Toyota is planning to make its next-generation Prius hybrid range, which is set to debut in 2014, come with plug-in capability as a standard feature, according to a report in the Nikkei.
The next-gen Prius plug-in variants will be equipped with high-performance lithium ion batteries. Improved performance is driving the move – the current third-gen Prius, led by the XW30, can travel a maximum 38 km per litre, but the fourth-generation offerings are anticipated to be able to cover more than 60 km, including electricity-only mileage.
Though lithium ion batteries are still more expensive than conventional nickel-metal hydride batteries, Toyota is seeking economies of scale through mass production, the report says. And, by further cutting prices of high-performance motors and other core components, the new Prius range is expected to start at around 2.05 million yen, which is what current Prius prices are at.
Plug-in hybrids can be charged with regular household current, so, taking the available charging infrastructure into account, the company is viewing plug-in hybrids as the leading candidate for its next-generation of eco-friendly vehicles. It is set to deploy plug-in tech for its sedans, minivans and other models after first switching over the Prius lineup.
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am confused, how is this green when most of the electricity generated from our house comes from burning coal/gas/petrol at a powerplant? Not to mention the batteries are made of rare earth metals, where the by-product is radioactive (Lynas Rare Earth Processing Plant in Kuantan is an example).
That’s why the government is now studying the possibility to set up some nuclear powerplants in Malaysia, as a single nuclear powerplant is capable to generate more electricity than several coal powerplants combined. But then, the Fukushima reactor disaster due to tsunami and earthquake has caused certain people here to oppose the noclear powerplang construction here.
Another option which is totally zero-emission is constructing more and more hydroelectric dams. But then, the construction means more trees to be fallen and wildlife may be displaced. I am not sure whether the existing water dams like Ulu Klang, Batu and Semenyih can be retrofitted with hydroelectric capabilities. If yes, then it will be a good news, as TNB won’t have to pay too much to independent power producers in the future.
We have so much of natural resources, plenty of rivers, sunshine, wind, oil, etc yet we don’t make full use of it. Why consider nuclear where the risk is the whole country might be jeopadised! No joke, accidents do happen! (just imagine a enemy just sabotage the nuclear palnt and the whole country is damn!)
Totally not worth the risk for a country with so much resources.
There are problems to implement those resources. As for the sun, we can only obtain its energy at daytime, and we’ll need plenty of solar panels just to power an average town, as the current output that we can obtain from a typical solar panel is very low. The same goes for wind, as we can only get electricity during windy days, and like solar panels, we’ll need plenty of windmills just to power a small island.
The most environmental-friendly solution as well as efficient is definitely hydroelectric power. However, the construction of the dam itself is not environmental-friendly. Plenty of trees will be cut down and huge forests will have to be cleared, which means the process itself will endanger the lives of the already endangered animals and plants. The aborigines who solely depend on forests will be the victims as well. Just look at what happened to Bakun, from a mighty hydroelectric dam project which was supposed to be the largest in Southeast Asia at the time of its original planning in late 1990s to a much scaled-down project due to the great environmental impact to the wildlife as well as the Iban settlers.
As for oil, we already knew that the oil price is now skyrocketing as well as not environmental friendly, about 2×5 as coal powerplants except slightly cleaner.
That is why Malaysia is now considering nuclear energy as a viable energy source which is not only cheap but also very efficient. Of course we fear of nuclear accidents like those in Fukushima reactor and Chernobyll powerplant, but as long as we have faith in God for not creating earthquakes in Malaysia as well as not having idiots to operate the reactors, then we will definitely be spared. Chernobyll disaster was caused by some idiots meddling with the reactor, while the Fukushima disaster was caused by natural disaster.
here the idea.. why not implement all the roof top of this prius install solar panel, let say 5mil car in Malaysia x 60w = 120mw will be produce while charging the batteries.. excess power will be added to power grid and the user will get credit from the excess power.. if all the sun energy in one hour convert to electric, it will enough to produce power the whole world electricity consumption in one year..
