Sounds promising, this may be the hybrid I buy! Hope it plugs in.

Definitely not a plug-in. I expect this Lexus to offer near-Prius MPG despite being larger, faster and more luxurious.

Big mistake. Not cutting back on Highlander production, but building a car too big. Where's the plug-in? Toyota's going to regret this.

It is a very big mistake that Toyota did not incorporate a ZEBRA battery with only a sufficient number of cells to have it be able to directly connect through a relay to the hybrid battery to charge it efficiently when it gets low so that the engine does not start until more speed or more charge is needed. The standard hybrid battery allows efficient operation even with a "freezing" of the ZEBRA battery if the car cannot be pluggeg in for a week or so. The ZEBRA battery is high energy but medium power and works well in plug-in-hybrid cars with a high power low energy battery, similar to the one in the Prius. (Calcars' Ron Gremban invented this simple conversion method.) It would have been nice to have the electric motor run the vehicle at freeway speeds. (SuperCapacitor arrays are very low energy(D-CELL) but very high power for a few seconds only.)

This move by Toyota clearly demonstrates that neither customers nor car companies want efficient cars. Bigger engine, bigger car. A person who can buy a car like this has enough money to buy expensive gasoline for a non hybrid.

Ten years ago the TZERO, by AC Propulsion, demonstrated, with its charging trailer powered by a motorcycle engine, that a high performance car could be an efficient Plug-In-Hybrid, and it required no special differential gear mechanism. AC propulsion demonstrated two PHEV-100s that used lead acid batteries. Toyota could also use cheap quickly replaceable lead batteries for a PHEV-20. ..HG..

I really think the reason that they are not releasing the plug-ins just yet is because their batteries have to meet their high level of standards. They want failures in the low part per million range, and I bet they don't have enough data to be sure of that. They use a Six Sigma manufacturing methodology, and that ensures a high level of success in rolled out products.
They do not want anything to spoil their reputation.

I think also that after 2010, we'll start to see a major advancement in battery technology, namely the arrival of supercapacitor batteries made with nanotech materials that promise potentially more power storage than even Li-On batteries on a weight comparison basis, but with the advantage of vastly faster charging times. That could make PHEV's far more viable, since you can drastically reduce the size of the battery pack to keep the "dead weight" lower, which will improve the overall range of the PHEV vehicle further.

This is why Toyota, Honda, GM, and other car companies are not too sanguine about hybrid technology now, given the enormous dead weight of the battery pack.

Had this been a GM announcement there would be 99 posts explaining what a bunch of a-holes Wagner and Lutz are. But, being well behaved PROMs, criticism of Toyota is studiously subdued. Nice balance here.

"The new car will be the second hybrid specialty vehicle for Toyota".
Reading between the lines - Toyota will not kill the Prius, furthermore, signs are the 3rd generation Prius will come in 2009 with about 25% improvement in:
Performance, economy and cleaniness.

Ron Galshir

"The new car will be the second hybrid specialty vehicle for Toyota".
Reading between the lines - Toyota will not kill the Prius, furthermore, signs are the 3rd generation Prius will come in 2009 with about 25% improvement in:
Performance, economy and cleaniness.

Ron Galshir