Charged with Electric Vehicle News and Views
With the FIA having put the World Endurance Championship live TV coverage behind a pay-wall for 2014, we are indeed fortunate that enthusiastic Youtubers are willing to upload the entire 6 hours for those of us who prefer free TV.
The number of electrically powered automobiles worldwide climbed to just over 400,000 in early 2014. This figure, which only counts battery electric and plug-in hybrid cars, was determined in an analysis conducted by the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW).
The vehicle count doubled over the twelve months of last year, increasing by an impressive 200,000 units. The Ulm-based researchers found that demand is greatest in the USA, Japan and China, which are currently the globally leading markets. Germany is just seventh in the ranking, trailing France, the Netherlands and Norway. The most telling statistic is that countries with incentive programs have taken the lead in electric mobility, a market with a bright future. The top-selling cars are made by Japanese and American automotive companies; batteries are sourced mainly from Asia.
Incentive programs have sparked a run on electric cars in the lead markets. This benefits especially the pioneering companies Nissan, General Motors and Toyota. "Efforts in Germany are also quite impressive,"says Prof. Werner Tillmetz, a member of ZSW's board of directors at Ulm. Research into batteries has been stepped up significantly and automobile manufacturers are fast-tracking the development of advanced electric drives. "However, it will take far more effort to establish a lead market in this country with an end-to-end value chain that includes the key component, the battery. Otherwise we will be left behind by the global competition."
According to ZSW's study, the number of registered electric vehicles increased at an annual growth rate of over 100 percent in the last three years. Nearly 100,000 electric cars were on the road worldwide in early 2012. A year later the vehicle count came to 200,000, and already reached 405,000 early this year. If the past three years' growth rates are sustained, then more than one million electric vehicles will be out and about worldwide as early as the beginning of 2016. The researchers tallied the global registration numbers for cars with battery powered electric drives, range extenders and plug-in hybrids. They did not count motorcycles, trucks, buses or full hybrid vehicles, of which there are now more than six million.
The United States are well ahead with 174,000 electric cars, followed by Japan (68,000) and China (45,000). Close to 30,000 electric vehicles are registered in the Netherlands, compared to just 17,500 in Germany. A similar picture emerges in the automotive company rankings. Nissan is in the lead, having sold more than 90,000 of its Leaf models, followed by General Motors with combined sales of its Ampera and Volt models topping the 60,000 mark. Toyota, which has moved over 40,000 Prius Plug-Ins, is in third place
BMW's newly minted alliance with Toyota will result in a hybrid all-wheel-drive Z4 / Supra replacement, complete with supercapacitor technology for increased performance, Autocar reports.
The car will have a front-engined direct-injection four cylinder turbo and electric motors driving all four wheels. The supercapacitor system will be derived from technology first seen in Toyota's Hybrid Supra HV-R in 2007 when it won the Tokachi 24 hour race and more recenly Toyota's Le Mans LMP1 race cars.
BMW will supply the 2.0 liter turbocharged engine combined with electric motors produced by BMW at its engine plant in Munich while a Toyota-developed electronics system is expected to provide torque-vectoring capability.
With the car expected to have a front mounted engine and sequential manual gearbox in a conventional longitudinal powertrain layout it will be interesting to see what type of electric motors BMW deploy to drive the front wheels, perhaps in-wheel motors?
There's no more popular saying in the world of motorsport than "racing improves the breed". Although in most cases, most racing series require strict rules on technology to keep races competitive and costs down, that's rarely the case.
The one place where automakers still push the limits of technology? The 24 Hours of Le Mans, which this year will feature three machines from Toyota, Audi and Porsche that offer radically different paths to cars of the future — hybrid, all-wheel-drive ones at that.
The favorite comes from Audi; they've won 12 times at Le Mans since 2000, and in one of the two races it didn't win the Audi machinery still won under the Bentley brand. The R18 e-tron quattro the company drove through the streets of western France earlier this week features the latest changes to the winning strategy, with a 4-liter, turbocharged V-6 diesel engine paired with a flywheel hybrid system for maximum fuel efficiency. That flywheel powers the front wheels, and a second system recaptures energy from the heat of the exhaust.