In the future, most energy will come from wind and solar. We will simply store excess energy until needed. Fortunately, solar panels are getting more efficient.
The main component of Wind Turbines are made of rare earth metals, the by product is radioactive, go research more. Same goes with Solar panels, they are made from rare earth metals too.
If I am not mistaken, only 10% of our energy is produced via dam, building a dam is very destructive to the environment, jungles must be flooded and eco system along the river bank destroyed due to human intervention.
Yes, Nuclear is dangerous, then again, do we have a choice? Our energy consumption increases as we progress, younger generations consumed more energy than previous generation.
And Indonesia is growing seaweed for South Korea’s biofuel requirements.
u may start making why-why analysis to get the actual rootcause.haha.
Then malaysia nuke powerplant feasible or not?
Get your facts straight – we do not burn petrol for electricity (OK, maybe 1-2 percent, mostly for remote locations like Hawaii). Second, people keep bringing up the same disproven arguments as though they never got the memo.
Less pollution burning coal than burning petrol in individual engines where the people are.
Also, pollution is outside of the city and the electricity is home-grown and we don’t need OPEC like a drug addict needs his pusher. We have a nuclear, hydro, NG, coal, solar, wind, etc. mix to choose from, instead of powering 97% of our transportation using petroleum. How does that not make sense to people? The only answer is that they have ties to oil and want to keep us dependent on that depleting energy resource that is supplied and controlled by people on the other side of the world who don’t like us very much. Why keep the money at home when we can fund people that want to do us harm? Hello?
If you charge during off peak hours (at night), you’re just using the normally wasted energy from our power plants, and you’re saving money for your wallet since electricity is so much cheaper than petrol. If you use the all electric mode a lot you won’t even need to go to petrol stations for months and achieving ZERO EMISSION while driving :]…..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This whole Zero Emission thing is a lie. You charge ur car from ur house, where does the power source comes from? A power plant that burns coal, right? The power plant produce emission while burning coal, right?
How can it be Zero Emission? We might as well build the world’s biggest nuclear power plant in Antarctica and then declare all 180 plus countries free from nuclear, therefore the world is nuclear free.
i agree with carl wong’s explaination. Do u know that we cant just switch off power plant like how we do with light bulb? that explains why we dont reduce any CO2 emission during the annual EARTH HOUR…. power plants cant just switch off for 1 hour…. its more of an awareness campaign. if we charge during the night time when there is an excess(=wastage) power production by the power plants, we are actually reducing wastage! in that way, we help the environment.thats why in some countries, they have the ” smart home meter” which encourage ppl to use power during off peak hours.
Nickel metal hydride batteries contain rare earths not lithium ion batteries. The plug in Prius has Lithium ion batteries. Rare earth oxide group of elements mined generally contain tiny amounts of Thorium which is radioactive. This already exists in nature i.e. it isn’t generated by the process. It will however be concentrated by the separation of rare earths. As such rare earth concentration plant waste streams can be an enviromental problem if not managed properly. Lynas has low Thorium ore bodies.
The thermal efficiency of a gas fired power plant is about 60%, the efficiency of a petrol car is about 25%, the efficiency of an electric car is about 80%. Overall efficiency and CO2 emissions will still be better with the electric car. Power generation is generally a mix of sustainable and non-sustainable sources. The green credentials of these cars is very much dependant on your counties mix of power generation. This however is a situation that already exists and the CO2 burden of your house and work building is probably far greater than your car already. An electric car for instance would probably use about the same amount of power as an electric water heater annually and the water heater would on average make up about 40% of total household electricity consumption. i.e. the house would on average use 2.5 times the electricity of an electric car and generate 2.5 time the CO2 emissions.
This is really interesting. Toyota is supposed to have its own Hybrid Synergy Drive technology, which is essentially a complex serial-parallel hybrid powertrain. However, one major drawback from this system is that it takes a lot of space under the hood and therefore not suitable to be fitted in small vehicles. That’s why the 1.8L Prius itself is the smallest model possible for this system. Hence, Toyota is now interested in plug-in hybrid so that it can be fitted in smaller models.
prius c (compact)
is coming out end of this year
The invention of hybrid vehicle was focused more on promoting efficient usage of energy.
