Posted on 06/22/2023 7:25:08 AM PDT by Red Badger
The automotive juggernaut unveiled new battery tech and new battery-powered vehicle plans.
Toyota has big plans to bring new, improved tech — and, perhaps, a sharper focus — to the electric vehicle market. It suggests a shift from the auto juggernaut’s previous position, which took a more skeptical approach to converting to fully EVs, instead pursuing a mix of fully-electric, hybrid, and hydrogen cars.
The maker of the Prius, the world’s first mass-produced hybrid, says it will continue to offer a range of powertrain options, but it also announced a suite of new technologies designed to help the company fully join the fight for the EV market. This includes AI-assisted aerodynamic design, “Gigacasting” manufacturing like the kind used by Tesla, and — most crucially — “next-gen” EV batteries.
Toyota claims it will soon crank out EVs capable of going over 600 miles on one charge by 2026 — double the average range of new EVs hitting the road today. By 2028, the company’s aim is over 900 miles, per InsideEVs.
“That is stunning,” Michelle Krebs, an executive analyst at Cox Automotive, told Axios. (Cox Automotive and Axios are owned by the same parent company.)
Concern over driving range is one of the three biggest barriers preventing people on the fence from going fully electric, Krebs noted.
Toyota has announced a suite of new technologies designed to help the company fully join the fight for the EV market, including AI-assisted aerodynamic design, “Gigacasting” manufacturing, and — most crucially — “next-gen” EV batteries.
New battery tech: First on Toyota’s innovation docket is an optimized version of the lithium-ion battery that currently dominates the electric car market, InsideEVs reported. The 600-mile per charge battery will power a new model from Lexus, the luxury brand owned by Toyota.
Two new bipolar lithium iron phosphate batteries will launch next. The first, scheduled for 2026-27, is expected to reduce costs by 40%, InsideEVs reported; the second will be an advanced version with 10% more range, slated for production in 2027-28.
Finally, Toyota announced plans for a solid-state battery with a range of over 900 miles on one charge, hoping to hit the road in five years.
Solid state, fluid future: Solid-state batteries hold promise — and pitfalls — for electric vehicles. As Motortrend explained, solid-state batteries differ from the kind currently dominating the road in a crucial way: the separator, which keeps two crucial battery components separated, is the same medium that the current flows through. Traditional batteries use separators that allow for a liquid electrolyte medium to pass through it, instead.
This makes the batteries more stable, faster charging, and able to generate more juice with less weight. However, solid-state batteries are also material intensive, have some of the same material-modifying issues current batteries have, and — perhaps the real killer, right now — are more expensive to make.
Toyota claims it will be releasing batteries that will extend the rang up to 900 miles by 2028 — but the automaker has made similar claims before.
All of which could color Toyota’s new EV dedication.
“Whenever anyone said, ‘Oh, Toyota’s lagging on EVs,’ I always cautioned them: You don’t know what’s going on in their labs,” Krebs told Axios. “What’s pretty clear now is they’re going public with some of the work they’ve been doing.”
But, as Elektrek pointed out, Toyota’s been going public with what they’ve been doing for a while now; back in 2014, the company claimed a solid-state battery would be on the road by 2020.
But you killin’ mutha Erf!...............
You owe me a new keyboard for that one!
Or your headlights...................
If they could ever get 900+ miles without a Charge it could revolutionalize the Automotive Market. If simultaneously, they could exponentionally shorten the time a charge takes, it might, just might push Gas Guzzlers out of the market.
Ohm’s Law will not be broken.......................
Optimizing on at least eight things is a real challenge:
* Range
* Recharge time
* Battery life
* Initial cost and replacement cost
* Efficiency of charge/recharge cycle and performance degradation over the life of the battery
* Battery weight (i.e., energy density, kWh/lb)
* Recycling
* Materials (abundance in earth’s crust, toxicity, mining, etc)
Note that many of these are interrelated - weight and energy density affect range, materials choices affects recycling ability, cost is partly determined by materials choices, etc.
Great for off-roading.
Oh,forgot to mention...one of the many reasons I’ve loved diesels since my first one (2009 BMW 335d) is the billows of amazing black smoke I see behind me!
Lol- probably!
They should build “fire sheds” for car charging- self exti gushing sheds for when the hoards of cars burst into flames overnight while charging.
Can you imagine the fireworks when a 600 mile battery sparks off?
Create the infrastructure for the distribution of hydrogen by use of fuel cells, and then maybe you are talking sense about widespread adoption of electric vehicles. Batteries are a cumbersome, inefficient, and with a very poor cost/benefit ratio, ultimately not economically feasible means of supplying electric power to automobiles.
For the infrastructure, the first priority is to VASTLY expand the electric power generation capacity of this nation, then taking the grid into many small, separately self-contained units that can drop out of the wider grid almost instantaneously, should an attack be made on any part of the grid. Power each of these smaller grids with small modular nuclear power electric generation plants, and using technology already available or well into the beta test stage of development, begin implementing the construction and distribution of these factory-built components. These new developments in nuclear poser are both MUCH less expensive than your father’s and grandfather’s nuclear plant designs, and eliminate nearly every one of the objections ever raised to the use of nuclear power. It is only superstition that prevents their widespread adoption and use in today’s world, but these advances in technical expertise can be the future of electric power generation for decades if not centuries to come.
“Power so cheap it need not be metered, but available on a monthly subscription alone.” Strive for this ideal, and the generation of hydrogen from electrolysis of water is an economically feasible source of hydrogen for fuel cells.
Which in turn power your automobiles and all kinds of mobile and portable tool applications.
Three years is a long time to leave it plugged in, but since we’re talking EVs that sounds about right...
As I’ve been saying, I’m going to have a conversation on that and related issues Sunday with a friend who’s fire chief of a pretty major league jurisdiction.
Toyota says, if you’re thinking about an EV, hold off until at least 2026. Got it!
Double up on the number of children working in the lithium mines.
Ever notice how these promised technological improvements are always put at years into the future, and never comes to pass?
“Your solar panels will pay for themselves in 10 years!”
“Your solar panels will pay for themselves in 10 years!”
But they won’t last 5!.................
Apartment complexes will insist you park your EV outside of the complex, and parking garages will insist you park on the street, and roads and highway usage will have you paying fees for repair, because, EVs are heavier and destroy roads to a larger extent than ICE vehicles.
Further, price of electricity will be going up because the infrastructure will need to be upgraded to support more EVs using the electric grid. So, you’ll end up paying much higher prices to ‘fuel’ up EVs, because, you are already paying for the gas replacement with the EV battery, and then when you charge up the battery. An EV that costs $20 thousand to $40 thousand dollars more at purchase time, will be equivalent to about 20-30 years of gas purchases; and that doesn’t include the cost of charging/recharging each time the battery goes low. What a deal!
Ask him about the special precautions they have to take at EV car accidents when using the ‘Jaws of Life’............................
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