Toyota to build yet another hybrid battery plant
2nd plant announcement in less than a weekLate last week Toyota announced that it was building a second battery manufacturing plant for hybrid cars. Today, Toyota announced that the automaker will now build a third plant as well. Both new plants will focus on NiMH battery technology, although rumors continue to swirl in Japan that Toyota is close to a announcing a lithium-battery manufacturing plant as well.
Labels: Hybrid Vehicles
posted by Dahcredyns at
7:09 AM
2 Comments:
This tells me one thing. NiMH is proven and dependable whereas Li is not. I wish it were though. Toyota would not invest in the technology so heavily if it were otherwise....
Imagine a Volt built right now with a 400 pound pack of NiMH, I know I think about it...
well, NiMH is proven, especially compared to lithium. however, toyota is also far more heavily invested in NiMH technology compared to any other automaker, so it is economically cost-effective for them to use NiMH as the kinks of lithium are being worked out.
every automaker is going to take their time rolling out lithium vehicles, just as a precaution, including toyota.
demand for toyota hybrids, however, is huge right now. today, toyota can sell as many base prius hybrids as they can make - at msrp. for that purpose particularly, nimh makes perfect cost-effective sense.
i'm not saying that nimh couldn't work for pure electrics, i just think it works more cost-effectively for hybrids.
of course, if you could cut the weight of automobiles signicantly, such as with carbon fiber and smaller sizes, i'd bet today's nimh technology could actually make a cost-effective plug-in hybrid. it wouldn't have the potential of a lithium powered plug-in, but it would be cost-effective in today's $4.00 gas world
if only the us automarket were driven purely be efficient innovation.
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