there. I doubt the Hybrid-R concept will get the TS030’s full hybrid drivetrain, which includes a 530 horsepower 3.4 liter V8 and a 300 horsepower hybrid system.

Then again, a 830 horsepower hybrid supercar would be a shot across the bow at fellow Japanese competitor Honda, which is rolling out a highly-anticipated Acura NSX hybrid supercar in 2015. Another, perhaps more obvious direction for this concept is as a prelude to the rumored return of the Toyota Supra as a performance hybrid. The use of performance hybrid tech may also end up as an option on the GT86/FR-S, so that’s another possibility as well.

Whatever Toyota pulls out of its hat, they have my attention.

Source: Toyota

FRANKFURT MOTOR SHOW FIRST NEWS: DEBUT OF NEW HYBRID-R CONCEPT

Toyota will showcase an exciting new concept for road and track at this year’s Frankfurt Motor Show, featuring Toyota Hybrid System-Racing (THS-R) technology.

THS-R technology has been used in the TS030, Toyota’s FIA World Endurance Championship car, which achieved second place at this year’s Le Mans 24 hours. More information on the concept will be available in the coming weeks.

Toyota’s press conference will begin at 12:45pm on first press day (10 September) in Hall 8.

Chicago 2013 – Toyota Avalon Hybrid Sets the Bar Pretty High (w/ video)

This is the new-for-2013 Toyota Avalon Hybrid. For me, the Avalon was the undisputed star of the show – and it changed the way this gear-head looks at cars in (what, to a gear-head, might seem like) a profound and fundamental way. Let me tell you about it.

See, at some point over the last 35 years, I decided that $48,000 was “the most any reasonable person should pay for a new car”. Granted, there’s plenty of things to pick apart in that statement. “Reasonable” is a bit ill-defined. “Should” is probably another word we’d want to define before really settling in to get this well and truly Correct (I mean, should you pay anything at all for a new car? Is all property theft? Should I even say “should”? Would “would” be better?). Problems abound, in other words, and I’m not going to defend the statement. It’s just my opinion, and (as the saying goes) opinions are like a**holes.

I don’t remember why I formed that opinion, but I’ve stuck with it for years. This past Wednesday, though, I was hanging out at Toyota Scion of Westmont before the Chicago Auto Show and happened to find myself in the shotgun seat of a new-for-2013 Toyota Avalon Hybrid.

“Hot damn,” I said, “I can’t believe how nice this interior is! How can people possibly justify spending all that money on a new Lexus when they can get this for … how much is this thing, anyway?”

$35,990.

I was floored. I was sitting inside a car not unlike the one in these pictures, surrounded in absolute quiet, sitting in buttery soft leather seats and gazing across gorgeous black wood and an instrument panel bustling with tight-fitting panels and dark woods. I loved the car. It is every bit as nice as any of the half-dozen Lexus models I’ve been in over the past year, and quite a bit nicer, roomier, and quieter than the GTRs, 911s, or BMWs I regularly find myself in.

Did I mention that the new Toyota Avalon hybrid gets 40 mpg? Seriously, if you absolutely must buy a new car and somehow convince yourself that you need something more than what this car has to offer, I think you’re probably the kind of person who thinks being called “selfish” or “petty” is some kind of compliment (despite skipping the long speeches in Atlas Shrugged).

That’s just my opinion, though. I could be wrong.

You can check out Toyota’s own 2013 Toyota Avalon Hybrid promo video, below, and some of the pictures from the Chicago Auto Show floor at bottom. Enjoy!

Toyota will launch electric iQ in green push

The Toyota / Scion iQ All-Electric Vehicle

Toyota Motor Company will launch an electric version of its iQ minicar in 2012, targeting urban commuters who drive short distances.

Toyota said the battery-powered iQ will be cheaper than rival electric cars such as the Mitsubishi i-MiEV or the Nissan Leaf. Both are larger than the 3+1-seat iQ.

Toyota did not specify a price range for the planned electric car. Prices for the iQ with a gasoline engine start at 12,900 euros (about $17,640) in Germany.

The battery powered iQ will run 105km (65 miles) on a single charge. It will launch in Europe, Japan and the United States. Sales in China are also being considered, the company said.

Toyota is developing the iQ in-house and is also working with luxury electric car maker Tesla Motors Inc. on an electric version of its RAV4 compact SUV.

At the Los Angeles auto show this week, a battery-powered RAV4 concept was unveiled that's planned for sale in the United States in 2012. The car has a range of 100 miles (162km) on a single charge.

The electric cars are part of a push by Toyota to boost its range of environmentally friendly vehicles that will include the introduction of 11 hybrids by the end of 2012, including all-new and redesigned models.

A Prius-based plug-in hybrid will also launch by early 2012 in Japan, the United States and Europe, with targeted sales of more than 50,000 units a year, priced at 3 million yen ($36,000) in Japan. The car can be plugged in to an electricity source to enable longer-distance driving using only electricity.

Toyota is also developing a sedan-type fuel-cell hybrid vehicle, with sales aimed to start in 2015 in Japan, the United States and Europe. The company said it is researching development of next-generation batteries with better performance than lithium-ion batteries currently used in electric cars.

"Such research is aimed to help bring about the revolutionary advances in battery performance that will be necessary for the broad adoption of electric-motor-propelled eco-cars," Toyota said in a statement.



Source: Automotive News