TORRANCE, Calif., December 2, 2009 -- The 2010 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid vehicle (PHV) will make its North American debut today at the Los Angeles Auto Show.
Built specifically to
support a global
demonstration program that
begins this month, the Prius
PHV is based on the
third-generation Prius. The
vehicle expands Toyota’s
Hybrid Synergy Drive
technology with the
introduction of a first
generation lithium-ion
battery that enables
all-electric operation at
higher speeds and longer
distances than the
conventional Prius hybrid.
When fully charged, the
vehicle is targeted to
achieve a maximum
electric-only range of
approximately 13 miles and
will be capable of achieving
highway speeds up to 60 mph
in electric-only mode. For
longer distances, the Prius
PHV reverts to “hybrid mode”
and operates like a regular
Prius. This ability to
utilize all-electric power
for short trips or hybrid
power for longer drives
alleviates the issue of
limited cruising range
encountered with pure
electric vehicles.
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Beginning later this month, a total of 350
vehicles will begin delivery in Japan and
Europe in support of model programs with
business and government partners aimed at
raising societal awareness of, and
preparedness for, this important new
technology.
Beginning early next year, 150 vehicles will
start arriving in the U.S., where they will
be placed in regional clusters with select
partners for market/consumer analysis and
technical demonstration.
On the consumer side, the U.S. program will
allow Toyota to gather real world
vehicle-use feedback to better understand
customer expectations for plug-in
technology. On the technical side, the
program aims to confirm, in a wide variety
of real world applications, the overall
performance of first-generation lithium-ion
battery technology, while spurring the
development of public-access charging
station infrastructure.
All vehicles will be equipped with data
retrieval devices which will monitor
activities such as how often the vehicle is
charged and when; whether the batteries are
depleted or being topped off during
charging; trip duration, all-EV driving
range, combined mpg and so on.
“This program is a necessary first step in
societal preparation, in that it allows us
the unique opportunity to inform, educate
and prepare customers for the introduction
of plug-in hybrid technology,” said Irv
Miller, TMS group vice president,
environmental and public affairs. “When
these vehicles come to market, customers
must understand what to expect and if this
technology is the right fit for them.”
In October, Toyota announced its first
regional program partnership with Xcel
Energy’s SmartGridCity program in Boulder,
Colo. Ten PHVs will be placed with Boulder
residents who will participate in an
interdisciplinary research project
coordinated by the University of Colorado at
Boulder Renewable and Sustainable Energy
Institute (RASEI), a new joint venture
between the U.S. Department of Energy’s
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
and the University of Colorado at Boulder.
RASEI, Xcel Energy and TMS will use this
program to gather data on vehicle
performance and charging patterns, consumer
behavior and preferences, as well as
electric utility/customer interactions. The
locale offers the additional benefit of
monitoring high altitude, cold climate
performance of Toyota’s first generation
lithium-ion battery.
Additional partners will be announced soon.
Regional programs are currently slated for
California, Washington D.C., New York,
Oregon and Pennsylvania. Each placement
scenario will have a variety of ‘use cases’
or driving conditions to gain maximum input
to vehicle performance and customer needs.
To assist with customer education, Toyota
has launched a PHV demonstration program
website – www.priusphv.com. At the site,
visitors can learn more about the
technology, follow the program’s progress
and, once the vehicles are deployed, track
the performance of the demonstration program
fleet. This transparent communication of
vehicle performance and real world data will
allow customers to make informed decisions
when considering the purchase of a plug-in
hybrid vehicle.
It’s All About The Battery
The battery powering the Prius PHV is the
first lithium-ion drive-battery developed by
Toyota and its joint venture battery
production company, Panasonic Electric
Vehicle Energy (PEVE). In early November,
PEVE began producing the first of more than
500 lithium batteries on a dedicated
assembly line at its Teiho production
facility in Japan.
PEVE is the world’s leading producer of
nickel-metal hydride batteries for
automotive drive applications, having
surpassed two million units in total
production volume. Nickel-metal batteries
are ideal for mass producing affordable
conventional hybrid vehicles due to their
low cost, excellent quality, high
reliability and moderate-demand
charge-sustaining operation. Lithium-ion
batteries, on the other hand, are more
promising for pure electric and plug-in
hybrid applications which require higher
energy density to meet the higher demands of
charge-depleting operation (large swings in
charge/discharge). And, although lithium-ion
batteries are less expensive in terms of
materials, they are more expensive than
nickel-metal in terms of production costs.
This first-generation lithium battery has
undergone more than three years of
coordinated field testing in Japan, North
America and Europe in a wide variety of
climatic environments and driving
conditions. Using approximately 150
conventional hybrids (mostly Prius), the
field test vehicles logged well over a
million combined miles. In the end, the
battery was deemed both reliable and
durable, confirming that it could indeed be
used in conventional hybrid applications in
the future, depending on further
developments in cost reduction.
The battery will now be placed into service
in the 500 Prius PHVs dedicated to Toyota’s
global demonstration program which begins in
December. Operating in a more severe
charge-depleting mode, the battery’s overall
performance in a broad range of vehicle-use
applications will be confirmed.