The realization of Lithium Ion batteries is a major step toward developing electric vehicles. Up until now, nobody has found any means of independant transportable energy that beats Lithium other than liquid fuels.

"and will have a hybrid model in all Toyota series vehicles"

If they achieve that, an all hybrid lineup is not far behind. The ubiquity of hybrid systems, with increasing efficiency and lowering cost, would spill over nicely into pure EV technology.

Toyota is playing its cards very close to its chest, there is no information here regarding the exact chemistry Panasonic will be using for its automotive Li-ion batteries. The commodity cobalt-based products are generally not considered safe enough and, Toyota itself had decided to stick with NiMH for its initial foray into PHEV territory for just that reason.

On the other hand, Tesla Motors claims its water-cooled battery pack consisting of almost 7000 LiCo-ion commodity cells is quite safe. Perhaps Panasonic is also pursuing this route, but with fewer, larger cells. That's just conjecture on my part, though.

In any case, I suspect Toyota absolutely wants to avoid handing GM a PR coup in the hybrid arena with the Chevy Volt. I cannot imagine the above press release is mere window dressing, it just doesn't spell out any details.

Neil: Thank you for the update.

An MIT carbon nanotube unit is probably many years away from mass production.

Building test products is one thing. Full scale production is a far more different and greater risk requiring long-range planning and the coordination of many entities; get it wrong and you could flush the company.

For that reason, I don't see an overnight changeover to either LI batteries or PHEVs; but, a transition over time to protect Toyota's bottom line. And, for that matter I don't see any other company making this move quickly unless its a small company breaking into the business with little to lose.

If you have been following the progress of Tesla Motors, you know how complicated it is to bring a reliable, new technology car to market.

In any case it's exciting' to see that the idea to move electric drive into the main stream is finally gathering traction and momentum. But, that's still only half the answer for transportation, the other piece to put in place is generating the electricity by solar power. See the following graphic: http://www.motherearthnews.com/uploadedFiles/articles/issues/2007-12-01/RenewableEnergy.pdf

Nano-solar has shipped its first megawatt of thin film (printed) solar cells. It expects to ship 430 megawatts during its first full year of operation at about 99 cents per watt. We may have roof top solar units earlier than thought.

If I remember correctly, MIT's carbon nanotube supercapacitor won't reach prototype stage until at least 2009. But the potential is enormous: we could see battery packs that charge in minutes instead of hours and last just as long as today's NiMH and Li-On units, with a possible major reduction in the size of the battery pack.

I believe the Lithium ion battery is ready for hybrid applications, but still a few years developments away from plug-in applications.

Even then, an optional recharge kit to provide a short distance all electric mode can be a bridge feature, until the commute distance plug-in is ready.

Alain wrote:

So for the first decade of electric vehicle introductions, there's plenty of wasted electricity that can be used.

I agree. We would need to wire the garage so that cars would plug into "interruptable" power service. The power company would distrubute the electricity that currently goes to waste (spinning reserve) in the most technically/economically efficient way so that somtime in the middle of the night (when it would become "our turn") the car would recharge. Presumably, the lower rates paid for interruptable service would fund the cost of the wiring and extra power meter.

If the power company offered a vehicle to grid (v2g) option I would be suspicious. Wouldn't adding additional charge/discharge cycles shorten battery life?

So for the first decade of electric vehicle introductions, there's plenty of wasted electricity that can be used.

A common misconception. Many powerplants sit idle at night, but they do not burn fuel and "waste" electricity. Other notes:

1. Nanosolar will not ship anywhere near 430 MW its first year, and will not charge 99 cents per watt for quite a few years.

2. Toyota will not use lithium cobalt oxide. Top management made that call after the laptop fires and sent Toyota/PEVE engineers back to the drawing board. The nextgen Prius will be NiMH, a lithium version will come later. Toyota won't have a true PHEV by 2010. They may attempt to save face with a PHEV-8 or something.

Mick,

Coal plants do run around the clock. They can be throttled back a little, I think to 75-80% of max output. In some regions this is enough to handle peak-to-trough variation, at least with help on the demand side from electricity-hungry industries who set themselves up to consume ultra-cheap nighttime power.

Areas which need more peaking power use turbines. Mostly natural gas, but some are still oil-fired or dual-fuel. Turbine fuel is more expensive, but they can shut down overnight and fire up again each day. California uses a lot of single cycle gas turbines for peaking power, especially in the summer.

"Spinning reserves" are something else entirely. Utilities keep some turbines in a hot idle condition so they can ramp up instantly if a big powerplant suddenly drops offline. You need spinning reserve even if you eliminate peaking entirely. Spinning reserves don't generate any electricity to speak of, and burn very little fuel because they're running at idle.

Electricity may not get wasted, but fuel does. Peaking turbines are inefficient: a single-cycle gas peaker might be 32% efficient vs. up to 60% for a modern combined-cycle gas turbine.

I ran some numbers for a California summer day once. Electricity provided was 840 GWh that day, with a trough around 24 GW range and a peak near 45 GW. With a PHEV fleet (and a tiny amount of V2G) electricity consumption would increase to peak-free 1000 GWh. Combined-cycle gas turbines would actually burn LESS natural gas to support a "flat" 1000 GWh profile than the single-cycle peakers actually in use that day burned to support the "peaky" 840 GWh profile. On a GHG and economic basis the electricity to fuel a PHEV fleet would have actually had negative cost that day. Of course each day is different, you need a year-round analysis to figure the overall cost. Still, the result was an eye-opener.

@ Alain and others,

I fear that you do not understand what the statement means that you would not have to build a single new power plant to power a conversion to a 80% PHEV auto fleet.

That statement is literally correct. The existing electrical generation plant capacity is there but that that does not mean that the the plants on cold standby,(not even started up), or hot standby, (spinning on "no Load" power setting) consume any where near the same amount of fuel as the same plant would, when the plant is under full load generating electricity.

Think of it as an auto idling in your driveway; yes it is consuming fuel, but not as much as it would be using while pulling your boat up a steep mountian road at highway speed. Then it would be literally drinking fuel, instead of sipping it.

Lots of these plants have spare capacity but are very inefficient and they are used only every so often to meet peak demand.

If the load permanently went up so those plants had to be used every day the Utilities would NOT WANT TO USE them for long; even assuming that they could do so for very long, as they are way overaged and unreliable. Many were meant to be retired in the 1980s.

A building boom on electrical generation plants would ensue. But that is happening now, already.