Toyota’s official press release statement on the Prius Family

Straight from Toyota to you…

DETROIT, January 11, 2010—Toyota Motor Sales (TMS), U.S.A, Inc., today unveiled the FT-CH dedicated hybrid concept at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit. The FT-CH is a concept that would address Toyota’s stated strategy to offer a wider variety of conventional hybrid choices to its customers, as it begins to introduce plug-in hybrids (PHVs) and battery electrics (BEVs) in model year 2012, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCHVs) in 2015 in global markets. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s All About Family

Toyota USA, via their Twitter account, says,

Toyota developing “Prius family” marketing strategy for N. America. It’s still taking shape & will require additional models.

They also say:

The FT-CH compact hybrid concept, among others, is a vehicle Toyota is considering for the Prius Family strategy.

Here’s the FT-CH…

The really interesting about this is that this is a change in basic strategies from Toyota. While there has been lots of talk about creating a “Prius Family” of dedicated hybrids, the idea never went past the discussion phase thus no “official” declaration from Toyota.

Personally, It think this is a fantastic idea. Originally, there was talk that the Prius would take several forms. For instance, the Prius sedan would be the centerpoint and there would be a Prius Wagon and a Prius two-door sedan (more of a sports coupe). Perhaps the FT-CH is the first model. Perhaps.

I’ll post more on this as official disclosures from Toyota are announced.

Guess who?

Motor Trend ran a reader poll for Car, Truck and SUV of the 2000′s. Guess who won in the car category?

Although that’s my 2010 pictured above, the readers at Motor Trend voted the 2004 Prius the Car of the Decade. Of course, being Motor Trend, it wasn’t enough that the Prius beat the car (Cadillac CTS) that came in second by more than twice the votes. No. Motor trend wanted to add three comments from voters who begrudgingly acknowledged the Prius’ importance during the naughts.

What struck us about the voting was the willingness with which people chose the Prius even if they didn’t particularly like the car. “I hate to say it,” said 3800ccgnx, “but it’s gotta be the Prius.”

“It totally set the standard for the ‘green’ movement, which has swallowed up every aspect of the industry,” said Delspencerdeltorro.

From JanRasmus: “The Prius. It’s the only car of the bunch that it actually outstanding…it’s not just been fancy-looking, or nicely executed, or powerful: it’s been groundbreaking – defining a new formula instead of just refining the old one and starting the hybrid game that everyone else now so desperately wants to play. And, yes: it’s not pretty, it’s not fast, it’s not premium and it’s not dirt cheap.”

Read more: http://wot.motortrend.com/6625425/miscellaneous/you-decided-motor-trends-unofficial-car-truck-and-suv-of-the-2000s/index.html#ixzz0cGFU7NUB

Hey, cheers to the Motor Trend for voting for the Prius even if they had to hold their nose while doing so. I think it’s silly behavior on their part but in the end, at least they found a way to admit Prius is a revolutionary vehicle.

Here’s a 2004, image courtesy of Toyota.

Responding

John Voelcker from Green Car Reports was kind enough to respond in comments below to this POG piece. I wanted to republish it on the front page, as it were, because I thought it was a great response and deserved better billing than the comments section.

Russell: Thanks for the good words. All of the questions in your last paragraph are very apt, and many of us will ask them as the cars get closer to the hands of actual drivers.

As for your comment on my closing question, I could probably have phrased it better. Here’s the point I was trying to get to …

Both cars are plug-ins, and hence will be perceived as “electric cars”. That is, users will expect them to run in electric mode some or most of the time.

From talking to Toyota and GM tech folks, I gather the Prius Plug-In may start its engine under many circumstances: Heavy load, full acceleration, a catalyst that’s cooling down, cold weather, and so forth. It remains fundamentally a power-split hybrid with a larger battery, and operates as such.

On the other hand, the Volt engineers tell me it switches on the engine only under one circumstance: The pack is depleted, which they say occurs only after 40 miles. (It may also fire the engine to start the car in extremely cold weather; must ask about that.)

SO, my question might better be: Will plug-in buyers expect continuous electric running for the stated range (12 or 40 miles)? If they do, I suspect the Prius Plug-In may have a perceptual problem, because it may well not run all-electric for 12 continuous miles. If not, no problem.

In either case, GM and Toyota are likely to be sold out of their first couple of years of production.

It’s in 2014 and after, as volume rises, that they’ll actually have to start to market these guys. That’s when it’ll get interesting!