Some still debate that producing hybrid vehicle is more polluting, consume more energy and material compared to conventional IC engine. Yes it is, until we have enough economy of scale. Why?
Current scenario, produce a lot of vehicle, dig plenty of fuel to be burnt in those engine. End of story.
Hybrid; produce a highly efficient car, a car that can capture back kinetic energy when we dont need em. eg: regen braking, engine idling when stop at traffic light or crawl in traffic jam. These is where we waste a lot of energy, generating more heat, and destroy the environment in a global scale.
Industries have their own standard eg;ISO14000 which promotes efficient energy usage. Its not our business to argue whether toyota or honda or ford using more energy, burning more fuel etc producing hybrid vehicle as they have their own costing. Even if the dig for precious mineral for battery, these mineral was meant to be used extensively in cycles, rather than fill-up-and-burn.
And in this modern age, its proven that a plant running inefficiently will close their business sooner rather than later.
We must question ourselves; what can we do to saves the environment (within our ability & capacity)? If we cant own a hybrid car, the least is we can go to the nearest workshop to get our engine properly tune and not using excessive fuel to move. The best is if we can change our car to a more efficient unit.
Those who claim that hybrid vehicles are not environmental-friendly stand to the fact that hybrid vehicles use more resources, especially the batteries.
Kei car supporters claim that kei cars are more efficient simple because they are small, which means less fuel consumption and less materials to build them. However, when transporting goods, it can only carry a little bit of it, which means more trips will be needed and thus not efficient as well.
Diesel cars are very fuel efficient and sips very little fuel. The newer engines are also much cleaner than a decade ago, thanks to the commonrail technology. However, diesel vehicles are heavier because their engines must be built tougher to withstand high pressure, thus requiring more resources to build them.
In the end, we only tend to burn everything that we got.
Agreed, biodegradable fuel is the way to go.
1) It’s cheaper to plant than to mine for nickel, which by the way…
2) Nickel is one of the top sea polluter.
3) Plants can be replanted, nickel will be exhausted.
4) Helps to improve economy for third world countries to produce plant base diesel (the main reason I think the hesitant to popularise this as countries which promotes hybrid/electric cars have depleted land).
5) By products from plants are useable to convert into fertilizers, oil base paste for medicine. Some of the plants that can be made into biodegradable fuel itself have medicinal values.
Probably there are many many other more proponents for biodegradable diesel base more on the technical knowledge, I leave that to the engineers because I’m not.
The only question is how to increase the percentage of biodegradable fuel component in a fossil diesel, or even better whether 100% plant biodegradable fuel is possible?
2014? Isn’t that quite late?
Certainly not Today,Tomorrow or next week. :D
Man! Toyota is so late to the party. They were originally going to release the Prius Plug-in a few months before the Volt launched. Well, they missed that and the Volt was so good Toyota had to go back to the drawing board. Too bad they will have to compete against Volt 3.0 or even 4.0 by 2014. Good luck with that, Toyota. What is that? Four years late?!
Seriously you might be just another American trying to muster some support for the Volt, otherwise everything you’ve said is nonsense.
– The Volt is till not available to the ordinary buyer
– When it does become available, it will be more than 2x the price of a Toyota hybrid
– This will be the first version of the Volt, god know how many out there will want to risk their hard earned cash with a company who cannot even make simple gas burning cars to be reliable and trouble free.
– Then we still have the cost vs longevity issue for Li Ion batteries, who would want to spend 6K to replace batteries after 4 years
– The volt architecture is inherently weak in that the car performance is severely limited as soon as the battery gets fully depleted, who would like to drive like a grandma when battery is low.
– The Volt engineering program is over budget 100 fold, no chance of generating any real revenue even if it sold 1M units in 1 year, which is never going to happen unless china lends every US household cash to buy the Volt
– If you anticipate significant revisions of volt every single year from now it will probably take the whole workforce at GM to implement just the revisions, thats never going to happen – this is not osx or android we are talking about.
