But why not have a plugin option for the current configuration? Sure, you wouldn't get many more kms per recharge, but you'd get more than 0 for "city driving", and at a cost per mile far below the price of gas.

Furthermore, it would give them a testbed to work on computer logic that would optimize how much power to pull from the batteries for drivers who do plug in. There's tons of optimization theory needed there, and having a testbed would allow them to work on and tweak the algorithms while the batteries improve in quality and fall in price.

For all I know, the EPA may not like plug-ins because they change the basis of the tests used to determine emissions.  Without an approved test procedure, how would Toyota get a plug-in car approved?

Another possibility is that this is misdirection.  If the oil producers thought that large parts of the vehicle fleet would soon be independent of them, they might cut back supply now and extract as much money as they can.  If Toyota can put large numbers of hybrids in the field - hybrids which can be retrofitted at relatively low cost - then they can steal a march on the oil producers.

Its far simpler then all that. Toyota cant get a warranty insurance for a plug in hybrid because the risk of needing to replace alot of battery packs is soo large no insurer will touch it AND typotas own financial bean counters wont let em go alone.

Now if its a warranty voiding mod to the car that takes care of the problem;/

U don't seem to get do u? Those who run business in oil companies are not interested in plug-ins. FACT. No need to look for others. Those fat bastards run ads on TV how they care for us by reducing bad emissions. And this hydrogen hype that is created to divert ppl from pure electric future? Oil companies get money from oil and gasoline.
Goverments get taxes at the pump in a huge way. No one seems to be interested exept those who has TIME to look a bit deeper into the subject. Companies producing products that emitt bad stuff, should be taxed for future damages to public health. Yes ICE cars are cheaper, but if u look deeper, how many ppl go to public health institutions due to all that dirt that we breath. Electic cars might be more expensive NOW due to lack of volume, and even if they will be more expensive they don't polute in the middle of the cities where mothers walk on sidewalks with toddlers, who might suffer in future. Goverments must step in, but their members have lots of interest in most lucrative oil
industries. Circle has to be broken somehow. I think only through education.

Alex, you're preaching to the choir.

Here are some more quotes from the IEEE Spectrum article that give Toyota's side of the story. You don't hear this perspective very often around here so I think they are worth repeating.

"HERMANCE POINTS OUT not only that one Prius-hacking tinkerer paid $15 000 for his lithium-ion battery pack, but that the added batteries make the car heavier—by 68 kilograms in the case of lithium-ion and nearly twice that for lead-acid. Thus, the car's fuel economy is actually worsened when the gasoline engine is running. And there's also the matter of having to replace the battery pack more often during the lifetime of the vehicle because cycling a battery from fully charged to 20 percent charged wears out even advanced batteries.

"'So you have a higher up-front cost, a heavier vehicle that gets less fuel economy with less performance, and the prospect of replacing the battery during [the car's] life,' he says."

"Toyota's Hermance insists that, barring a spectacular breakthrough in battery chemistry, the cost of nickel-metal hydride batteries will remain around $1100/kWh for the foreseeable future. He concedes that the Prius's nickel-metal hydride battery packs have become significantly cheaper since Toyota began producing the car for the Japanese market in late 1997—power densities have gone up, allowing the car to get the same acceleration with a smaller battery pack. But energy density hasn't really improved, so energy storage remains as expensive as ever."

Now I'm going to try to explain that last paragraph. There is a difference between energy and power. Power is energy per unit of time; it is rate of energy usage. Hybrids need power to accelerate; they need energy to run for a long time without the engine.

Toyota is saying that technology has improved the amount of POWER they can get out of a given mass of batteries, and since apparently that is what they are using the batteries for, they have been able to switch to smaller battery packs. This way they can still get the same acceleration, with lower mass and lower costs. But they have not had improvements in TOTAL ENERGY STORAGE. Their cars are not able to run any longer on their batteries, for a given cost.

It should be no surprise to any of us that battery technology is the limitation. We see this in all of our technology. iPods running out of power and batteries failing, all the people at airports fighting over power outlets to plug in their laptops. Battery technology just hasn't kept up. It's a hard problem. It sounds like until it is solved, plug-in hybrids are going to be restricted to those like that hobbyist who paid $15,000 for his battery pack (and probably will have to pay another $15K in a few years when it dies). That's not a technology that's ready for the mass market.

