Tesla Signs $60 Million Contract With Toyota 233
thecarchik writes "Tesla Motors announced that it has reached a $60 million deal with Toyota to develop the powertrain for an electric version of the strong-selling Rav4 sport utility vehicle. A prototype RAV4 Electric will be unveiled by Toyota at November's Los Angeles Auto Show. The company plans to sell the electric RAV4 starting in 2012, the same year that a number of new electric cars will join the 2011 Nissan Leaf and 2011 Chevrolet Volt in the US market."
Congrats to both (Score:2)
It's about time that this finally happened. It makes sense that Toyota was the one to jump on this.
Excellent news (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Excellent news (Score:4, Informative)
Smiths Electric Vehicles in the UK has been *continuously* making electric vehicles for over 70 years.
If you want experience, go talk to Smiths, if you want marketing bullshit, go talk to Tesla.
Re:Excellent news (Score:5, Funny)
Is that you, Mr Edison, behind that Guy Fawkes mask?
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Smiths seems to be unable to convince both Toyota and Daimler that their drivetrain is ready to be used in mass-production, unlike Tesla.
Re:Excellent news (Score:5, Interesting)
Tesla cars have no problem doing 60 MPH, and they get there in under 6 seconds, even the 4-door. They have a range of over 300 miles. That's good enough for anything but cross-country trips. If anyone has swallowed the marketing, I'd say you have: it doesn't matter how long they've been building them, it only matters what they can build.
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Smiths Electric Vehicles in the UK has been *continuously* making electric vehicles for over 70 years. If you want experience, go talk to Smiths, if you want marketing bullshit, go talk to Tesla.
Were you aware that Smith (not Smiths) already has a partnership with Ford [hybridcars.com]? Furthermore, Smith already works with Ford in Europe [smithelect...hicles.com] to produce commercial electric vehicles on the Ford Transit and Ford Transit Connect chassis.
And maybe (likely) it is an exclusive contract?
Toyota clearly knows what it doing, sir.
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yep all we need now is a viable power storage tech so you know can go more than 50-100 miles without needing a 6 plus hour recharge. Until we can find a power source capable of driving an electric car 200 miles at highway speeds they will be just a gimmick.
Re:Excellent news (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do people keep saying this? Do you drive 200 miles a day at highway speeds? If not, then what's the problem? Drive it during the day and charge it overnight. It's 5 miles to my work, so I have 10/day there, and another 10 if I run a bunch of errands. So a car with a 30 mile range would let me do my normal routine without any worries and would include a 10 mile backup.
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Re:Excellent news (Score:5, Insightful)
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If I could afford the plane, I'd own it.
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>>>My backup plan for long distances would be to rent a gas car.
But in the future utopia envisioned by EV proponents, gas cars will no longer exist. Everyone will be driving electrics. You can't rent something that's no longer being made by Ford, Honda, et cetera.
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...electric car...but in the current market...
rimshot! [wikipedia.org]
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Now, you might say, "get two cars: one for commuting and one for driving
Re:Excellent news (Score:5, Insightful)
Because sometimes its nice to go out for a drive on the weekends. .... So if you live in Silicon Valley
There's no car rentals in all of Silicon Valley?
I'll make an embarrassing public admission... I live in a house and ... gasp ... I drive a sporty little car. You should hear my older coworkers whine about my decision ... OMG what if you needed to get sheets of plywood from home depot? OMG what if a rugged dirt road mountain sprung forth from the earth in the middle of my commute and you don't have 4wd? OMG OMG!
Well, I've found thru experience I can rent a giant truck in scarce minutes for practically nothing and I'm in the burbs. I would imagine city dwellers have it even easier. I would guess every other year I need to rent a truck for an afternoon. Its not an issue.
99% of the time, I drive the car I WANT to drive, and the 1% of the time I NEED something else, I just rent the perfect vehicle for the job.
The best part is my car payment and insurance bills are about half of my coworkers giant SUV payments. One months savings pays for a lifetime of truck rentals, the rest, every month, is pure gravy... which pays for those weekend getaways the SUV drivers can't afford...
