Toyota showcases compact engines adaptable to different fuels
reuters.com
reuters.com
I wondered why people in the US did not do that as much. I guess gasoline did not get cheap enough, or the petro industrial complex lobbied to make sure this never happened.
Overall, I like the idea of the consumer having multiple choices on how they can power their automobiles.
Note my update, it may be propane rather than natural gas though
A number of transit authorities ran CNG buses in the 1990s, but reliability and tolerance to hot weather was an issue. Toronto ended up re-engining a number of its CNG buses with diesel.
Not all places have NG infrastructure, and many parts of North America are extremely rural.
In summary, reliability and overhead cost of building out pipelines for not much gain are the issue.
Garbage trucks usually run on LNG, lots of delivery vehicles, IIRC even some school busses can
2. A gasoline tank leak is bad but the risk is relatively limited. A natural gas canister leak has potentially catastrophic outcomes.
3. You usually need to insure the CNG kit separately because your existing policy won't cover its value.
4. Your total insurance costs will likely be higher, and potentially by a lot. Moreover, your carrier may reject the modification entirely and you'd need to find a new insurance carrier.
5. The up front cost is probably not low enough to save you a lot of money in the long run versus trading in for a gently used hybrid or electric vehicle.
There's really no benefit of CNG over electric at this point.
Diesel: 10,722.2 W hours / Liter
Gasoline: 9,500.0 W hours / Liter
CNG (3600 psi): 2,500.0 W hours / Liter
NG: 10 W hours / Liter
Most, possibly all states in the US will refuse to register a LNG conversion. Only the vehicles designed for that fuel from the start (like transit busses) are allowed.
https://electrek.co/2024/03/02/1-in-5-new-car-sales-globally... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39575172
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-04-12/china-... | https://archive.today/8Dy4D
> BNEF is tracking 7.9 TWh of annual battery manufacturing capacity announced for the end of 2025. That’s compared to demand projections of 1.6 TWh, and even that assumes steady EV demand growth and very rapid growth in batteries for storage applications. Even half that total announced capacity would be enough to equip almost every car sold in the world next year with a 50 kWh battery pack.
The above assumes no additional battery manufacturing capacity is planned or comes online, which is unlikely as the world continues to electrify everything. It is very likely we continue to build more batteries faster and cheaper.
I admit that some use cases will liquid fuels for the foreseeable future (aviation, marine, with methanol or ammonia solving for this, produced using clean energy), but we are already accelerating towards pushing fossil fuels out of majority consumption use cases (electric grid, buildings, light vehicles).
> About a decade ago, encouraged by government subsidies, hundreds of automakers across China, both established players and startups, waded into electric-car manufacturing. They churned out huge numbers of early-stage EVs — relatively no-frills cars whose batteries in some instances could only run for around 100 kilometers (62 miles) on a charge.
> Those vehicles were mostly bought by ride-hailing companies that leased them to drivers. “At the beginning of China’s EV market, delivery numbers were driven by car-sharing fleets,” said Young Huang, a senior analyst with JSC Automotive, a consultancy with offices in Shanghai and Stuttgart. “Only a few private customers chose to buy them.”
> The demand helped juice an industry that has grown exponentially ever since. China is now the world leader in clean cars, producing around 6 million EVs and plug-in hybrids last year, or almost one in every three new cars sold domestically. It accounts for 60% of the world’s current electric fleet, and has the most extensive EV charging infrastructure on Earth — also built with government support.
(emphasis above mine)
> The graveyards are a troubling consequence of that consolidation. Not only are the sites an eyesore, getting rid of EVs so quickly reduces their climate benefit considering they’re more emissions-intensive to build and only produce an advantage over combustion cars after a few years. Each of the vehicles’ spent batteries also contain precious ingredients like nickel, lithium and cobalt — metals that could be recycled to make China’s EV industry more environmentally friendly.
> According to local media reports, the government of Hangzhou has vowed to dispose of the cars, which started to accumulate in 2019. But when Bloomberg News visited late last month, reporters uncovered several sites filled with abandoned EVs in the city’s Yuhang and West Lake districts after scouring satellite images and hacking through overgrown dirt paths.
These historical relics from several years ago are not today's EVs China is pumping out, and that is fairly obvious from your citation. I hope this has helped improve your mental model on the topic.
> Pairing lithium and ambient oxygen can theoretically lead to electrochemical cells with the highest possible specific energy. Indeed, the theoretical specific energy of a non-aqueous Li–air battery, in the charged state with Li2O2 product and excluding the oxygen mass, is ~40.1 MJ/kg = 11.14 kWh/kg of lithium. This is comparable to the theoretical specific energy of gasoline, ~46.8 MJ/kg.
