Toyota Working on Battery with Range of 600+ Miles

October 27th, 2011 by Important Media Cross-Post

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Tags: EV Range, long range battery, Toyota, toyota batteries, Toyota ev range

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Juan

It is very simple. There are only 3 factors to replace our fuel cars by a EV ones:

– Range: The new EV cars must have at least the same range than fuel cars.
– Time of charge: Around 5 minutes.
– Price: EV cars should cost the same during its lifetime (vehicle + energy)
- Anonymous
  
  No, somewhere in the 175-200 mile range is adequate. And something less than 20 minutes recharge time is sufficient.
  
  Toshiba’s SCiB lithium-ion battery which is to be used in the Honda Fit EV can be 95% recharged in 18 minutes.
  
  Drive 200 miles, charge 20 minutes, drive 190, charge 20, drive 190. Now you’ve done 580 miles with two short stops. 175 mile range gets you a 500 mile day with two stops.
  
  You could do the same drive with an ICEV with only one refueling stop but I don’t think the extra stop would be meaningful for almost all drivers. Even averaging 60MPH it’s going to take you close to ten hours to make that 580 trip and most people would be fine with stopping twice to eat, stretch their legs, etc.
  
  Price.
  
  Right now if you buy a Nissan Leaf at the full price of $32,500 and a generic 28MPG ICEV for $20,000 at the end of 12 years you will have spent about $8,000 more with the ICEV.
  
  That’s with no subsidies for the Leaf.
  
  Comparing the Leaf and a 50MPG Toyota Prius at $23,500 over 12 years the
  Leaf will cost you about $3,500 more. That’s assuming $4/gallon gas
  increasing at a 4% rate of inflation. There’s a good probability that gas
  prices will rise much faster than 4% which would wipe out that $3,500 Prius
  advantage.
  
  So, only a high MPG, low $20k ICEV is now cheaper to purchase and own than
  the Leaf. But the problem is, not many buyers will spend the extra money
  up front to save money in the long term. We will need subsidies for a
  while to bring the price of batteries down to where the price of EVs is
  closer to ICEVs. We need to make sure that the monthly payment is the same
  or a bit lower.
  
  In my first example, the $20k 28MPG ICEV, the first year monthly payments
  would be about $150 higher, dropping to about $100 by year five (five year
  loan). Starting at year six the Leaf would save the owner more than $150
  per month and that would rise to over $200 per month by year 12. But many
  people are going to look at the first five years of costs and pay a lot
  less attention to the last seven during which they would save significant
  money.
Eric

Is it not possible to design the car so that, if a longer trip is envisaged, an extra battery or two could be hired and returned after the trip?
- Anonymous
  
  It’s certainly possible. The Tesla S is designed so that the batteries can be easily swapped. I would expect that someone could buy the 160 mile range S and rent a 300 mile range battery pack if the market emerged.
  
  Another approach is to use a small trailer holding either a large battery or a small generator and fuel tank. Rent one at one end of the interstate and drop it off at the other.
  
  But then there’s the possibility that we’re only short years from high mileage, affordable batteries and all of this will become moot. A 200+ mile range plus enough rapid (Level 3) chargers would do the job. I suspect those inside the industry have a good idea about what is coming down the tubes and we’re not seeing much move toward swap-able battery packs. Tesla and Renault, largely for the Israeli and Danish(?) markets are the exception.
Docdick

Tesla is right, in imho. Emergencies requiring long distance trips ALWAYS arise at the most inconvenient times. It is better to pay more to get more and feel more confident about the unexpected emergency.
euroflycars

With the motorcar currently monopolizing individual intercity mobility, a mass-produced 600+ miles range battery seems at first sight to be aimed at sustaining this monoply.

However, considering that the use of this type of battery in state-of-the-art ultra-light electrical aircraft would virtually extend the annonced range by large, the motorcar’s monopoly in individual macromobility is deemed to be shifted over to the personal aircraft in the not too far future, with consequent geostrategic, political, economic, and environmental fallouts likely to trigger the most dramatic change of paradigm in human history.

With millions of compact motorcars equipped with this type of batteries, the whole electric motor/battery assembly would indeed become affordable even to small UL aircraft manufacturing companies.

And since fully automated flight is mandatory for the avent of massively popularized individual aeromobility, each personal aircraft might as well serve as a public transport module, thus revolutionizing human mobility at large.

With the ultimate extension of the motorcar monopoly into Russia, China, and India (let alone Africa), the human society is facing the perspective of heading straight into the wall — not because of the motorcar in its own right, as it is tending towards zero emission, but because of its footprint in terms of ever more tentacular road networks, and last but not least because of its very restricted choice of destinations versus individual aeromobility based on vertical take-off and landing rotary-wing aircraft.
Temo945

Of course it had to be other than Detroit.
Tom Garven

I could do quite nicely with a two passenger vehicle like the “MIT City Car” with about a 40 mile range. That would get me back and forth to work, shopping or to Home Depot or Lowe’s and home. If I need to go farther I will start my 5 passenger vehicle.
- Anonymous
  
  I suspect a lot of people could. If someone were to market a small, safe two passenger car with limited range but that still had the ability to drive at highway speeds I suspect they would capture a nice piece of the market.
  
  There must be a lot of multi-car households where one or more of the cars just do shorter daily work/school commutes. Give them the option of an EV priced more like an econobox and that can be ‘fueled’ for next to nothing and people are going to snap them up.
  
  The critical elements, seems to me, are safe and fast enough to scoot down the highway when that’s part of the daily commute. Two adults or one adult and two children’s seats. And a bit of room for groceries.
Anonymous

Two hundred miles with an ample number of rapid charge points would be enough for almost anyone.

Drive 200, stop <20 minutes for an 80% recharge, drive 160, stop <20min, drive 160.

That's a 500 mile driving day with only two short stops. With a standard gas vehicle you're going to stop once for gas. And then there are those other needs.

There shouldn't be any exotic materials in solid state batteries. Automated factories should kick them out at a decent cost once systems get in place. There's a sweet spot where enough range meets the cost/weight factor and I suspect it's lower than 600 miles.

BTW, this development started floating around the internet several days ago, starting on some fairly obscure sites. I suspect we shouldn't get too excited about it until Toyota has something official to say.
tibi stibi

what i would like is a car with 100 miles or so but the possibility to rent a batterypack for 600+ miles for the one time per year vacation.