Hybrids versus electrics: Just posturing?
Is the Volt heading in the wrong direction?Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran a feature on the debate going on at the Tokyo Auto Show between automakers regarding hybrid vehicles versus electric vehicles.
When I read the piece, I could only laugh.
Big surprise that Toyota would defend hybrid vehicles. Can you say Prius? Likewise GM's Chevy Volt plug-in - a series plug-in hybrid, even though GM hates the word hybrid - puts GM on the same side as Toyota.
Well, kind of.
On the other side is Honda and Nissan. (Finish: Hybrids versus electrics)
Labels: chevy equinox fuel cell vehicle, Chevy Volt electric vehicle concept, e flex system, electric cars, Hybrid Vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles, prius
posted by Dahcredyns at
10:21 AM
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Full Story
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran a feature on the debate going on at the Tokyo Auto Show between automakers regarding hybrid vehicles versus electric vehicles.
When I read the piece, I could only laugh.
Big surprise that Toyota would defend hybrid vehicles. Can you say Prius? Likewise GM's Chevy Volt plug-in - a series plug-in hybrid, even though GM hates the word hybrid - puts GM on the same side as Toyota.
Well, kind of.
On the other side is Honda and Nissan. Nissan essentially rents their hybrid technology from Toyota, and Honda has been VERY bearish on hybrids since the Insight. Recently, it was even admitted that today most Civic hybrids are basically hand built - Honda has yet to create a full production line for the Civic hybrid.
Instead, Honda and Nissan claim pure electric cars are the best way forward.
"My feeling is that the kind of plug-in hybrid currently proposed by different auto makers can be best described as a battery electric vehicle equipped with an unnecessary fuel engine and fuel tank," Honda President and CEO Takeo Fukui said at the company's research-and-development center. He said he was referring to plug-in hybrids such as the Chevy Volt.
Yet, Toyota countered recently that electric cars can be a dangerous proposition for those interested in global warming. For instance, a country like China generates almost all its electricity via coal. Adding electric cars to that infrastructure is an environmental disaster waiting to happen.
Isn't it really about flexibility?
The next generation of automobiles is still dependent upon multiple technological obstacles, and almost anything is possible. Still, companies like GM and Toyota are putting themselves in a position to easily ramp up their platforms in any direction.
Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive has already been prototyped into a plug-in hybrid, a hydrogen hybrid, a pure fuel cell vehicle, and the move to a pure electric vehicle is within reach. Ultimately, Toyota's hybrid platform is built for flexibility and adaptation. Most important, however, it enables Toyota to progressively scale towards electrification - whether that means electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids or fuel cell vehicles.
GM's E-Flex Platform is very similar to the Hybrid Synergy Drive in its scalability towards electrification. The E-Flex platform is designed in a way that a plug-in hybrid, such as the Volt, could just as easily be produced into a fuel cell Volt, or an electric Volt, even a lithium-powered Volt with or without plug-in technology. The E-Flex platform, like the Hybrid Synergy Drive, is being developed to evolve, to adapt, to FLEX around breakthroughs in lithium, fuel cells, hydrogen, capacitors, etc.
Ultimately, GM and Toyota are diversifying, preparing to go in any direction, even all directions.
Honda and Nissan, on the other hand, have a few less eggs in their basket.
Of course, since GM and Toyota are the super powers in the autoworld - essentially needing to be in every market to survive - diversification is their only option.
Neither the Volt nor the Prius is THE future
Focusing on the Volt, for example, as THE icon of GM's future is pure nonsense.
The Chevy Volt, could be a complete failure, and GM could still succeed. It's not the Volt that matters. The Volt is just a car. It's the E-Flex Platform that really matters, and the E-Flex Platform is far from dependant upon the success of the Volt. It might just turn out that the next generation Equinox Fuel Cell vehicle - another E-Flex Platform vehicle - makes the Volt irrelevant.
That's why, at this point in time, the debate between hybrids and electrics is laughable. Anything is possible, and automakers are just posturing, just trying to position themselves in the minds of autowriters and consumers as the leaders of the next generation of technology.
Inevitably, it will be the cars, and consumers, that have the final word.
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