However, electric motors will also continue to improve, and are already the choice when a flat torque curve dominates the design space. Thus, the convergence of these trends (battery performance asymptotically approaching that of gasoline + improved motors and motor control) is the Series Electric Hybrid, with an ICE or fuel cell generator powering an electric power train, with a battery buffer to keep load on the generator constant. This will allow extreme optimization of the generator, so that it perpetually operates at peak efficiency.
Long distance air travel is pretty much the only scenario where this is relevant.
But I think they are probably more clever than I.
They realize that there is still a huge chunk of the market with people living in apartments without cheap possibility to charge the EV.
So what matters to them is lowering fuel consumption.
EVs are cool, but when it comes to actually buying a car, most people follow what makes most sense economically.
My recently-acquired Camry Hybrid is a dream to drive, and gets 50+ mpg. I traded in my turbocharged subaru for this eco-friendly sleeper, and it is a better driving experience. All 2025 Camry's can become AWD for ~$1400 OEM.
If you need awd to occasionally kick in when you're stuck in the driveway, Toyota awd is fine. If you want a predictable drivetrain that's either reliable in prolonged low-traction conditions, or is fun to drive, Toyota's hybrid/automatic/part time awd likely isn't the right choice.
("source" - owned multiple both, plus their basic design and goals/compromises are fundamentally different)
IIRC, my first subaru (2006 WRX) operated as a FWD vehicle with rear traction assist. Perhaps the newer "beauties of all wheel drive" have better power distribution?
That I will never again own a center differential to again repair, leaves me energized. For certain, the Camry is always primarily FWD, with minimal rear assist (but helpful, no doubt).
I'm omitting some fun and nerdy details here, but it should not have behaved as a primarily fwd car :-/
Is your Camry a hybrid? You mentioned it doesn't have differential, and I must admit my experience has been with gasoline traditional toyotas. I have no experience with the hybrid Toyotas and they may well be more predictable :)
The Camry Hybrid does have a front differential; the p710 "transmission" within it is one of the prettiest electromechanical couplings I know [1]. Over 17,000RPM limit on electric MG2's stator.
[1] p610/710/810 theory of operation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHc-_E8xWnM&t=651
The RWD is provided by an isolated rear electric motor.
And if you have a Supercharger nearby as a backup and don't drive much, all you need is a 110 outlet and a cable.
The cables I refer to cost around $200 for a good one.
== one type of "EV Charger"
If you have a designated parking spot, there are no technical reasons why you can't charge at home. Only political ones.
Roadside parking is a problem. There are some attempted solutions (Type2 charging from light posts for example, but nothing that scales)
The only question is, what is cheaper, literally billions of charging stations + all the needed infrastructure, or that bridge.
Most likely either someone in building management or the landlord will block it from happening for some inane reason.
Thus: politics is the reason why this isn't happening.
Over here there are laws coming into place that every public parking location must have a certain percentage of chargers. It used to be voluntary (a recommendation), but companies were dragging their feet. Now it's not optional any more.
It's not like adding a 22kW Type 2 charger will break the bank for any decent business. There are even businesses that'll 100% do it for you if you provide the parking spot - but they also take most of the profits.
That's... "technically" correct, lol? There's no reason from perspective of natural laws of universe one cannot install a charger in the parking sport of their 30 year old 30 stories condominium or better yet apartment parking spot. There are a myriad legal, practical, procedural, permission, process, safety, standards, and other reasons. But you're technically correct, there are technically no technical reasons :).
Would’ve started sooner, but politics (apartment management) was in the way. The actual technical bit was about 3 hours of work by an electrician.
So charging an EV at 8A overnight is mostly just about politics (billing the correct amount), the technical solution is some measuring of the cabling (did the contractor use the good stuff or cheap out) and switching the existing pole for one with a metered one.
20+ years ago, when this electric car transition was being envisioned, everyone thought electric cars would be tiny/cheap things marketed to poor people. The UK even made them exempt from congestion charges. Nobody thought the market would be dominated by enormous/heavy vehicles driven by wealthy homeowners. I know a couple people with EVs who live in apartments. Both compare owning an EV to owning a horse. Several hours of their day is dedicated to managing their their vehicle's charge status. The idea of just plugging it in overnight as you sleep, that is a privilege for those that can afford to purchase a house.
So, if you're rich, you buy a tesla (or whatever electric car) for daily commutes and short-distance driving, and then have another car to drive across europe for vacations, etc. Maybe even a third, a pickup truck or something, for when you need to transport something large.
If you're not rich, you buy a renault clio or something else cheap and gasoline powered, because it does most of what you need and it's a lot cheaper than the alternaties.