As far as I know Rav4s running on batteries got through 130k and still running. With 1000 cicles and 200km range, vehicle can run for 200.000km before batteriy has to be replaced. If remove all ICE parts from Prius and buy more batteries for that amount of money u might reach 200 km goal even now without mass producing car batteries.
200.000 = 18 tonns of gas during life of midsize (with consumption of 9litres per 100km)
ICE sedan and is about 12.000$(20-25.000$ for SUV) to the pocket of oil chaps. Plus oil changes and other repeairs to ICE.
On the other hand electic motors are WAAAY more reliable and riquire waaay less visits to mechanic shops. Brake pads don't wear and create "dirty" dust that we breath and list goes on. In fact electric cars will have way much less parts then ICE ones.
Most of this gas payments go to Middle East and will not stay in USA making reach not USA cosiety but Arabs. This is my calculation. Now 12.000$ just for fuel cost, what about all those toddlers that will not be working due to health problems. What about arabs who is gonna sponcor their terrorists, what about american boys who has to give their live for housewife being able to drive SUV . Of course noone in car industry will tell u the reason why, cause most of middle management is just executing what they are told by high rank executives who in turn has big stakes of stocks in their portfolios. They will tell u something what Toyota just did, so it will look convincing.
As I say I think we arrived to the point when pluses outweigh minuses overall for cosiety to shift to electic power as much as possible. That will bring back working places, make USA undependant and public healthier and more productive. Want it or not
it will happen. Of course not with your current beloved leader Mr.Bush and those who sponcored his election campaign, of course they have to be paid back, isn't it why gas prices are so high? . New ppl will bring fresh thinking. When? who knows, but pressure wil build up.

Halfin:  Have you looked at the batteries which went into the Li-ion Prius+?  They were some very new cells from Valence Technology, based on lithium iron phosphate rather than lithium cobalt oxide.  You'd expect anything out of the ordinary to cost more.

Yup, Toyota is correct about batteries, to a point.  There are some mighty quick cars (Tango, tzero) which carry awfully heavy (to us) loads of lead-acid batteries.  This is a problem?  It means you can make a very quick car with a fair amount of all-electric range, and you can use cheap batteries to do it!  Yes, you need to re-think more of the car than you have to with a conversion like Echo to Prius.  I don't see why this should cripple you.

Example:  Suppose you design a car around Optima D51's.  You find space for 20 of them, for a total storage (C/20 rate) of 41 AH at 240 volts (probably more like 30 AH usable).  They weigh 26 pounds each, so they add 520 pounds to the vehicle, plus mounting hardware.  (You get some of this back if you shrink the engine.)

But they buy you lots of power.  Internal resistance is < 5 milliohms, so you should be able to pull 200 amps with perhaps 1 volt drop.  220 volts @ 200 A = 44 kW, or 59 horsepower.  30 AH usable @ 220 volts nominal is 6.6 kWh, or enough to cruise 33 miles at 200 Wh/mile (the tzero claims 203 Wh/mile, the Tango claims 173).

33 miles electric cruise range would cover my entire commute and my usual shopping too, with range to spare.  How difficult would that be for the auto companies to do?

The Los Angeles Times sunday magazine has a good article on plug in hybrids at http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/magazine/la-tm-500mpg29jul17,1,7773745.story?coll=la-headlines-magazine .

Our buddy Dave Hermance is there again to throw cold water on the proceedings, although he is not quite so negative as in Spectrum: "The betting line of developers is that a lithium-ion battery of sufficient cost, durability and safety is three to five years away." That's not so bad.

The reporter tries out the plug-in Prius from EnergyCS in Monrovia, CA and seems quite pleased with it. However no hard figures are given about how much the conversion cost. They project that a conversion kit available next year will "sell for $12,000, maybe less". I've been around business long enough to know that this means it will sell for $12,000, maybe more. In fact, probably quite a bit more. But we'll see.

Another thing the article explains is that the short battery lifetime is a regulatory problem because California zero emission vehicle regulations specify that there can be no major replacement parts needed over the car's lifetime. So even if customers don't mind shelling out an extra $12K, maybe less, maybe more, every few years, it could disqualify the vehicle from the regulatory advantages it would otherwise achieve.