The real cipher here is the Volt. As I said below, the Prius is a known quantity and, as John points out, perhaps the potential weakness of the Prius PHEV is that it is a Prius and not a brand new, designed from the ground up PHEV. Over the last couple years I’ve said the same thing here several times. While I love the Prius and can’t wait to see the Prius PHEV, I would prefer to see a brand new, designed to be nothing but a PHEV vehicle from Toyota. I think a PHEV should be smaller and lighter than the Prius (more range, better performance). I question whether or not the Prius is the ideal platform for a PHEV given where battery development is right now. All that is moot because this year Prius PHEV testing will begin.

Back to what John said…

I don’t know what the public perceptions of the PHEVs will be. None of us do (as John points out). It will be interesting to see if the Prius’ hybrid PHEV suffers in competition to the Chevy’s take on the PHEV concept. One thing both cars seem to insist on is that gas powered motors augment a pure EV concept for extended range.

I still think that two huge things give Toyota a leg up on producing a real PHEV. One, is using an existing, proven platform. For whatever drawbacks there are to using the Prius platform, there are also huge advantages and, let’s face it, Chevy’s been blowing smoke about the Volt for what, three years now? It’s still a mostly mythical car whereas the Prius is very real. Toyota has established itself in this altcars genre and I think that for every person who wants to buy a bowtie because it is a bowtie, there are just as many people who want the implied reliability and sound engineering that goes with the Toyota name.

John Voelcker wrote:

SO, my question might better be: Will plug-in buyers expect continuous electric running for the stated range (12 or 40 miles)? If they do, I suspect the Prius Plug-In may have a perceptual problem, because it may well not run all-electric for 12 continuous miles. If not, no problem.

My take on it is this, I don’t think consumers are going to care, too much, about how the ICE interacts in either vehicle. What will drive consumer reaction to the Prius PHEV and the Chevy Volt are the basics, MPG, ease of use, comfort, price, reliability. I don’t think that consumers will care overmuch about when the ICE starts and stops as long as it delivers on the PHEV potential of using very little gasoline. I could be wrong and if so, here are my words for future embarrassment but I don’t think I’ll be bummed out by what I’ve written in a few years.

My thanks to John Voelcker for taking the time to read my original article and add his thoughts to it.

The Difference is Clear

I’ve met and like John Voelcker from Green Car Reports. He’s a nice guy and he’s done some great reporting. This story though, I do not get. It feels like filler to me. Well, that and one more thing, it annoys me. The article annoys me because it’s blending two things that in reporting should not necessarily be mixed up, reality and promises.

Reality is walking out your front door, getting into your car and driving someplace. Promises are waiting on the street for a friend to pick you up. Sure, it’s a friend and they’re reliable and all that, but maybe they’ll be late. Maybe your friend you forgot you needed a ride. The two things, while having some similarities are, in practice, very, very different.

And so it goes with the much lauded Chevy Volt (the promise) and the Toyota Prius (the reality).

The Prius is a vehicle that has been on the market for more than ten years now. It has a track record. There are, quite literally, mountains of user collected data on the vehicle’s performance.

The Volt, it’s still in prototype testing. The Volt is now “scheduled” for release sometime, as John points out, sometime in 2011 (a date which has been moved back from Chevy’s original 2010 claim). Maybe Chevy will hit this date, maybe not. Maybe the Volt will do everything Chevy claims, maybe not.

Now, to be fair to John, he’s comparing the not yet in production Prius PHEV (that’s plug-in hybrid electric vehicle for those of you new to the acronym). So in a sense, I’m being a little tough on him. However, the Volt as a platform doesn’t exist at all now It’s all new, designed, according to Chevy, from the ground up. The Prius PHEV on the other hand is merely a modification of an existing vehicle to add PHEV functionality. This is something third party companies such as Hy-Motion have been doing for about five years now. In other words, even though Toyota is carefully testing the PHEV Prius this year for release next year (possibly), there is already data on how the vehicle performs modified as a PHEV.

My point here is this, it’s not really fair or even reasonable to compare one car that does exist to another that is still vaporware. Aside from the basic design differences between the vehicle (which are significant), the Volt is far from production ready. The Prius PHEV could go into production very soon if it were not that Toyota is a very conservative company that rigorously tests new concepts before releasing them. I think that’s a huge difference and it’s not realistic to compare the vehicles, at the very least right now, for that reason among many others.

Finally, John ends his article with this:

The big question: Will the experience of pure electric drive for three times the distance give the Volt an edge over a Prius Plug-In engine that stops and starts whenever it wants?

Here’s why this is NOT the big question and frankly, why John’s question is a terrible one, the Volt’s ICE will start and stop to charge the vehicle. Technically, the vehicle is “pure” electric drive but it’s a gas generated electric system so the idea that one has a motor that stops and starts and the other is “pure” is incorrect and misleading. Yes, what drives the wheels in the Volt is electricity only but what keeps that power flowing, is gas powered.