For many of their cars, I don't think this matters that much to Toyota:
From my experiences Toyota tends to over engineer on the reliability side rather than optimizing for fuel efficiency. It’s all trade offs. You can tune the engine that may not be as fuel efficient but it may last longer.
I think people tend to overestimate charging requirements.
Extension cords are cheap. That'll get you 30-40 miles per day. That's plenty for most drivers. My commute is 10 miles both ways.
My neighbors in my townhome complex charge from their 120V adapter overnight. My friend in a single-family home hasn't even set up home charging, just drives to a supercharger and grabs a burger.
Sure, but what do they pay? (not including the burger)
And is it more if you compare it with e.g. a used Toyota Prius?
A Prius is the same price as a BYD, and the 40mi electric range is the same you'll get from overnight level 1 charging, so daily use can be the same price.
But note that I was not refering to the luxury case in my original post.
You're not having your extension cord from the 12th floor on the right to the middle of the parking lot.
Or through a tower garage up to your car.
Any apartment building with enough density would become a nightmare if people had extension cords dangling from their window.
None of that would fly in most European or Asian major cities.
Toyota isn't "avoiding" EVs, they just aren't rushing to put out a bunch of first-gen-tech EV-only cars. Which seems perfectly fine -- if you want those, Chevrolet and Tesla and Nissan would be happy to sell you those.
Calling a traditional ICE hybrid an "EV" is disingenuous, completely agree. Calling a PHEV an EV is 100% totally fair.
I drive a used 2017 Chevy Volt (a "legacy auto makers" PHEV). I am fortunate enough to have a regular garage with a standard (120v/12a level 1) outlet + charger, and I only charge the car in at night while I'm sleeping. The car records all usage on all fuels for it's entire lifetime. Over the past 78,000 miles, my lifetime MPG on the vehicle is like 145mpg, despite the fact that I take a few long trips (multi-states away) each year. The vast vast majority of miles all end up being electric-only.
Yes, some people buy a PHEV and then never charge them, and yes, this defeats the whole point. But it's perfectly fair to call a PHEV an EV. Under normal regular intended usage, they're running on electricity-only anywhere from 50% to 80%+ of all total miles driven.
And that's probably why most think that it's a very bad EV. The competition is several iterations ahead and seems set to remain so.
The Solterra is the same car as the Toyota bZ4X and Lexus RZ450e. It is a very mediocre EV, far behind its competition in efficiency and charging. It demonstrates as well as anything Toyota's absolute refusal to take EVs seriously.
They don't. PHEV's spend 50%-80% of their time on electric only, if you use them properly. (Just plug them in once each evening).
> The Solterra (snip) is a very mediocre EV, far behind its competition in efficiency and charging.
The Solterra is roughly competitive with a Tesla Model 3 (Standard Range) or a Chevy Bolt. Which is fine, they're all reasonable EVs, but I'd still call all of these "first generation consumer EVs".
We're at the "everyone has a BlackBerry, the iPhone hasn't been released yet" stage of automotive EVs, in my humble opinion.
If. And since that "if" is false, then the "they don't" is also false.
https://electrek.co/2024/03/25/yet-another-study-shows-plug-...
No, Toyota is all in for fossil fuels. Even hydrogen cells (while they burn clean) are only generated from nat gas currently (and even more limited than EV charging stations).
The situation is even more unequal than it would seem based on "count EV charging stations vs hydrogen charging stations", since many EVs are charged at home on L2 chargers, and any electrical plug that's within reach of a vehicle using an extension cable is a potential EV trickle charger, for emergency use or convenient top-up.
Electricity infrastructure is very widespread. Hydrogen remains hard to work with and thus far more centralised.
Is there a name for when a whole company completely ignores the obvious?
The "Kodac moment" 2nd meaning here https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Kodak_moment
Use it in a sentence: "Is BYD the Toyota of EVs while Toyota faces its Kodak moment?" https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/byd-toyota-evs-while-faces-it...
There may be an equivalent "Blackberry" phrase as well related to that company's downfall when clinging to an outdated business model.
Solar and wind would help but aren't enough. And again, you need to burn energy to make those things.
For all their faults, modern cars and trucks are pretty great given their trade offs.
[1] https://www.epa.gov/transportation-air-pollution-and-climate...
Fossil fuel use for making electricity has been falling, and cars last 25 years. So over an EV’s lifetime the grid will likely keep getting cleaner. In 2000 70.2% of US electricity came from fossil fuels, in 2010 69.5%, in 2015 it was 65.81%, in 2022 59.77%. Let’s see what happens in 2030, 2040, etc.
Further, the added capacity to power EV’s isn’t the same as what’s powering the existing demand. The US hasn’t built a new coal power plant in years, but we aren’t going to decommission them early either.