I would imagine the electric car situation is very similar. The fact that its not a road trip wanna be RV is a very rare and easily solved problem, anywhere you can rent a REAL RV.
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While i agree with you as I do that myself when I need to rent a truck, there is a mark difference in renting a Truck for a day and staying under the local mileage limits and renting a car for a day and paying by the mile.
It goes to show that you haven't had to go to a car rental place recently.
Also you can't rent RV's very easily. Most require special driver's licenses as they get treated like buses.
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>>>There's no car rentals in all of Silicon Valley?
But in the future utopia envisioned by EV proponents, gas cars will no longer exist. Everyone will be driving electrics. Therefore you can't rent something that's no longer being made by Ford, Honda, et cetera. You won't be able to get further than 30 miles from your house for that hike in the mountains.
Nope. The future is definitely hybrids - they have no range limits which is what Americans like.
Re:Excellent news (Score:5, Insightful)
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In reality though it is 95miles (each way). And if you follow road laws it is 2.5hours each way
The example of the Yosemite trip IS something that the tesla couldn't do without charging. It is a 4 hour (200mi) drive each way. To make this trip you would have to stop for lunch to charge the car. And I find it unlikely that you will not be taking a
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actually I do.
I am well known to drive the 90 miles (each way) to have dinner with my mother, play a round of golf with my father, and then drive home. On sundays i drive 60 miles just to spend a couple of hours having fun.
I am also only 8 miles from work, but then twice I week I drive 40 miles a day for other things. two or three times a year I drive 400 miles each way to visit my sister.
At the end of the year I only average 10k miles a year, however if I can't getup and go 200+ miles that day the car is
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Why do people keep saying this? Do you drive 200 miles a day at highway speeds?
Because it's actually a pretty wise minimum requirement, for several reasons:
1. Companies tend to exaggerate. If they say the range is X, you know the real range is X-Y. Look at how laptop manufacturers exaggerate battery life claims.
2. Batteries become less effective with age, so you want some buffer room built in.
3. Batteries become less effective in cold weather, so you want some buffer room built in.
3. In cold and snowy weather, the kind of weather a lot of us "enjoy" several months of the year, you nee
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I drive 120 miles a day at highway speeds. About 60% of the trip, the "highway speeds" are in the 75-80 mph range, and 16% is in the 8-24 mph range on bad days. Frankly, even though 75-80 is batshit insane for the traffic density, I suspect that driving slower unilaterally would be an even bigger mistake.
So yes, I would require an electric car with a range of 200 miles on a fresh battery pack, since I'd want to be able to still make my commute when the battery pack is close to EOL. I cannot afford to liv
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I live just shy of 40 miles from where I work (the city housing market is 5 times the cost of the same in a small town making it the only place I can afford to live), so I do between 80-90 miles a day on average and on the extreme can hit 150 miles in a day. A 100 mile electric would be pushing it for my daily commute. I'm hardly that much of an exception, I know lots of people near DC commute about as far. I know you say '200 miles', but what I've seen is closer to 100 than 200.
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Your commute to work is 5 miles? Get a bicycle. You can get there in less than 30 minutes. You will save money and live longer.
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>>>Do you drive 200 miles a day at highway speeds?
Pretty close, yeah.
.
>>>So a car with a 30 mile range would let me do my normal routine
But EVs tend to lose range as the batteries age, so while it might get 30 miles today, fast-forward ten years and you might only see 20 - just barely enough to make it to work with no room for error (like a detour due to an accident). People don't like having to fear their car might run out of juice and leave them stranded.
In contrast my Honda Hybrid give
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300miles > 50-100miles.
45minute quick charge or 1minute battery swap > 6hour charge.
120mph>highway speed.
Any other concerns?
They already make Rav4 EVs (Score:3, Informative)
I'm a touch confused by this announcement.
Toyota already sells the Rav4 as a full EV. I see them on the road regularly. Several bay area cities use them as official vehicles.
On the other hand I am a Tesla fan, and I have owned several Toyotas so I see this partnership as a good thing.
