Japan’s Toyota Motor will delay by one or two years the rollout of new high-mileage hybrids with lithium-ion batteries because of safety concerns, a newspaper reported Thursday. Toyota’s decision was prompted by worries that the batteries could overheat, catch fire or even explode, the Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition, quoting unnamed Toyota executives.
It said such fears were heightened by problems with similar batteries made by Sony Corp. for laptop computers which prompted a massive recall last year.
Makes a lot bigger “BOOM” than a laptop!
Ya, the gang over at PriusChat.com, including myself, are disappointed.
However Toyota has expanded quickly in the last few years, and the CEO wants to prevent the company from producing bad quality products.
So by greatly increasing quality control, Toyota is delaying many new features & cars.
The biggest fear is Li-Ion batteries, in a collision, car short more easily and cause thermal runaway & a fire, like those laptops.
Reminds me of Ford releasing big V8 SUV’s that spit fire from the exhaust system, due to shoddy quality control.
Different companies, different priorities.
I hope they get the problems ironed out. That is one cool car!!
I’m still watching for the diesel version with solar panels on the roof, hood, and anywhere else that makes sense. And, let’s throw in an HECE device and a plug while we’re at it. We’ll shatter the 100mpg boundary with that combination.
If Toyota was as progressive as they would like us to think they wouldn’t be promoting tech from the 19th century. Where are modern equivalents not the derivatives put in a restyled body.
#3 – I’m certain this is more to your liking:
#3 Care to expand on that? I just hopped in the way back machine and couldn’t find any Li-Ion batteries back in 1895.
I think he is talking about batteries in general being 19th century tech. I want my car to run on a Mr. Fusion (pardon the pun).
I always felt they were rushing out the new battery technology a little too quickly in the last 10 years or so just to increase laptop battery run time. We now see the results of going a little too quickly.
I don’t see why they can’t bring out the new car design now with existing batteries, and then in 2 or 3 years, simply transition to the new batteries during one of the normal model year changes.
Solar panels and a plug would be nice features too.
Don
#5: They’re hybrids, not electric cars. As such. they still rely on the same 19th-century internal combustion engine to create (and transform) the energy needed to get moving.
Li-Ion batteries would make for one hot car.
#8 Tippis, not quite !
Toyota’s combustion engines are the world’s cleanest regular gas engines, followed closely by Honda.
VW has the best mileage in diesel, but they are only now concentrating on the clean part (which reduces mileage when cleaner).
Toyota’s PZEV basically recycles it’s own exhaust, and uses the exhaust to warm up the incoming air, and to keep the engine warm, for a tenth-of-a-second restart when turned off.
These are quite high-tech gasoline engines, Toyota with CVT and Honda with VTECH. High mileage, high performance.
So keep the comments about 19th (20th century) technology to encompass the “others”, not VW, Honda, or Toyota.
KIA is surprisingly low-tech, run-of-the-mill, combustion engine, like Ford/GM/Chrysler.
It would be cool to be able to buy a Chryler PT Cruiser with the engine & transmission of a Honda Civic/Accord.
Instead of Chrysler’s Neon chassis and drive train.
Perhaps BIG OIL is behind the exploding batteries?
Sheesh, I’ve had this figured out for years, but everybody thinks I’m a quack.
We need GERBIL-POWERED vehicles! Gerbils are cheap, plentiful, self-reproducing, and run on carrots. Imagine what this could do for the global carrot market?!
Not only that, other than microwave experiments in grade schools that go wrong, gerbils are not known to explode.
Last, but certainly not least, they’re cuddly, and can be used as ‘adult toys’ when not being deployed to run the wheels of our cars.
#12
“Last, but certainly not least, they’re cuddly, and can be used as ‘adult toys’ when not being deployed to run the wheels of our cars.”
You sure would have a tough time explaining the cops why you’re f*cking gerbils.
#12 – Squeaky,
The problem with the carrot/gerbil hybrid motor is that, like other biofuels, it puts rich people driving in competition with poor people eating. The poor will lose.