PS: People complain about bird strikes on wind turbines but they forget about incidents like: “Approximately 7,500 migrating songbirds were attracted to and killed by the flare at the liquefied natural gas terminal in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada on September 13, 2013.” Fossil fuels are even worse than generally perceived.
I have residential solar in Michigan of all places and power our all EV household with it. We can do this at grid scale if we just stop listening to the same old lies the fossil fuel and nuclear industries have been pushing for decades.
Just to be clear - I am trying to say that solar and wind are worthwhile to pursue in addition to the fossil fuel energy sources and infrastructure that exist now.
But solar and wind won't replace fossil fuel, unless we drastically reduce fossil fuel consumption.
> I have residential solar in Michigan of all places and power our all EV household with it. We can do this at grid scale if we just stop listening to the same old lies the fossil fuel and nuclear industries have been pushing for decades.
This is awesome. This is the way. We need more of this. I want this too.
However, even if that were not true, we could still easily replace all our current consumption with renewables. The idea that we can't is another fossil fuel industry lie.
FYI, this old argument has the name "the long tailpipe"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/enriquedans/2018/08/19/myths-an...
"In short, the long tailpipe theory is a myth used by those who, for whatever reason, oppose change."
In the 90's, Toyota was a top car manufacturer in terms of safety and efficiency. Now, they're fiddling while Rome^H^H^H^HEarth burns.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Synergy_Drive
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/2024/04/08/prius-politics-how-toy...
- Toyota is projected to be the number one retail brand for the 12th consecutive year
- Electrified vehicle sales – battery, hybrids, plug-ins and fuel cells – surge 30 percent and make up nearly one-third of total sales volume
- Projected to be the number one seller of passenger vehicles for the 12th consecutive year, and 20 of the last 21 years
- 2023 electrified vehicles sales of 565,800 represent 29.3 percent of total sales volume
- Corolla projected to be the number one compact car in America
- RAV4 best-selling SUV in the U.S. for 7th consecutive year
[0] https://pressroom.toyota.com/toyota-motor-north-america-repo... [1] https://www.google.com/finance/quote/TM:NYSE?window=1Y&compa...
> For the first time in history the most popular new car across the planet is electric. Tesla sold more than 1.2 million Model Ys in 2023 to put it ahead of Toyota’s RAV4 which had sales of 1.07 million and Corolla which found 1.01 million buyers.
> Topping the charts in Europe and China enabled the Model Y to lead the field in total world sales, despite it sitting in only fifth place in the United States, behind the RAV4, Dodge Ram, Chevrolet Silverado and Ford F-Series.
> Overall, more than 456,000 Model Ys were sold in China, representing a 45% increase on 2022, more than 255,000 Model Ys found homes in Europe, and almost 386,000 hit the road in the U.S.A. As a result the Model Y counted for two-thirds of all Teslas sold globally.
https://cnevpost.com/2024/05/01/byd-sales-apr-2024/ (1 May 2024)
> BYD (HKG: 1211, OTCMKTS: BYDDY) saw further sales growth last month, which continued to be the second highest on record.
> The company sold 313,245 new energy-vehicles (NEVs) in April, up 48.96 percent from 210,295 in the same month last year and up 3.57 percent from 302,459 in March, according to figures it released today.
(BYD has a 3.6M unit sales target for 2024, up 20% from last year)
https://electrek.co/2024/01/30/toyota-sold-100k-evs-2023-les... ("Although Toyota held its title as the top-selling automaker, the industry is shifting beneath it. Toyota sold over 100,000 EVs in 2023, but that’s still less than 1% of the record 11.2 million vehicles handed over last year.")
Tesla and BYD combined sold a little under half of total Toyota global sales last year. The second half won’t take as long to get to.
Toyota shipped more in battery capacity in hybrids than every other car manufacturer in EVs, excluding pure EV manufacturers like Tesla/BYD.
Are they lagging now? Sure, but hybrids are still the most sensible choice for people who don't have access to good charging infra.
You can always succeed if you define success. Combustion is combustion. EVs get cleaner as their local grid gets cleaner, hybrids burn fossil fuels their entire lifetime. Ergo, the solution is to focus on charging infra, not hybrids, if lacking infra is what is holding back full speed EV deployment and uptake. But Toyota is not good at building EVs or charging infra, so here we are.
Personal cars are like 10% of global greenhouse emissions, lifecycle pollution of EVs is 1/3rd of ICE vehicles. If we really cared we'd have to completely change our lifestyle and not make these tiny end of chain adjustments
We're simply picking the easier option as a civilization (which might not help us achieve the end goals)
We can tackle a lot of the other 90% piece by piece. Cars are one piece. Still, petroleum and friends will not go away; they are needed in some cases.