25% Hybrid by 2010

[Soxy]

Linky

 

Toyota boss: 25% hybrids by 2010

`Wildly optimistic,' forecaster responds

 

By Rick Popely

Tribune staff reporter

Published August 4, 2005

 

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -- Toyota's top American executive said Wednesday that gas/electric hybrid cars could account for 25 percent of its U.S. sales, or 600,000 vehicles annually, by the beginning of the next decade.

 

The prediction by Jim Press, president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., is far more optimistic than J.D. Power and Associates' forecast, which expects the industry to sell about 620,000 hybrids in 2010 with Toyota selling fewer than 300,000.

 

Anthony Pratt, senior manager of J.D. Power's global powertrain forecasting, called the numbers "wildly optimistic" and sees hybrid growth slowing after 2010 because of competition from diesel engines and more efficient gasoline models.

 

Press said in a speech at an industry conference here that Toyota will introduce 10 more hybrid models by "early next decade," including eight not yet been announced. Toyota offers three hybrids in the U.S. and will add hybrid versions of the Lexus GS sedan in 2006 and the Toyota Camry in 2007.

 

Though he didn't elaborate on the others, Press said at least one would be a pickup truck, likely the full-size Tundra that Toyota will build at a plant in San Antonio starting next year.

 

"We have to include pick-up trucks," he told reporters after his speech. "That's where you have big impact and the most potential [fuel economy] gain." Ford and General Motors have targeted light trucks in their initial foray into hybrids. Honda is also a player in the market.

 

Press added that Toyota is looking into technology that would allow drivers to switch hybrids to deliver fuel economy or acceleration, depending on the need. Toyota has been the top seller of hybrids, which combine electric motors with gasoline engines to reduce fuel consumption.

 

The company has said it will offer hybrid technology on most models. Press said Wednesday that hybrids, currently about 1 percent of the U.S. market, would climb to 10 to 15 percent by 2010, depending on how many models other companies offer.

 

"The demand is there. The question is how big the supply will be," he said.

 

But there are other issues, such as price.

 

The electric motors and batteries in hybrids add $3,000 to $4,000 to their cost, and manufacturers often include other pricey features. The Lexus RX400h hybrid, for example, costs $48,535, $11,110 more than the AWD RX330.

 

And there has been talk that Toyota is selling hybrids at a loss.

 

Early adopters will pay more for an environmentally friendly hybrid vehicle, but Pratt said by 2010 the industry would "start to hit the saturation point of the number of people willing to pay a premium."

 

"There's a lot of awareness of hybrids, a lot of interest, but when it comes to making a purchase decision, the manufacturers have to deal with that price premium," Pratt said.

 

Press did not address the higher price of hybrids, but Toyota maintains that the cost will drop as technology matures and sales volumes increase.

 

Toyota sold 54,000 Prius hybrids last year and is on pace to sell nearly 100,000 this year. Prius sales stood at 63,000 through July. Toyota added hybrid versions of the Lexus RX and Toyota Highlander sport-utility vehicles this year and has sold a total of 13,279 of those through July.

[Balta1701]

If My fiance can hold onto her job for about the next year or so, then I'm going to be driving around one of those Priuses come playoff time 06.

 

Right now, the fundamentals of the oil market are really suggesting that it won't be long before Toyota has to increase that 25% hybrid mark.

 

There's also another growing feature of hybrid engines - many companies (ford, Honda) are starting to use them to satisfy the ever-growing American desire for more power in engines - you can take the battery power and use it to save on gas, or you can use it to build a more powerful vehicle than you could with gas alone.

[Be Good]

I hoping and planning to buy a hybrid, within the next couple years when I need a new car. I get killed by gas because all of my driving is local, becuase I don't take parkways.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Hopefully the 25% number is not overly optimistic. By 2010, hopefully hybrid technology will be viewed as the stopgap green technology and we are by then actually beginning to see a hydrogen vehicle fleet.

[Balta1701]

Hopefully the 25% number is not overly optimistic.  By 2010, hopefully hybrid technology will be viewed as the stopgap green technology and we are by then actually beginning to see a hydrogen vehicle fleet.

A hydrogen vehicle fleet basically does nothing yet...

 

In order to make a hydrogen vehicle fleet work, you need a source for the hydrogen. Right now, the only way to get hydrogen is by burning fossil fuels. And thanks to that annoying 2nd law of thermodynamics, you always lose a lot of energy when you add in the extra step of processing the fuel into hydrogen.

 

Hydrogen vehicles are only practical environmentally or economically if you can come up with a renewable source of energy capable of supplying that much hydrogen. Without that, it simply chews up even more fossil fuels.

 

Also, one of my professors here has done a significant amount of work showing that significant amounts of hydrogen would probably be lost during transportation/storage of the gas, and hydrogen could turn itself into a pretty nasty greenhouse gas if it was used on a wide scale. (link)

[FlaSoxxJim]

Hydrogen vehicles are only practical environmentally or economically if you can come up with a renewable source of energy capable of supplying that much hydrogen.

 

Completely true. And hopefully by 2010 we have a clearer view of the technology for renewable hydrogen.

