Toyota to put more energy into Hybrids
Toyota Motor Corp. expects gas-electric hybrids to form the majority of its alternative-technology vehicles for decades to come, and the automaker is studying plans to expand the successful Prius nameplate across a range of vehicles, senior company officials said Tuesday. While automakers are exploring various technologies and fuels to increase mileage and reduce emissions, hybrids provide increased fuel efficiency as well as the long ranges and reliability that consumers want, said Bill Reinert, national manager of advanced technology for Toyota Motor Sales in Torrance, Calif. "It's as close to a silver bullet as you're going to get," he said. "The reason the Prius was such a successful car is that the customer didn't have to do anything to it," Reinert said at a conference here organized by Toyota to discuss future trends in transportation and energy.
Many engineers view hybrids as a transitional technology because it costs more to equip cars with dual powertrains. Toyota and Honda Motor Co., the leading sellers of hybrids, say they have lowered the cost of the technology and are now spreading it across increased volumes. Toyota officials have been studying plans to produce more hybrid vehicles under the Prius nameplate. "It makes sense when you have a product that's so iconic," said John Hanson, chief spokesman for environmental and safety technologies at Toyota. "It's something we have to look at," he said, but added that the company had not announced a decision.
Toyota will display its third-generation Prius car in Detroit early next year. The company announced on Tuesday that it would unveil a study at the Los Angeles auto show in November for a compressed natural gas Camry hybrid, a concept reflecting recent upward revisions in US natural gas reserves.
Reinert said Toyota had not decided whether to market such a vehicle, noting that there were only around 1,000 compressed natural gas refueling stations in the United States. "This car is meant to start the dialogue about the possibilities of the future," he said.
Energy, environmental and urban planning experts at Tuesday's conference described difficult challenges lying ahead, not only for the auto industry but also for consumers and for communities.
Peter Wells, an oil consultant who has worked for Shell International and BP, said automakers should design vehicles expecting "major changes in price, up and down in the near term, and up in the long term." He said he expected to see a range of technologies and fuels, and urged the auto industry to look more closely at compressed natural gas.
Environmental expert Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography cautioned that water shortages also would be a pressing issue for many regions. Climate and energy experts said the production of some forms of energy, biofuels, for instance, required large amounts of water. Jan Kreider of the University of Colorado said small-scale efforts to transform algae into biodiesel showed promise; algae production required small amounts of both land and water. Given the uncertainty over which technologies will prevail, automakers have invested in several areas, from cleaner diesels to zero-emission hydrogen fuel-cell cars. Reinert said the auto industry had achieved remarkable advances but was hampered by the absence of progress in setting up hydrogen refueling stations in the United States.
Diesel-powered cars are popular in Europe because they are significantly more fuel-efficient than cars with gasoline engines. But with increasingly stringent diesel emission regulations coming into force in the United States and Europe, Reinert said it would be easier to increase the mileage of gas engines, in conjunction with electric motors, than to make truly clean diesels. Toyota has said it expects to be selling 1 million hybrid vehicles a year early in the decade beginning in 2010. Hybrids now account for about 10 percent of its US sales, more than three times the average for the industry.
When asked how long hybrids would be the mainstay, Reinert said "decades."
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