Toyota has been attempting to challenge Audi in endurance racing for a few years, making some progress and winning a couple of races, but never breaking through the German automaker's dominace. For this year's TS040 model, Toyota revised its entire system, adding a front-wheel-drive to the 3.7-liter V-8 supercapacitor powered hybrid from last year. In total, Toyota says the setup can generate nearly 1,000 hp, while using 25 percent less fuel than last year's vehicles as required by Le Mans rules for 2014.
The most interesting new model comes from Porsche, which hasn't raced in the top class at Le Mans for 16 years. The 919 Hybrid combines a battery pack and Formula 1-style hybrid energy system similar to what Porsche uses in the 918 supercar with a turbocharged V-4 engine — a configuration chosen to save weight and space. Porsche executives call the 919 the most complicated machine the company has ever built, and despite living under the same Volkswagen corporate roof as Audi, there's no apparent sharing between teams or slack in competition.
Toyota are testing their Yaris WRC car this week. The Toyota Yaris WRC prototype, powered by a 1.6-litre turbocharged engine (as dictated by world rallying’s rules), built at Toyota Motorsport in Cologne, Germany will begin testing in Tuscany.
It is thought that the test car is based on a Yaris chassis but the final WRC car will be based around a new model which has yet to be launched.
Toyota wants to use hybrid technology in the World Rally Championship if it returns to the series and although the Japanese car giant has expressed an interest in returning to the WRC – in which it won four drivers’ titles and three constructors’ crowns with the Celica GT-Four and the Corolla WRC during the 1990s – it has so far stopped short of committing to a competitive return.
Residents of Toyota City, Japan, might be wondering what they just saw on the street. If it had three wheels and was leaning around a corner, it was the "i-Road", Toyota's ultra-compact all-electric, all-fun concept.
On Sunday, the i-Road, which weighs a mere 300 kg and is less than 90 cm wide, was let loose on public roads at an event to mark its introduction into "Ha:mo", Toyota's optimized urban transport system. Soon, even more i-Roads will be zooming around Toyota city when they are made available to residents at vehicle-sharing stations. And later this year the lucky residents of Grenoble, France, will also be able to have some three-wheeled fun, thanks to a vehicle-sharing project that will last until 2017.
Besides being an absolute blast to drive, how could the i-Road actually help you out? Well, picture the following:
You just got off work. You get a phone call. You need to get across town, pronto, because your wife just went into labor. But your car is in the shop, there's no time to call a taxi, and your co-workers with cars are stuck doing overtime. Oh, and it's raining.
What do you do?
In comes the i-Road to save the day. Luckily, there's a Toyota EV-sharing station by your office. Cool as a cucumber, you use your smartphone to plan your route: i-Road to the station 5 km away, and train straight to the hospital. You book the i-Road, and within a couple minutes you're weaving smoothly through the rush-hour gridlock. You get to the train station right on time, and, since the i-Road has a closed canopy, you didn't even wet your carefully groomed hair. Day saved, all thanks to the i-Road.
In 2013 Toyota Motor Europe sales reached 847,540 vehicles, an increase of 9,569 units from 2012, equalling a 0.2 percentage point share gain to 4.7%. This progress is mainly due to the excellent sales performance of hybrid models.
European Toyota and Lexus sales of hybrid vehicles reached an all-time high in 2013 totalling 156,863 units, up 43% year-on-year. Hybrid models now make up close to a fifth of total TME sales including several countries out of EU. In Western Europe, 28% of all Toyota and Lexus sold are hybrid models.
But today, Toyota is not only by far the clear leader for hybrid sales in Europe, it is also the first European hybrid manufacturer. Hybrid vehicle production for Toyota in Europe has doubled to reach a record 116,383 units produced at the company’s manufacturing facilities in France (Yaris Hybrid) and in the United Kingdom (Auris Hybrid and Auris Hybrid Touring Sports).