Re:They already make Rav4 EVs (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV [wikipedia.org]
The RAV4 EV was an all-electric version of the popular RAV4 SUV produced by Toyota. It was leased from 1997 to 2003, and at the lessees request, many units were sold after the vehicle was discontinued.[1] As of 2010 there are 800 units still in use.[2] In July 2010 Toyota announced that is working together with Tesla Motors to develop a second generation RAV4 EV, and the companies expect the vehicle to be mass produced by 2012.[2][3]
The first fleet version of the RAV4 EV became available on a limited basis in 1997. In 2001 it was possible for businesses, cities or utilities to lease one or two of these cars. Toyota then actually sold or leased 328 RAV4 EVs to the general public in 2003, at which time the program was terminated despite waiting lists of prospective customers.
Re:They already make Rav4 EVs (Score:5, Insightful)
Pba batteries are too heavy for their energy density and LiOn are still very expensive.This has not helped the EV market but has helped keep oil flowing for the oil industry.
LoB
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Correct. The NiMH patents were sold by GM to Chevron. Toyota uses a different pack method, thereby getting around the NiMH patent for their hybrids, and Telsa will simply use Lithium Ion (or perhaps Lithium Polymer packs) for the new Rav4s.
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LoB
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It reminds me of news last year about building charging stations across California, when such facilities have lain abandoned for a decade.
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I didn't understand that documentary. They never really explained why there is some conspiracy to avoid electric vehicles. I think the real problem with EVs is that gas has been so cheap for so long, it's never really been worth the extra complexity to switch to electric.
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And the other reason the EV was killed was that the Bush administration funded they hydrogen vehicle hype and suckered the CARB members to believe it. CARB backed off of zero emission vehicle requirements and Detroit cheered and stopped making cars and trucks to fulfill those zero-e re
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LoB
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It reminds me of news last year about building charging stations across California, when such facilities have lain abandoned for a decade.
Speaking of charging stations, is there a standard for all electric cars? I don't want to have to go to a Toyota (TM) Charging Unit because the Nissan (TM) Recharging Center doesn't work with my car...
Re:They already make Rav4 EVs (Score:5, Informative)
And don't forget, Tesla might have something Toyota wants so they partnered. It could be just a "Made in America" label or it could be something special they did with the EV powerplant or control systems. It might just be a quick way into the market while they figure out if a 100% EV market will grow as opposed to the plug-in hybrid market.
I feel there is a market for both.
LoB
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I'm a touch confused by this announcement.
It's not unexpected. Tesla owns part of the idled NUMMI plant in Fremont, CA, where a Toyota/GM partnership produced cars until GM went bust. But Tesla just owns the property, not the equipment that Toyota left behind when they shut the plant. So some kind of deal between Toyota and Tesla makes sense.
NUMMI was a final assembly plant, with no engine line, which is good for Tesla. They can adapt an existing body plant, but their powertrain plant will have to
Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
Toyota cant R and D this themselves after decades of research?
sounds like a back scratching deal to me
That's uncharitable (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course they *could* do it, but Tesla has a powertrain that's pretty much exactly what they'd need already developed for the Model S, and they're presumably already gearing up for production of the components.
Tesla's proven they know what they're doing with the Roadster, so I can see why Toyota would want to spend $60M to adapt an almost-exactly-right design with a very low risk profile than spend probably more pulling together their existing R&D projects and tooling up, with all the entailing higher risk and extra development time.
The hybrid powertrains they've been developing are conceptually very similar to an all-electric powertrain, but there's a lot of mechanical re-engineering they'd have to do, and that takes time. Hell, maybe $60M is a loss, but they're doing this deal because all their best engineers are busy working on another project and they just don't have the staff to handle a big rush job right now. Staffing is a big deal!
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almost-exactly-right design
That is a critical part.
If Tesla gets it right, no problemo for Toyota because they've got a piece of the action.
If Tesla screws it all up, no problemo for Toyota because "thats the Tesla stuff, ours will work better".
Seems like a no risk scenario?
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Are you serious or is this just inane bitterness?
(a) We're talking about an SUV here, not a sports car. The design tradeoffs for the powertrain are going to be very different.