The big question is actually a few questions. Will the Volt be what Chevy says it is? What level of performance will the PHEV Prius offer? Will auto buyers flock to the established PHEV system in the Prius or run to the novelty of the Volt’s new hybrid system? Which system will hold up better over the long term and produce promised results? Will the size difference between the two vehicles be a factor for consumers (positive or negative)? trying to boil all this down to one question isn’t a reason able goal right now.

Wild speculation

Toyota is officially teasing people with a portion of the new dedicated hybrid model they will debut at the Detroit auto show on Monday. It seems obvious it will be the Scion iQ. I could be wrong, but I’m not unsure. Sure, Toyota could be debuting a brand new, never seen before model but that seems unlikely and a bit un-Toyota-like. It seems more likely to me that the iQ will be the vehicle for two reasons;

-First Scion hybrid (Scion needs one hybrid in their lineup)
-Cheaper hybrid than the Prius or Camry, so it makes sense that it’s a Scion rather than a Toyota

All told, my blathering doesn’t matter much and we’ll know in a few days.

Here’s the iQ concept shot:

And here’s the teaser pic from Toyota:

It’s close, not a perfect match but very close.

2 Million

Congratulations to Toyota on selling two million hybrid vehicles worldwide. Of that two million, 1.4 million of those hybrids are us, Priuses.

All that talk about hybrids being niche cars and having no future sure is looking pretty stupid.

Bloomberg.com may consider using goats for reporters

Sorry, that’s my response to this headline:

Toyota U.S. Patent Trade Case May Threaten Prius Hybrid Imports

Sure, it could happen. But frankly, it’s the least likely outcome of this even imagining an almost worst case scenario to Toyota. Once again, Bloomberg, instead of just reporting what’s happening, opts to make it melodrama out of a fairly routine story.

Let’s see how this plays and if I’m wrong, I’ll admit that here. If not, I wonder if Bloomberg will report the outcome as “Toyota Narrowly Avoids Oblivion In Patent Lawsuit Case”.

Slappin’ the bowtie

Here’s the money line from this story in the New York Times.

“No one is going to pay a $15,000 premium for a car that competes with a Corolla. So there are not enough idiots who will buy it.”

Those were the words of Johan de Nysschen, the president of Audi of America, who recently spoke (quite candidly) to Lawrence Ulrich of MSN Autos about the Chevrolet Volt.

And for those of you who think that’s harsh, here’s the reality of it. I went to Toyota.com and tried to build a $25K Corolla. Go give it a try. By adding, quite literally, everything Toyota sells for that car, from custom door sills to the ashtray, I got the Corolla to $23,508.

So yes, the $15K premium is a polite minimum.

And with all that said, if, and this is one big “if”, if the Volt can do what GM is claiming, I still think it’s a good thing. Maybe once GM has climbed this mountain they can bring the cost down. But those are big ifs.

And frankly, after spending a week in what is essentially GM’s lead mid-size sedan, the Impala, I have to tell you, they have a lot of work to do. Compared to the Prius, the Impala is vastly inferior vehicle in just about every measure.

Time will tell.

And let me add one more thing. I drove the Ford Fusion at Green Drive Expo in Madison last month. It’s not a bad car. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t even ponder trading in my Prius for a Fusion hybrid but it’s a bad option and I’m glad there are options out there for consumers to consider. But let’s extend this drama out a year or so. We may have another one or two hybrids from Toyota. Possibly some others from other companies. We’ll have a Fusion hybrid that’s already had a year or more under its belt. And then comes the Volt. That’s worse than a tough place to come from especially when your vehicle costs significantly more than all the others.

Calling the Volt a longshot is being more than polite or optimistic. It might just be fantasy.

The new Toyota plug-in hybrid

Say hello to Auris…

Ok, it’s only a concept at this point but it’s a solid start.

Oops

Green car reports (link here) misses some important details. They say,

The 2010 Insight is the least expensive hybrid vehicle sold in the US, coming in at a base price of $20,400 including delivery. The EPA rates it at 40 miles per gallon city / 43 mpg highway, for a combined rating of 41 mpg.

Problem is, it’s not the base LX that got the high rating, it was the EX which sells for a bit more. So price not being a factor, if the safety between the Prius and the Insight is the same, if the Prius gets better MPG and is more comfortable, which one is the right choice?

Just to fill space

Sometimes the speculation I read makes my head spin. Word is in the media that Toyota is prepping a new, ultra-compact hybrid based on the Vitz platform or possible a Yaris hybrid. I don’t know if it’s true. I don’t know how the weight and size issues would work themselves out in reality but I welcome a compact, two door hybrid, whatever it is.