New Toyota Hybrid
Plugging into affordability
Toyota plans to start selling plug-in hybrid
|
 |
 "A man drives a Toyota Motor Corp.’s Prius Plug-in Hybrid during a test drive event at a Toyota facility in Tokyo, Japan, on Monday. (Koji Sasahara / AP)</p>")
 "A man drives a Toyota Motor Corp.’s Prius Plug-in Hybrid during a test drive event at a Toyota facility in Tokyo, Japan, on Monday. (Koji Sasahara / AP)</p>")
TOKYO
— Toyota showed its new plug-in hybrid Monday, available for leasing
this month in Japan, the U.S. and Europe, and promised the green
vehicle for sale to regular consumers by 2011 at an “affordable” price.
The plug-in Prius is the first from Toyota Motor Corp. packed with a
more powerful battery called lithium-ion that’s different from the
batteries used in Prius hybrids on roads today. A plug-in is even
friendlier to the environment than the regular Prius because it travels
longer as an electric vehicle.
Toyota leads rivals in hybrids, especially in Japan, where government incentives have made the Prius a top-seller for months.
About 600 of the vehicles will be introduced in Japan, the U.S. and
Europe — 230 in Japan, 150 in the U.S. and 200 in Europe — over the
first half of 2010 starting this month, the company said. The customers
are businesses and governments. One hundred are going to the city of
Strasbourg, France.
Toyota’s plug-in travels 23.4 kilometres as an electric vehicle on a
single charge, and gets 57 kilometres a litre in mileage. Toyota did
not provide a miles-per-gallon figure for U.S. road-test conditions.
When the charge runs out, a plug-in starts running like a regular hybrid, ensuring drivers won’t run out of power on the road.
In a demonstration for reporters at a Toyota showroom, the Prius
plug-in quietly glided through a small, winding course even when the
driver pushed moderately on the gas pedal to reach close to 60
kilometres an hour. The car can reach up to 100 kilometres an hour.
The gasoline engine part of the hybrid kicks in only when the
battery runs out, or if the driver pushes too hard on the gas pedal for
acceleration, according to Toyota. The plug-in recharges from a regular
household socket in two hours.
Toyota tests for a plug-in prototype found half the people travelled fewer than 25 kilometres a day.
Toyota declined to give a leasing price, saying that it was being
set with customers but acknowledged it was not going to make any money
from the leasing.
Executive vice-president Takeshi Uchiyamada said he could not give
an estimate for the vehicle’s price when it goes on sale in 2011,
because details were still undecided and consumer demand was hard to
predict.
“I can only say it will be a price that will have potential buyers seeing a plug-in as a viable option,” he said.
Uchiyamada said many hurdles remain for electric vehicles to become
widespread, including limited cruising range and cost for the battery,
making a plug-in still the best practical option.
He said Toyota was waiting until 2011 before commercial sales to gain feedback from users during the leasing period.
This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.
Leave a Comment