(b) Even if the Tesla Roadster really were that close to being the tzero, which is something I'm not convinced of, and the Model S were that close to the Roadster, Tesla's still the company with the integration and manufacturing experience.
(c) Tesla owns a manufacturing plant whose purpose is to produce powertrains for the Model S.
The
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Toyota cant R and D this themselves after decades of research?
sounds like a back scratching deal to me
Sort of like a "you scratch our backs, we won't sue you for patent infringement" kind of deal?
Electric cars are not the answer (Score:4, Funny)
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Parent - Interesting.... (Score:5, Informative)
how about a regular bike? 10 miles per donut.
From what I see, a doughnut averages 300 calories [dunkindonuts.com] and from what I see here [bikeforums.net] you burn 30 calories per mile - so 10 miles per donut.
Re:Parent - Interesting.... (Score:5, Funny)
When you add the oil to fry the donut, and the mechanized farming fuel, fertilizers and insecticides made from crude oil, its probably more like 0.1 miles per donut. May as well take the car.
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fucking city-living hipsters (Score:3, Insightful)
So... how do I move heavy stuff? How do I travel when it's raining? When it's fucking cold? When it's fucking hot? When it's more than a few kms?
I don't own a car and I use public transportation, yet I can see a lot of uses for one. A bike is not, and never will be, a replacement for a car.
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The problem is that bane of human-powered vehicles, the inclined plane... err, the hill. Cheesecake-powered bicycle motors get much slower, leak saline, and emit foul odors when required to provide the motive power to climb them. Electric-powered bicycle motors also become much slower, and greatly drop in range.
(and poor weather doesn't help much either)
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Well, your problem is you are fat. Riding said bicycle will help immensely in relieving this problem!
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Fat? No, sorry, please try again. No matter how much I ride the bicycle, it doesn't make climbing the hills anything but hard work.
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I tried riding a bike to work. I lost a few lbs and felt great. What didn't feel so great however was huffing and puffing up a hill in low gear while giant SUVs sped past me at 10 over the speed limit (~45 mph) about a foot away. Where there are no bike paths, bike is a problem.
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You're bringing up a false dichotomy of the electric vs human-powered bicycle as though an electric bike uses the battery all the time. Here in Japan what has become hugely popular are the electrically-assisted bicycles especially the type used by housewives to truck kids to and from school andto buy groceries. I live in Kanagawa-kan just outside Tokyo and there are LOTS of hills. I'll be riding around on the weekends slogging up a hill in the lowest gear on my mountain bike when a Japanese mum on her gr
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So... how do I move heavy stuff? How do I travel when it's raining? When it's fucking cold? When it's fucking hot? When it's more than a few kms?
I used to ride more than 15km each way to/from work. Solution: shower and carry a change of clothing. I was a fair weather rider, but others don rain gear and travel in the rain. Others even do so in snow when it's -20 C and the snow is up to their pedals -- this was a weather reporter I read about in either Edmonton or Calgary, I forget which, who rode her bike 365 days a year in temperatures anywhere from -40 C to +40 C. When it's hot, you wear less and use sunscreen. Unless it's so hot and your rout
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electric [trekbikes.com] assist can easily carry lumber. If you need to move a couch, rent a truck. Renting a truck once or twice a year to move furniture is dirt cheap in comparison to fueling a vehicle that can on an every day basis. Cold? jacket. Hot? Stop being so damn fat. More than a few kms? See hot.
And if that is too pricey for you this [bobgear.com] will mount on any bike and carry said cargo in a much cheaper fashion. Lumber, groceries, and all.
Sure, large vehicles are handy but an enormous majority of the time our trips a
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And what do you do when it snows? Stay home? Some of us need to travel all year, not just the 120 days a year when it's not snowing, raining, too windy, or too cold to ride a bike. Plus some of us buy groceries, or need to get our kayaks to the water.
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you're trying to go 100% electric a bike is actually a much easier, more efficient way to do it than a car.
