Heritage

Toyota prepares to release its first plug-in saloon

prius

The pricing and design is a strategy to find the middle ground between adequate all-electric range and reducing the need for a big battery pack — the most expensive component in a plug-in car. Photo/REUTERS

Toyota is currently running a print ad promoting the company’s future eco-friendly technologies.

As you would expect, it shows a Toyota Prius glistening by a tree-lined lake, and brags about the fuel and CO2 saved by hybrid technology.

The ad copy says that Toyota’s current hybrids are “paving the way for the next generation of environmentally friendly vehicles.” And then these five words: “Like cars charged at home.”

Sounds innocent enough, but those five words signal a big shift for Toyota as it finally moves forward with plans for a plug-in hybrid.

Unlike Bob Dylan’s fans who sobbed and booed when he went electric at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, Toyota’s hybrid followers are cheering the company’s intention to plug in, which could boost mileage on a Prius from 50 miles per gallon to the equivalent of 75 or so.

Starting in January, the company will put the first 500 official Plug-in Priuses on American, European and Japanese roads.

The US will get 150 of the test vehicles, which use lithium ion batteries, not the nickel metal hydrid packs that Toyota says are the current and long-term solution for conventional hybrids.

The pilot effort will kick off a three-year effort to get data on how plug-in cars fare in the real world: how they’re charged, how their batteries perform, and what sort of mileage they get.

“The target is 2012 to be coming to market with them,” Irv Miller, group vice president for Toyota US Sales, said at a Los Angeles conference on climate change. Before that, “we’re going to study the challenges of consumer demand,” he said.

Bleeding Edge?

It makes sense for the hybrid pioneer and leader, already on the third generation of its gas-electric technology, to lead the way with the next generation of cost-effective trustworthy plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.

But Toyota officials have been fearful of the bleeding edge, repeatedly warning that lithium-battery-powered plug-in hybrids are too costly, the technology is unproven, and too little is understood about how customers will use the vehicles.

Doug Coleman, US-based Prius product manager at Toyota, explained: “We’re pacing ourselves in a way that we think that we can be competitive in a few years time for a market that makes sense for both us and the customer.”

Fair enough, but the most vocal of those early customers have been stirred up into pitchfork levels of excitement about Tesla’s electric Roadster, the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid, and Nissan’s all-electric Leaf. So with those five words-”like cars charged at home”-Toyota is capitulating.

Reuters reported that Toyota plans to sell the Plug-in Prius at a price close to that of the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, which is going for about $48,000 in Japan. Ouch.

How many Prius shoppers are going to want the plug-in version if it’s anywhere close to double the price of the conventional version?

Obviously, Toyota wants to bring down the price.

That’s already reflected in the Plug-in Prius’s likely all-electric range of 10 or so miles-instead of the 40 miles or more that rival plug-ins are expected to achieve.

It’s a strategy to find the middle ground between adequate all-electric range and reducing the need for a big battery pack-the most expensive component in a plug-in car.

Is that the right strategy? That depends. How much driving you do on a given day?

After 10 miles of all-electric driving, would you would be satisfied with the car reverting back to a plain old 50-mpg Prius until your next recharge?

Or do you have to have a 40-mile plug-in hybrid or 100-mile all-electric car at any cost?

Take your time to answer those questions. Pricing and range are still a guessing game.

The Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf will have fairly limited availability in 2010 and 2011-not ramping up to widespread distribution until about 2012.

That’s just about the time that Toyota plugs in its Prius, giving consumers an unprecedented selection of cars that can charge at home.

Mike Mwai’s Motoring Column resumes next week