Hey wait a minute!! Did I just post a serious reply about a gerbil/carrot engine? Well, I am the type to answer a rhetorical question, so, yup I guess I did.
No gerbils…. weasels! Much stronger and faster.
Better yet… weasels chasing gerbils!
It certainly is a cool looking car. I applaud the slippery aero body design.
Hybrids are definitely an improvement on conventional auto designs particularly regenerative braking systems. Capturing energy that would be lost from friction braking makes a lot of sense.
But I can’t help but think that development of bio-diesel fuel infrastructure might help relieve domestic fuel needs as well as cleaning our air a little bit.
Rudolf Diesel invented an engine in 1892 that ran on peanut oil. We run the same design on heavy petroleum distillates today. God only know why we don’t use veggie based oils which are renewable domestically produced and far less toxic.
Squeaky you needn’t fear mass starvation from bio-fuel industry America has vast farmlands that lie fallow due to farmer impoverishment. Rapeseed(Canolla to those who believe life can be IP) grows quite well throughout North America and is the best oil plant for domestic latitudes.
BTW peanut oil might even enhance the utility of using Gerbils as adult toys ^^
A battery researcher once told me that the problem with improving chemical batteries was that that the better they worked, the more they reminded you of bombs.
Run the numbers, he was right. A laptop has a lot in common with a hand grenade.
#17. Battery hybrid cars are unlikely to prevail for that very reason. In my unqualified and too humble opinion, biodiesel fuelled ic engines have a lot of development potential ahead of them. Once the manufacturers do their work on variable/low-speed turbocharging and eutectic heat recovery, their efficiencies are going to far exceed petrol electric hybrids.
#6 – He already gets walked on around here, why not run on him?
Gimme ahybrid truck or gerbil truck that doesn’t cost more than a regular truck and I’m there.
Good point Scott, I hope you are against ethanol mandates as well.
Caution is good when exploding batteries are under the microscope. I would love to see them show up safely. But batteries don’t necessarily drive the body style, so that cute picture of a next-model hybrid isn’t dead, it’s just the normal promise show car that never is delivered, anyhow.
On a side note, a buddy confirmed to me that my Prius already gets better milage than his big BMW bike. He says, maybe 35mpg. I get nearly 50.
You guys are right about Battery=Bomb if mistreated. Just run a capacitor into a dead short for a spectacular explosion.
On the topic of Electric cars and battery technologies you might wanna google err scroogle LEES ultracapacitors. They are reputedly carbon nanotube capacitors that could overcome the size limitations of capacitor designs making them competitive with Li batteries.
Battery = Bomb is bullshit.
A Battery is simply stored ENERGY. Liquid fuel is simply stored ENERGY. Gaseous fuel is simply stored ENERGY. A bomb is simply stored ENERGY.
It is how that energy is used that matters. If there is a difficulty is reliably harnessing that energy into a usable form then Toyota is right to refrain from producing it.
Biodiesel is bullshit. Currently the yield per acre of all biofuels is ridiculous. The only place where biofuels have worked is Brazil where they can grow several crops per year and the land and labor is still cheap.
#21 – MikeN,
Of course I’m against ethanol mandates. The only thing they do is take my money and hand it to huge agribusiness for the purpose of maybe, just maybe, if everything is done perfectly efficiently, getting 30% improvement in our fuel. And, it does put food and fuel in competition.
Some biofuels, such as switch grass ethanol and biodiesel, especially from used restaurant oil, may make some sense, especially for the short term. Mostly though, biofuels are not going to solve our problems, unless the purpose is to solve overpopulation by making less food available.
So why didn’t Toyota release the hybrid with a substitute battery, like the NiMH? Why, cause Chevron Oil bought out the battery technology within a year of its release. So Chevron controls how their NiMH batteries get used, as well as their price. The NiMH may not be as powerful as Li Ion, but at least they’re more stable in that sort of usage. You can be sure that Chevron took a good look at Li Ions before buying out the NiHMs.