??? It's only more efficient under certain circumstances but being more efficient doesn't mean more practical. For instance I've worked as a contractor in the past. I couldn't get my gear and myself to the job site in a Prius much less an electric bike. I also live in an area that gets very cold in winter and receives significant rain and snow. I don't remotely relish the thought of trying to ride any sort of two wheel vehicle (no matter what the power source) in much of the weather where I live. I ge
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Wasteful is circumstance dependent (Score:2)
An electric car is still a car--an absurdly overweight waste of energy.
That depends entirely on the application you are using the car for. If you are talking about very short trips where you have to haul yourself and not much else, then a car is definitely pretty wasteful. Otherwise the picture isn't so clear for most people. Whether something is wasteful depends on both the circumstances and available alternatives.
If you want something that can really make a difference, get an electric bicycle: cheaper, cleaner, healthier, and ~1000 mpg equivalent.
That'll be loads of fun doing my 20 mile commute to work when the temperature is -10F.
Any bets on when... (Score:2)
...the buyout will be announced?
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Tesla is as good as done as a brand. They'll become the subdivision of Toyota or, worse, their IP will be wrangled from them and only the top positions in the company will get any real compensation for their work as everyone else who hung in their and put their nose to the grindstone of Tesla will be shoveled off like some much shit on the sidewalk.
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What's old is new again (Score:5, Interesting)
The only real question here is why they are working with Tesla. There are plenty of good opportunities for conspiracy theorists on this one...
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>There are plenty of good opportunities for conspiracy theorists on this one...
Because 10 year old engineering and electric car tech is just too old to shoehorn into a new model? Or that its market suicide if they go with 10 year old tech? Or that its cheaper/better to have Tesla do the work? No need for conspiracy here.
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No.
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:5, Insightful)
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He deserves it. He must be a busy guy.
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Toyota is a publicly held company. The only way to (legally) distribute "profits" outside the company is through dividends. There are plenty of US shareholders.
Aside from that, does the nationality of the executives who get millions in pay and bonuses really matter? "Trickle down economics" is bullshit, and you nor anyone you know will ever see a dime of it regardless of whether it ends up in the US or Japan.
The only way your argument makes any sense is if you want to talk about jobs created/bolstered by t
Distributing profits (Score:2)
The only way to (legally) distribute "profits" outside the company is through dividends.
Not even remotely true. Profits can be distributed many ways, not all of them direct. A stock buyback is a way to distribute (indirectly) profits by using the to prop up the share price, thereby allowing investors to sell their stock at a higher price. Companies can liquidate assets or spin off parts of the company and send the profits to the investors. Companies can purchase assets for individuals or corporations. Companies can give cash donations (both charitable and non-charitable) outside the compa
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Anyone else initially assume it was about the band, Tesla?
Anyone else initially assumed it was about Nikola Tesla?
Re:might i say (Score:5, Interesting)
I was part of the business development team that made this happen.
Toyota was actually one of four OEMs we were talking to, and the least likely at the outset, but the rest were moving too slowly.
Toyota was the only manufacturer that didn't put the brakes on the deal.
Re:might i say (Score:5, Funny)
> Toyota was the only manufacturer that didn't put the brakes on the deal.
Toyota doesn't put the brakes on ANYTHING.
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I'm thinking this might be a "woosh" event. Subtly done if so.
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This is incredible. Toyota's experience with the Prius puts them light-years ahead of everyone but Nissan on the road to EV technology -- and I'm including GM here, their Volt is not much more than a Prius with a power cord, and they haven't built 2 million of 'em yet.
At this point, Ford, Subaru, and Volkswagen etc. should be handing blank checks to Tesla Motors and saying "please save our sorry asses". To lose this opportunity to a competitor who's already ahead is the sort of thing that used to cause sh
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Toyota owns 20% of Subaru now (GM's former 20% share - it goes from company to company).
Subaru has a very well defined niche that is not at risk. Despite not offering hybrids, they were one of the few vehicle manufacturers that had sales increase in past years. This is partly due to the fact that they've been marketing one of their vehicles (the Outback) as the fuel efficient SUV alternative for over a decade, so were well placed when the anti-SUV backlash hit. They also are tied with Audi for having som
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Next time, don't make Chrysler, GM (sorry, I mean the new GM that stiffed the creditors of the old GM), and Ford your three alternates. There are better carmakers out there.