And the list goes on
I’m from the Power Industry.
Seriously, we are RUNNING OUT of natural resources to build hydroelectric. Furthermore, our combined hydro power can only contribute roughly between 7%~9% energy to The Grid. The rest 90% energy comes from Coal and Gas plant (we are running out of that too). Less than 1% from solar/wind. Not to mention the cost to build 1 major hydro will take years and Millions (if not Billions) of Ringgits (minus the corruption, inefficiency etc.)
In the same time our population is growing rapidly from 27 Million to 30 Million in the next few years. Our urban lifestyle which consumes most of the National Power Grid is NOT helping either. Lights everywhere (especially in cities), almost all house are installed with 1.5hp~2.0hp aircond (last time aircond is considered a luxury item but now a necessity to most homes – heck even rumah setinggan have aircond and astro).
Malaysians need to understand, Energy Crisis is a WORLDWIDE problem. But we are NOT that desperate enough if compared to USA which decided to invade Iraq and Afghanistan for “Blood Oil” to feed its power hungry 400 Million populations. By the way, USA is the biggest Oil consumer in the world, about 25% of the world’s Oil supply goes to USA alone.
A lot of people do not understand, cutting down trees, blowing up hills and blocking main rivers to build hydroelectric is NOT a permanent solution anymore. We can witness in some independent EIA (environmental impact assessment) studies done worldwide on how it affect human lives. The best example is our very own Sarawak Bakun-Score dams. Bakun dams are indeed projected to bring the much needed economic growth to East of Malaysia (we have to admit, Sarawak and Sabah has been neglected from FAIR growth since the formation of Malaysia). Nevertheless, building hydros comes with a price, the indigenous locals over there which depends entirely on the green forest to provide them with food, medicine and a place to stay now has every part of the forest flooded for hydroelectric. We need to understand, The Urban folks are enjoying their electricity with the expense and sacrifice of Suburb people.
Hence, before Malaysia (and the rest of the world) can solve its Energy Crisis permanently, we will need to look into Nuclear Plant technology to solve our Energy issues for the time being. Based on TNB estimate, within the next 10~15 years (if not lesser), our National Electricity Grid will reach its MAXIMUM capacity.
If the rest of Malaysian DO NOT mind losing their green forest (by the way we already lose most of our green forest from logging activities and existing hydroelectric dams) please go ahead, but don’t complain if your Cameron Highlands is no longer that pleasing cool anymore (deforestation and a hydro dam is currently being build over there anyways).
We need to admit, we need Electricity. Just put it this way, without consistent electricity supply, we will NOT be able to surf PaulTan.org website anymore.
I say Nuclear Power is the way to go. But TNB will need to study it thoroughly (luckily we still have time for this).
Sorry for being off topic again, and I don’t mind waiting for 2014 for this 4th generation Prius!
SYOH,
great views from u. attended a nuclear power plant talk by a director from MOSTI from A to Z on nuclear pp explained and the planning.
indeed if we want to continue to use electricity, nuclear pp is the way.
Ongoing battle again between Honda and Toyota for plug in hybrids in the next few years. The new Honda Accord is coming up next year 2012 with an all new plug in hybrid platform, so much earlier than Toyota this time. I’m more of a Honda fan so I’m hoping Honda can win this time.
Amboi….. bab Toyota je, hilang basher. Cuba klu proton….. Komen mcm lebai malang jatuh ditimpa tangga, kena hempap peti ais….. siap bergolek2 1 km lg….
Its not about toyota or honda or japanese or european. We are concern on the environment. When the ecosystem fails, disaster happen, it didnt bother what color is your skin and from what makes is your car. All gone.
proton suppose to join the party sooner rather than later…
Agreed, nice one thanks.
did anyone compare the savings running on pure EV if charged from home? cost per liter petrol vs cost per kW? is it really saving?
In our country so far, Honda is beating Toyota in the hybrid wars in terms of sales even though Toyota was winning all the while for ‘normal’ cars.
Hi, when is prius plugin going to be launched in Malaysia?