As Prius Turns 10, Toyota Looks Toward Hybrid 2.0

AP:

Since he was a teenager, Takeshi Uchiyamada's dream was to make a car. But as he entered his 50s as a Toyota engineer, he had all but given up hope he would ever head a project to develop a model.

In 1994, he finally got his dream. Little did he know that the car he was about to design — the Prius — would revolutionize the global auto industry.

Uchiyamada, 61, now executive vice president, was tackling the first mass production gas-electric hybrid, which celebrates its 10th anniversary in December.

Read the whole story: AP

Comments

[Enid]

10:39 AM on 11/01/2007

Detroit has been a sleep at the wheel for decades.
They laughed when Honda imported the Civic back
in the early 1970.

As for plug in electric cars the electric energy has to be made
so again you are burning coal or gas or something.

The befuddlement of world energy whether food or fuel is

WE ARE SPENDING 5BTU or 5 calories in exchange for I BTU or 1 calorie
of energy in return. This only leads to a deficiency of energy / calories.

FIVE WILL GET YOU ONE. How long can that last.

The fox would be dead if it spent more calories / energy hunting the rabbit
than the rabbit provided.

[mamacat]

12:57 AM on 11/01/2007

If Toyota comes out with a car that can get the first 5 or 10 miles on electric only, through something like a PHEV (plug in electric vehicle), it would be ideal for me, and probably for a lot of other people. Most of my driving is less than 10 miles roundtrip, so my total fuel economy with such a car would be very high.

[Enid]

10:39 AM on 11/01/2007

Detroit has been a sleep at the wheel for decades.
They laughed when Honda imported the Civic back
in the early 1970.

As for plug in electric cars the electric energy has to be made
so again you are burning coal or gas or something.

The befuddlement of world energy whether food or fuel is

WE ARE SPENDING 5BTU or 5 calories in exchange for I BTU or 1 calorie
of energy in return. This only leads to a deficiency of energy / calories.

FIVE WILL GET YOU ONE. How long can that last.

The fox would be dead if it spent more calories / energy hunting the rabbit
than the rabbit provided.

[mamacat]

12:53 AM on 11/01/2007

During and immediately after WWII, Railway Express had thousands of all-electric delivery vans operating in Manhattan. They did it without regenerative braking, without transistors and microprecessors, without fancy batteries. They put a bunch of lead-acid batteries in the vehicles, charged them up overnight, and drove them as needed. I know this because I spoke with someone who worked for Railway Express at that time.
It has been done in the past, it can be done now, but will it be done in the future?
Is anyone besides Exxon against a technology that does not use fuel from oil?

[Weathermaker]

07:28 PM on 10/30/2007

I don't understand the US auto manufacturers. They all have some hybrids but they installed them on their big fat SUVs or large cars:

Chevy Malibu:
hybrid: 24/32 mpg city/hw
nonhybrid: 22/30 mpg

Am I supposed to be impressed with this POS? Is that all they can get out of that hybrid? 2 puny mpg? Why don't they put a hybrid in a Focus or Aveo?

[willo]

05:55 PM on 10/30/2007

And you wonder why the domestics are getting their ass handed to them. The management was to buzy giving themselves bonuses and designing ever bigger SUV's
10 years late to the party and their products aren't as good as Toyotas original model.
I've been following the car industry for the last 40 years and this is just typical buisness as usual for Detroit.

[MetalCanuck]

01:22 PM on 10/30/2007

All cars need to be electric or PLUG IN Hybrids. That should be one of the first pieces of legislation but that won't happen because of special interests on both the Dems and repubs side.

[joebaggadonuts]

06:07 AM on 10/30/2007

There were tax incentives in place to help this car along. We need more of that kind of support from the Government to move this faster. Perhaps tax disincentives for gas guzzlers should be strengthened. Higher taxes on gas would be one approach. However, the incentives thing worked and new taxes don't seem to get of f the ground, so why not put in more incentives to drive greener?

[Sumocat]

12:22 PM on 10/30/2007

Don't need tax disincentives when the price of oil is approaching $100 a barrel. The increase in cost that will cause will be plenty discouraging (assuming the price hike won't be passed to heating oil instead, as is happening this winter).

[godlessclif]

03:02 AM on 10/30/2007

I wonder if a gas guzzling SUV would get more than six posts.

[realitytrumpsbull]

10:17 PM on 10/29/2007

Ok, now chop the back end off that 4-wheeled egg, and put a cargo bed on it...flatbed would
be fine...

[godlessclif]

05:16 PM on 10/29/2007

Every engineer knew an electric would be great off the line. Battery power is available with no lag.

The propaganda about electrics being sluggish
is just advertising hype. Electric systems are easy to optimize. Or I should say we have decades of experience studying how to optimize electric feedback control systems for automation.

I guess the unfair bashing by the Houston-Detroit advertising axis of evil will have to concentrate on bashing ethanol now.

Electrics have proved themselves and will just get better and better.

[totalliberal]

11:52 PM on 10/31/2007

["The propaganda about electrics being sluggish"]


Electric motors have 3 times the torque of gas engines.

[MHBoston]

03:35 PM on 10/29/2007

Toyota really does need to freshen up the Prius, not just looks-wise, but economy-wise, too. If they can get the car to look a little more attractive and boost the fuel economy to maybe 60 or 70 MPG, there will be a lot more people considering this car (myself included).

[thegreatgiginthesky]

04:13 PM on 10/29/2007

A car is just a tool for getting from A to B.

[totalliberal]

11:54 PM on 10/31/2007

["A car is just a tool for getting from A to B."]



And?

[Gabrielle]

04:30 PM on 10/29/2007

I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT MY PRIUS INCLUDING THE LOOK...AND MAN DO I SAVE LOTS OF MONEY...
TAKES OFF FASTER AT RED LIGHT THEN MOST OTHER VEHICLE
3 YEARS NOW

THE ONLY IMPROVEMENT, MIGHT BE EVEN MORE MILEAGE TO THE GALLON...