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Oh definitely.
It is about the f*** time the pseudo 4x4's sold to moms on the soccer run have an appropriate urban drive. After all they never ever see any 4x4 usage (except mounting a curb by mistake during "artistic" parking).
Let's face it - electric 4x4 is an abomination. The charge in a "Tesla-like" pure electric vehicle will be down to zero in about 30 miles on a dirt track or even less on a mountain road. Even extended range will not help here. The power output of the range extension units will simply
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>>>about f* time
Dear Mr. Crass Language:
Toyota already sold a Rav4 electric SUV. It cost $45,000..... $30,000 after the California rebate. You say "about time" as if Toyota never had an electric car. Well: They did. ACEEE.org rated it as clean as an EV1 or Prius Hybrid (but not as clean as aCivic CNG or Insight).
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Yup, a golfcart that easily out-preforms whatever clunker you have sitting in your garage right now.
it drives 40 miles on electricity only (Score:2)
How is it not electric?
As to it being a hybrid, it was always a hybrid. It has a fuel filler nozzle, how did you somehow think that meant it wasn't a hybrid? GM called it a hybrid the whole time.
I'm having a massive problem trying to understand why people care about this at all.
The car runs (about) 40 miles on electricity only with full performance.
Then it runs perhaps 300 more on gas with full performance.
This is what it was stated it would do, that's what it does. I don't see how connecting the ICE to the
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GM stated explicitly that the ICE could never move the wheels, it was claimed that it turned a generator that then charged the batteries, as a series hybrid, as opposed to to how the Prius does it (As a parallel hybrid). It has since been found out that the ICE can (and does) directly turn the wheels.
And, with the ICE completely disconnected from the wheels it can run at it's most efficient speed (As ICEs have a very narrow power band, whereas electric motors have a much much wider power band (From 0 RPM)).
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GM stated explicitly that the ICE could never move the wheels, it was claimed that it turned a generator that then charged the batteries, as a series hybrid, as opposed to to how the Prius does it (As a parallel hybrid). It has since been found out that the ICE can (and does) directly turn the wheels.
Agreed, GM lied about the ICE never moving the wheels. This was a lie, as at high speeds in range extended mode, the ICE can drive the wheels. It doesn't usually do so, so that makes it unlike the Prius in total, but in some modes it does operate similarly.
And, with the ICE completely disconnected from the wheels it can run at it's most efficient speed (As ICEs have a very narrow power band, whereas electric motors have a much much wider power band (From 0 RPM)). This would make for much better performance.
Which is probably why in the usual case it doesn't connect the ICE to the wheels, for efficiency. However at high speeds in range extended mode it does connect the ICE to the wheels because it is more efficient than operating in serial mode (according to
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Rather than having to speed up and slow down the ICE to increase speed (Thus taking it away from it's peak performance area), the ICE stays fixed at it's peak performance level.
ICE "power" bands are typically a very rough parabola, with the peak area (For high-performance motors) being between 4,500-7,500 RPM. Outside of that area, they are more inefficient. An electric motor's peak power band (Using the Tesla [teslamotors.com] as an example) is a flat line of maximum torque from 0-5,500 RPM, beyond which the available torqu
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No, GM called it a range-extended electric vehicle. Now that it has recently been revealed that the Volt cannot achieve full top speed without the gasoline engine running
That's incorrect. Slashdot printed that, but it is incorrect.
It connects the ICE to the wheels when the battery is flat AND you go over 70mph, not when the battery is flat OR you go over 70mph as slashdot reported.
When you want to go over 70mph on the battery (before it goes flat), a 2nd electric motor kicks on, not the ICE.
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-20019260-48.html [cnet.com]
You are misinformed. It would be fantastic if you would not spread your misinformation to others.
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The information in that article sounds like spin and misinformation to me. If the gasoline engine is acting as an electric generator, there's no reason it couldn't power both the traction motor and the planetary gear set motor, regardless of the batteries' state of charge.