Toyota targets the plug-in Prius hybrid

Posted on November 12, 2007
Filed Under Hybrid Cars, Toyota

A senior Toyota executive declined to reveal when the Pirus plug-in would be launched oe whether it could beat rival General Motors Corp to market with a technology seen as capable of slashing fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

Bob Carter, who heads the Toyota brand in the United States, declared that it was more important for Toyota to understand consumer expectations and hone the battery-centered technology behind plug-in cars than to race to bring them to showrooms.

“Before we bring it to market, our customers always expect a level of quality and reliability, value and cost,” Carter said. “It’s critical that we understand the expectations of the consumers.”

Toyota, which dominates the current market for hybrids, has not discussed its timetable for plug-in vehicles. Statistics show that Toyota reached 80 percent of all hybrids sold in the United States this year, led by the Prius. They’ve also declared that they would deliver one modified Prius each to the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, Irvine for a three-year study meant to speed up development of plug-in versions of the hybrid.

“We will be looking at lifestyles — how people are using the vehicles,” said Susan Shaheen, research director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at UC Berkeley. “Where they drive, how they recharge the vehicles, when they recharge the vehicles. And we will ask them a great deal about their perceptions.”

We’ll have to wait for “significant announcements” at next week’s Los Angeles Auto Show and Detroit’s auto show in January regarding advances to vehicles that feature alternatives to traditional combustion engines, as somebody from Toyota said.
Toyota is working now to develop the third-generation of the Prius hybrid, expected to go on sale in the United States in the 2010 or 2011 model years.

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One Response to “Toyota targets the plug-in Prius hybrid”

Uncle B on November 30th, 2008 10:26 pm

The Prius system, with plug in and lighter carbon fiber and polymer composite body parts, in a smaller four seater model size like Yaris can serve as a daily commuter back and forth to train and bus terminals, for Americans today! The OPEC folks are meeting as we speak to “Fix” the price of oil for the American people! This is not a free market system, it is BLACKMAIL! We need to go to Compressed Natural Gas from Alaska and Canada, before the OPEC boys get really greedy and push us into slavery and poverty! Toyota can certainly develop a Compressed Natural Gas engine, and they already have very good euro-style high efficiency diesels developed. We just have to wait for the pressures from OPEC and the encroaching great republican depression to sweep realistic practical change in the U.S.A. We are going to miss you GM, ford and Chrysler, just like we miss the old Hudsons, Nash Ramblers, Willy’s and Studebakers, but the times are a changing and you are not old friends, Adieu!

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