Also, although the reporter is very pleased to report his gas savings, he never comes out and says what the electricity is costing him. In addition to having some of the most expensive gas in the nation, California also has some of the most expensive electricity, the result of the state's disastrous flirtation with deregulation a few years ago. Of course we don't get an electric bill every morning so it's not as easy to measure electrical expenses as for gas, but writing down the meter readings every morning before and after the car test period would give a pretty good idea. This oversight is especially noticeable since he quotes a skeptic who criticizes the plug-in proponents for quoting performance figures that don't include the electrical costs.

IIRC, emissions-related components have to last a minimum number of miles, and there is an independent warranty for them.  This does not apply to the powertrain proper; if the system meets emissions even after battery failure, you don't have a problem in that regard.

What's the problem with rolling in the first battery replacement with the cost of the vehicle and calling it a warranty?  This is the kind of thing that should have been finessed some time ago, and could be done relatively easily.

Halfin, did you read the whole thing? The electricity cost is listed at the bottom, and it was about 1/4 of the negligible costs of gasoline.

Thanks, Robert, I did overlook those last two sentences. The writer says that the car used 7.092 kWh on the drive, which he says is 68 cents worth of electricity. Add this to $2.50 for a gallon of gas to drive 73.98 miles and he calls it 4 cents a mile.

I might quibble with these figures; for one thing it actually works out to 4.4 cents per mile. Also, the electricty would correspond to a charge of 9.6 cents per kWh which I think is pretty low for the Los Angeles area. I wasn't able to find a rate schedule on the SCE.com web site, but http://www.sce.com/CustomerService/RateInformation/ResidentialRates/RateCalculation.htm shows a sample bill for Montery Park, where they pay 9.2 cents for delivery and between 6.9 and 8.1 cents for generation, or about 17 cents per kWh. That would make the electricity cost more like $1.20.

Then there is the factor that the 7.092 kWh comes apparently from some display on the car, and assuming it is accurate that is probably the draw on the batteries. It is not the amount that the batteries were charged. Due to inefficiencies as would be present in any system, the batteries will take in more power than they deliver. I don't know how high this factor is with that particular design.

If we guess at 90% efficiency then that is $1.32 of electricity, plus $2.50 for the gas is $3.82 to go 73.98 miles, or 5.2 cents per mile. Compare that with the unmodified Prius, which "reliably" gets 45 mpg city/highway, or 5.6 cents per mile with $2.50 gas, and it's not much of an improvement considering all the effort.

The price of gasoline in parts of California is already up to $3.00/gallon, which puts the Prius up to 6.7 cents/mile for fuel.

There's another element that isn't being considered here, and that's loss-limits.  If you buy the Prius (and don't convert it to Prius+) your costs still rise along with gasoline (which rises with crude oil); it could conceivably hit $5.00/gallon, which would make the Prius's fuel cost 11.1¢/mile.  If you go with a Tango or some GO-HEV that runs mostly on electricity, 250 Wh/mile at the charger costs you 4.25¢/mile for "fuel" at 17¢/kWh (plus battery degradation).  You can't make your own crude oil, but a great many people can make their own electricity from solar or wind; if the cost of electricity rises far enough, there will be a lot of people adding their own capacity.

It's obvious that renewable technologies can put a ceiling on how expensive crude oil can get before the stroll away from gasoline becomes a stampede.  What's really interesting is that today's prices are right on the margins, and future-proofing argues for moving now.

Um not to put a huge arse wet blanket on it all but to make everything much worse alot of places here have a variable charge on electricity the more you use the higher the cost. Not ONLY will you have to pay a higher rate BUT if your car brings you up a rate you pay the extra on EVERYTHING you used that month.

That can take you from 120 a month to 600 a month quick.

Alot of folders got hit with that nasty as they ran too many folding servers and got hiked a rate that doubled even trippled thier monthly bills.

Sure makes that solar panel more attractive, doesn't it?  (Ridiculous escalation of rates vs. consumption is a Californian disease; it's created by legislation [idiot legislators and ideologue lobbyists], not inherent.)

There are folks out there with electric vehicles and time-of-day metering; they charge at night, so they pay much reduced rates vs. flat-rate pricing.  I've read of one guy who combined this with a grid-tied solar array and net metering; he back-feeds the grid during the day when rates are high, and charges his car when rates are low.  He comes close to breaking even.  (It was in Home Power, can't determine which issue at the moment.)