Toyota discusses problems with plug-in battery technology in Popular Mechanics article

(Note: To learn more about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and their potential to solve the oil crisis, please read the series of articles titled “Twelve Hydrogen Facts” which is part of the Hydrogen Manhattan Project.)

Here are seven excerpts from a Popular Mechanics article published on October 2nd titled “Toyota, Experts See Plug-in Car Trouble: Electric Reality Check”:

1.  “At a sustainability seminar held here recently amidst all the hybrid hype, Toyota officials offered predictions that suggest the utopian picture of our plug-in future may be premature. ‘Plug-in hybrids will go to market, but we should have reasonable expectations,’ said Bill Reinert, national manager of Toyota’s Advanced Technology Group.”

2.  “Toyota confirmed that its plug-in Prius is scheduled to go on sale as a 2010 model with an EV-only range of about 10 miles after testing on li-ion models begins with North American fleets in about a year.”

3.  “Current lithium-ion batteries still can’t tolerate large swings in the electric charge cycle. So before the gas in modern hybrids kicks in, and as drivers expect their plug-in cars to operate at higher speeds and longer distances in electric-only mode, battery life will be strained significantly. As a result, the li-ion packs grow larger, which adds expense and makes them hard to package in a small car. For example, at 6-ft 5-in. long and 390 pounds, the battery in the Chevy Volt is downright huge.”

4.  “The bottom line: As EV range increases, cost increases. The new industry rule of thumb, according to presenters at the Toyota Sustainable Mobility Seminar here, is that batteries will cost about $500 per electric mile delivered.”

5.  “Cost aside, battery life is a serious concern, regardless of how manufacturers choose to design and manage their li-ion batteries. The current Prius, which uses nickel-metal-hydride batteries, has a 10-year warranty on the battery pack, but Toyota’s Reinert admitted that such a guarantee would be very difficult to offer on the electrified version. ‘If the warranty is only three years, are customers going to accept that?’ he asked.”

6.  “In an earlier interview with PM, Reinert pointed out that in very cold temperatures, mountain regions in the winter, and hot zones, the American southwest in the summer, ‘You can lose an order of magnitude of energy availability in the battery. So if you have a 40-mile range normally, in Boulder, Colo., when it was 10 below zero, you might end up with a 4-mile range, with the heater going and all the other things.’”

7.  “Another commonly held assumption is that customers will charge their plug-in cars during the night, in off-peak electrical-demand hours. However, in studies of early EV users, researchers from the University of California at Davis suggest that Americans want to charge whenever they can-especially during the day. ‘Nearly all vehicles were regularly charged during daytime business hours,’ the report observed. Human nature being what it is, ‘Automotive fuels need to be available anytime, any where, all day long,’ Reinert said, adding that home plug-in stations likely will be limited to high-occupancy apartment buildings at first. ‘What if half of all cars were plug-in cars? Is there enough charging capacity for everyone?’

Larry Burns, vice president of research and development at GM, seemed to agree, in an earlier interview with PM. Utility companies ‘are concerned about everybody in the neighborhood, at the same time, plugging into a fast recharger, and the substation is down immediately. They cannot deliver that much energy that fast.’”