 

The problem you (correctly) pointed out with hydrogen – that it takes the burning of fossil fuels to produce it – is another problem being solved currently by using a stopgap technology, that of fossil fuel reformers.

 

Electrolysis of water is obviously the way to go, versus splitting hydrogen off of fossil fuel hydrocarbons via reformer technology. But currently it still takes fossil fuel to produce the electricity to split water. You're right. The heart of the problem in arriving at a pure hydrogen economy is that the hydrogen needs to be derived frim purely renewabe resources and thet includes generating the electricity to split water. By 2010 hopefully we've got a plan for meeting the challenge.

[Balta1701]

Completely true.  And hopefully by 2010 we have a clearer view of the technology for renewable hydrogen.

 

The problem you (correctly) pointed out with hydrogen – that it takes the burning of fossil fuels to produce it – is another problem being solved currently by using a stopgap technology, that of fossil fuel reformers.

 

Electrolysis of water is obviously the way to go, versus splitting hydrogen off of fossil fuel hydrocarbons via reformer technology.  But currently it still takes fossil fuel to produce the electricity to split water.  You're right.  The heart of the problem in arriving at a pure hydrogen economy is that the hydrogen needs to be derived frim purely renewabe resources and thet includes generating the electricity to split water.  By 2010 hopefully we've got a plan for meeting the challenge.

With the current administration running US Energy policy until 2008...not a chance.

[Kalapse]

I'll stick with my '71 Chevelle 454 SS. Kind of the anti-hybrid.

[Balta1701]

I'll stick with my '71 Chevelle 454 SS. Kind of the anti-hybrid.

At what gas price will you no longer stick with it?

[marsh]

Completely true.  And hopefully by 2010 we have a clearer view of the technology for renewable hydrogen.

 

What are the chances that ginger ale will be prominently involved?

[kapkomet]

With the current administration running US Energy policy until 2008...not a chance.

:rolly

 

That's completely ignorant. It wouldn't matter if Captain Dickhead were in the White House, people are busting their ass on this research.

[Balta1701]

:rolly

 

That's completely ignorant.  It wouldn't matter if Captain Dickhead were in the White House, people are busting their ass on this research.

No, they're actually not. For example, the current U.S. administration is spending money on things like subsidies to oil companies and research on hydrogen cars. They are not spending money in areas which would actually matter - such as research into ways to produce more fuel efficient cars or other renewable energy sources.

 

We just passed an energy bill containing billions of dollars in subsidies to try to fund pulling a few more drops of oil out of the Mississippi delta. $3 billion to oil and gas, $3 billion to electric utilities, $3 billion to the coal industry. We're also spending money to double the use of ethanol, which is a terrible idea in almost every case because it costs more oil to produce fuel from corn than you get back from it.

 

People are working on that research, but it's impossible to say people are busting their asses on it when the dollars are being spent in the wrong places.

[FlaSoxxJim]

:rolly

 

That's completely ignorant.  It wouldn't matter if Captain Dickhead were in the White House, people are busting their ass on this research.

It's hard to bust your ass too much in unfunded research fields, Kap. The US is spending a token amount of money on alternative energy research.

 

Edit: You beat me to it Balta.

Edited August 4, 2005 by FlaSoxxJim

[kapkomet]

There's a LOT of *private* money being put into it, so it's not funded by our government. Sugar Daddy, anyone?

 

PS, I'll agree that it's not enough. But to totally blame the Bush administration is not correct and misleading, which is my point.

Edited August 4, 2005 by kapkomet

[Balta1701]

There's a LOT of *private* money being put into it, so it's not funded by our government.  Sugar Daddy, anyone?

 

PS, I'll agree that it's not enough.  But to totally blame the Bush administration is not correct and misleading, which is my point.

It's actually quite surprising, and almost shocking even, how little private dollars are actually being put into said problems. This is a several-hundred-billion dollar problem that we're throwing a couple billion at a year. It will come back to bite us...in fact it's already starting to.

[nitetrain8601]

F hybrid. I'll stick with "GAAAAAAAAASSSS"

[FlaSoxxJim]

There's a LOT of *private* money being put into it, so it's not funded by our government.  Sugar Daddy, anyone?

 

PS, I'll agree that it's not enough.  But to totally blame the Bush administration is not correct and misleading, which is my point.

 

Sure there is some R&D, and no doubt Big Oil is putting resources into it to make sure they are players in the new energy economy. But with all the legitimate "China Lurks" concerns, including this week's news that China and the EU are going to cooperate on a rival technology to GPS that will be more accurate than current GPS, won't it be a hoot when the big breakthrough technologies come from them and not us?

[Balta1701]

It's actually quite surprising, and almost shocking even, how little private dollars are actually being put into said problems.  This is a several-hundred-billion dollar problem that we're throwing a couple billion at a year.  It will come back to bite us...in fact it's already starting to.

In fact...energy companies have on the whole cut their research and development budgets in half over the last decade or so, and the money has not been made up by any other source.

 

(Bit of an odd graph here, but best I could find.)

 

[kapkomet]

You know why this is? Because they largely already hold the patents on this technology and have been sitting on it for God knows how long.

 

These assholes in the oil business have had this technology for a long time, but they have kept it locked away for their big ass record profits.

 

Yea, Bush is behind that too. :rolly