In 2013, the Yaris Hybrid ended the year with sales more than doubling year-on-year reaching 49,774 units, an increase of 25,041 units from 2012. But also the Auris Hybrid registered a record year: the Hatchback saw its hybrid sales increase by 66% to 39,438 units, while the newly launched Auris Hybrid Touring Sports achieved a 60% hybrid mix, equalling 15,175 units.
The success of Hybrid is driven by its excellent cost-of-ownership, thanks to lower fuel-bills and better CO2 ratings. But there is more than that: an increasing number of drivers is discovering the comfort and serenity that a petrol-hybrid powertrain delivers, allowing them to escape the stress of today’s traffic. That is why Toyota is firmly committed to continue its development of its hybrid offer, with 15 new products to be launched globally between the beginning of 2014 and the end of 2015.
Toyota announced this week that it will start operating a third production shift at its European Yaris factory from June 2014 in order to meet high demand for its two products, the Toyota Yaris and the Toyota Yaris Hybrid.
The Yaris is unique among small cars in having the option of proven Toyota hybrid technology, bringing the easy driving, fuel efficient hybrid drive to a wider audience than ever before.
The three-shift operation will require an increase in manpower by 500 production employees, which will bring total employment at Toyota Motor Manufacturing France (TMMF) in Valenciennes to more than 4,000.
Until the third shift is in place, some Saturday production is planned to meet the demand.
“Sales forecasts have led us to increase production plans by around 15 per cent for 2014, for a total annual production volume of around 220,000 units,” confirmed Koreatsu Aoki, President of TMMF.
Recharging a Toyota plug-in hybrid or all-electric vehicle could in future be as simple as parking the car. Toyota has announced verification testing is to begin later this month of a new wireless battery charging system it has developed for vehicles that use an electric powertrain.
The new technology allows a vehicle to be charged simply by parking it in alignment with a coil set into the surface of the ground. This makes the process simpler and easier, dispensing with cables and connectors.
The Toyota charging system transmits electricity using magnetic resonance created by changes in magnetic field intensity between a transmitting coil in the ground and a receiving coil in the car. It is designed so that it can reduce any loss in power transmission efficiency caused by misalignment or height differences between the coils.
The system is being developed with a future market launch in mind. Measures have been taken to minimise any electromagnetic interference with nearby equipment, and the transmitting coil in the ground has been madde robust enough to withstand vehicles driving over it.
To help the driver align the car correctly, Toyota has developed a function for its Intelligent Parking Assist system that shows the position of the transmitting coil in a parking space.
The test programme involves three plug-in hybrid used by homes in Aichi prefecture in Japan. It will assess user satisfaction, the system’s ease of use, misalignment rates and charging behaviour, such as how often charging takes place and timer-based charging it used.
Toyota will use the test results to develop the technology further, with the ultimate aim of bringing the system to market. Toyota believes its commercialisation will help promote the use of electrified vehicles and mobility options that are smarter, easier to use and kinder to the environment.
| Charging method | Magnetic resonance |
| Frequency | 85kHz |
| Input voltage | AC 200V |
| Charging power | 2kW |
| Charging time | Approx. 90 minutes |
A Prius hybrid powertrain into a Toyota MR2 chassis sounds like a no-brainer.
This is the TE-S800, and it represents what one Toyota engineer imagines an MR2 successor could be. It weighs approx 1,000 kg and with the 1.5 liter Otto-cycle 1NZ-FE engine outputting more than 115 hp at 6400 rpm plus the plug-in Prius’ 102 hp electric motor coupled to a Toyota E-CVT transmission, the TE-800 does 0-100 km/h in just 5.8 seconds.
The MR2 plug-in hybrid was one of several cars unveiled at the Tokyo Auto Salon by the Toyota Engineering Society which is a volunteer collective that mostly comprises Toyota engineers.
