Toyota

Toyota has long been one of the most reticent large automakers when it comes to producing all-electric vehicles. It had no problems with hybrids, e.g. the Prius, but the Japanese automaker would only produce the bare minimum when it came to zero-emission mandates, e.g. the Rav4 EV in California, and they quickly lobbied to change those mandates.

They are now doing the same in China, where the government is about to ramp up its electric car mandate, and while Toyota, like almost all other automakers, tried to stop the mandate, it looks like it’s going to happen and it might finally force the automaker to mass produce EVs.
Expand
Expanding
Close

More recent Tesla enthusiasts might not be aware that Tesla and Toyota used to have close ties. Back in 2010, Toyota invested $50 million in Tesla and they brokered a heavily discounted sale of the Nummi factory, which is now Tesla’s Fremont factory.

Tesla also used to supply the electric powertrain of the Toyota RAV4 EV up until 2014 when the program stopped. At that point, Toyota sold most of its Tesla shares for a healthy profit and this weekend, it confirmed that it sold all its remaining shares before the end of last year.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Late last year, Toyota finally took a significant step toward making electric vehicles after years of being stuck in fuel cell development. They set up a new division to build their first all-electric vehicle and they even put CEO Akio Toyoda in charge of the new team.

Now Toyoda is apparently still fleshing out the Japanese automaker’s electric vehicle strategy and looking at Tesla for inspiration.
Expand
Expanding
Close

NVIDIA, a leading GPU maker, has been emerging as an important computing power supplier for the automotive industry’s transition to autonomous driving. Over the past two decades, the computing power in the passenger cars has increased significantly, but it’s nothing compared to how it will have to increase over the next decade in order for cars to drive themselves.

Toyota has become today the latest automaker to team up with NVIDIA in order to accelerate their autonomous vehicle program.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Toyota is undoubtedly having difficulties selling the Mirai, its hydrogen car, in the US. Despite cutting the price on several occasions, with now a lease at only $350 (down from $500) in California, the Japanese automaker can’t find a market for the vehicle and only delivered 782 units during the first 2 years of production. That’s despite the millions of dollars in government money spent on refueling infrastructure.

The automaker is now turning to big rigs to use the fuel cell hydrogen powertrain with a new prototype unveiled today.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Toyota, the largest automaker in the world, announced today a new $35 million initiative to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to develop new advanced materials with a focus on creating the next generation battery for electric vehicles.

The project is led by the US-based Toyota Research Institute (TRI) and they will work with “research entities, universities, and companies on materials science research.”
Expand
Expanding
Close

It’s the Geneva Motor Show and new car concepts are being unveiled left and right. Electric vehicles account for a significant number of those new concepts to the point that Toyota, which is known for betting on hydrogen fuel cells and its hacked up Prius Prime over EVs is also debuting a new electric concept.

The Japanese automaker says that it commissioned the new vehicle called ‘i-Tril’ from its French design studio in collaboration with the company’s ED² design studio in Nice based on research on the company’s younger demographic.
Expand
Expanding
Close

At the Prius Challenge event in Sonoma California today, Toyota unveiled today its second generation autonomous vehicles platform developed by the Toyota Research Institute (TRI).

While Toyota demoed an interesting system, it certainly has to be one of the most ridiculous-looking self-driving platforms we have seen so far. If you look closely, you can actually see the Lexus LS 600hL underneath all those lidar sensors.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Shortly after Toyota unveiled a new solar roof option for the 2017 Prius Prime, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the Tesla Model 3 will “probably” also have a solar roof option.

Now we learn that Panasonic, a current solar cell and battery cell supplier for Tesla, is releasing a  new solar product designed for automotive applications, which will first be used in Toyota’s solar roof option for the Prius.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Automakers will be going to Geneva in the next two weeks for the 87th Geneva International Motor Show. A few of them have announced that they will bring new electric vehicle concepts to the trade show.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Today, Toyota announced changes in executives’ areas of responsibility, as well as personnel changes at the sub-executive managerial level. The most important change by far is the appointment of Akio Toyoda, the company’s CEO and grandson of founder Kiichiro Toyoda, as President of a new ‘EV Business Planning’ department.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Toyota announced today what it referred to as a “breakthrough” in battery research and development that will “lead to longer battery life and longer driving range for vehicles using lithium-ion batteries”,  according to a press release sent out by the Japanese automaker. 

The company claims it will enable “up to 15 percent greater range” for battery-powered electric vehicles.
Expand
Expanding
Close

We were excited a few weeks ago when reports came out that Toyota was going to put together a team to develop long-range electric cars and bring them to market by 2020. Today, the Japanese automaker officially confirmed this effort, but not without throwing some cold water on it.
Expand
Expanding
Close

As we reported earlier this year, the few automakers still entrenched in hydrogen fuel cell technology were starting to show signs of succumbing to physics and turning to battery-powered electric cars in order to comply with stricter zero-emission regulations.

Now one of the most prominent proponents of hydrogen fuel cell cars, Toyota, is reportedly planning to mass produce battery-powered long-range electric cars by 2020.
Expand
Expanding
Close

In this week’s top stories: News that Tesla is doubling Powerpack energy capacity with the Gigafactory’s new battery cells, Toyota reveals a $27,100 price tag for its Prius Prime plug-in hybrid, details on SolarCity/Tesla’s upcoming ‘Solar Roof’, and much more.

Expand
Expanding
Close

While the Toyota Prius has had its fair amount of success, the dazzling Prius Prime will aim to be the customer’s top choice for a plug-in hybrid with its attractive $27,100 price tag (before incentives) and very impressive 124 MPGe.

Expand
Expanding
Close

When Toyota introduced the 2010 Prius years ago, the automaker offered an optional solar panel on the roof of the car. The idea to power your electric vehicle from direct sunlight is understandably appealing, but the system was actually only able to power the climate control inside the system and not the battery pack to power the vehicle.

While solar is great as a source of energy and something we follow diligently here, it requires a great deal of space to make it worthwhile for transportation applications.  Toyota has said that it didn’t connect the previous $2000 Prius Solar Panel option directly to the engine because it caused radio interference with the car’s stereo. In reality, not much power would have been gained. The previous panels were 50watts or about a 6th of a solid 3’x5′ solar panel.

Now the Japanese automaker is bringing back the feature in the new 2017 Prius Plug-In, now renamed the ‘Prius Prime’, and it will reportedly be able to charge your battery pack to contribute to the vehicle’s electric range. Looking at the size, I’d guess it is at least 3-5 times bigger/more powerful than the previous Kyocera solar panel but even then, will it have a meaningful impact on driving/range? 
Expand
Expanding
Close

I think we are witnessing the start of a new (but long overdue) trend this year. The few established automakers still pushing fuel cell hydrogen vehicles appear to be warming up to battery-powered electric vehicles instead. Honda, Toyota and Hyundai, arguably the automakers most stuck on hydrogen, all announced new electric vehicle programs in the past few weeks.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Ahead of the Beijing Auto Show this week, Toyota announced that it will create an electric plug-in hybrid (PHEV) version of the Corolla for the Chinese market. While the automaker’s announcement appears to limit the vehicle’s availability to China for now, it does open the door for a possible global launch of a PHEV version of Toyota’s flagship midsize sedan.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Although Toyota is betting big on hydrogen vehicles, the Japanese automaker seems to be slowly warming up to electric vehicles as an alternative to broaden its lineup of zero-emission cars. This week, the automaker unveiled a new electric vehicle concept in partnership with Clemson University’s International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR).

Unfortunately for EV enthusiast, it’s another ‘weird-mobile’ and it’s called the uBox.
Expand
Expanding
Close