[HN Gopher] Toyota's advanced battery technology roadmap
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       Toyota's advanced battery technology roadmap
        
       Author : t4h4
       Score  : 32 points
       Date   : 2023-09-14 19:38 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (newsroom.toyota.eu)
 (TXT) w3m dump (newsroom.toyota.eu)
        
       | Prcmaker wrote:
       | >Note established driving range includes aerodynamic and vehicle
       | weight improvements.
       | 
       | While some of these improvements rely on a switch to electric, I
       | would love to see as many of these implemented in a much shorter
       | term.
        
       | zactato wrote:
       | I'm surprised their battery technology isn't just a tank of
       | hydrogen that's shaped like a normal EV battery.
        
         | willmadden wrote:
         | It would have terrible range with the same footprint. Hydrogen
         | has great energy density by mass but terrible energy density by
         | volume. The tank needs to be huge (but it would be light).
        
           | _hypx wrote:
           | Hydrogen has a higher energy density by volume compared to a
           | li-ion battery. People really need to check their fact here.
        
             | willmadden wrote:
             | I meant compared to gasoline.
        
             | fragmede wrote:
             | Hydrogen is a gas, which expands or compresses to fill all
             | available space, so its density varies. People really need
             | to check their understanding of physics here.
        
               | Alupis wrote:
               | I would assume, but perhaps be wrong, that it would be
               | liquid Hydrogen pumped into a vehicle's tank, and much
               | like a tank of propane, the liquid expands back into a
               | gas as pressure decreases (due to consumption).
               | 
               | Hydrogen vehicles have the advantage of being refillable
               | in minutes, much like petrol based vehicles - yet the
               | only byproduct is water vapor, making them completely
               | environmentally friendly.
               | 
               | Hydrogen is also hugely abundant, and renewable in the
               | sense that the water vapor could theoretically be split
               | again via some other process.
               | 
               | I would really like to know more about why Hydrogen
               | vehicles did not take off as much as electric. They seem
               | superior in many ways.
               | 
               | My guess would be the chicken and egg problem - few
               | Hydrogen refilling stations nation-wide vs. you can plug
               | in at home and charge for 18 hours or whatever.
        
               | blacksmith_tb wrote:
               | Toyota does sell the Mirai[1] in California, it has
               | pressurized tanks[2] I think keeping the hydrogen
               | liquefied would take low temps as well, which would use a
               | lot of energy for refrigeration (and or a lot of volume
               | for insulation).
               | 
               | 1: https://www.toyota.com/mirai/
               | 
               | 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Mirai#High-
               | pressure_hyd...
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | willmadden wrote:
               | lol
        
               | canadianfella wrote:
               | [dead]
        
       | eloop wrote:
       | FUD isn't enough to maintain market dominance indefinitely, just
       | ask Microsoft.
        
       | jbm wrote:
       | 1000 km battery, 10 minute charge?
       | 
       | I'm suspicious for many reasons. If they can't build their prime
       | hybrids -- or even supply gas Siennas in Canada -- I'm not very
       | confident about their manufacturing in the mid-term.
       | 
       | I hope I'm wrong.
        
       | rgbrenner wrote:
       | I see way too many Toyota battery articles for a company that can
       | barely put out an EV. They're all promises... in the future, they
       | swear they'll beat everyone, but they just released a Lexus EV at
       | $60k with 196mi range and 5sec 0-60.
        
         | itsoktocry wrote:
         | > _5sec 0-60._
         | 
         | When did this become a metric that mattered to any normal
         | person? Do you even know the 0-60 of your car? Do you realize
         | how quick 5 second is to 60mph? Most sports cars of a
         | generation ago couldn't touch that. Why do you feel it needs to
         | be faster? It's plain dangerous to inexperienced drivers.
        
           | doublepg23 wrote:
           | Aren't Lexus cars luxury?
        
             | AtlasBarfed wrote:
             | Lexus is the new Cadillacs they might have a 400 horsepower
             | engine and really high performance but the people that
             | drive them drive them like slugs.
             | 
             | They're the cars of old conservative rich people that don't
             | buy American and primarily considered reliability
        
             | pipeline_peak wrote:
             | To some, to others they're just Toyotas with leather seats
             | ;)
        
           | hedora wrote:
           | 5 sec is slow-ish by EV standards.
           | 
           | The more important questions (for me) are how well it handles
           | on curves, how efficient it is and what the range is.
           | 
           | The energy efficiency and weight (in American metrics) are
           | 5.32 mi/kwh (extremely good), and a bit over 4000 lbs (pretty
           | heavy; makes me wonder about handling), with well under 300
           | miles of range, depending on conditions.
           | 
           | So... It looks like it'd appeal to the people I know that buy
           | Lexus cars. That's not me, but I hope they sell a lot of
           | them.
           | 
           | https://ev-database.org/car/1943/Lexus-UX-300e
        
           | rgbrenner wrote:
           | I do know the 0-60 of my car... but that's not the point. I
           | just want to make sure the reader doesn't think the range is
           | low because it's some high performance car. It's just a
           | normal Lexus suv that's not up to par in the EV category.
        
           | RosanaAnaDana wrote:
           | Idk what the 0-60 of my leaf is but I beat every one off the
           | line when I want to. It makes me far more comfortable on the
           | freeway to get all the power I want on demand to quickly and
           | safely make a maneuver. I would never have considered it
           | before owning an EV, but now that I have one, I'll definitely
           | be considerate of it in my next EV purchase.
           | 
           | Previously I had only had crappy used ICE vehicles, and the
           | acceleration was so bad it had never occurred to me how much
           | better driving could be with good acceleration. I probably
           | wouldn't include it in my calculus for an ICE vehicle, but
           | I'll probably never purchase another ICE vehicle either.
        
             | KennyBlanken wrote:
             | > I beat every one off the line when I want to.
             | 
             | It's easy to win a race when nobody else is racing.
        
             | ricardobeat wrote:
             | Depends on the year, it used to be around 11s, latest
             | models brought it down to 8-7 seconds.
             | 
             | Normal ICE cars are in the 12-18s range, sometimes <10s but
             | you'd look like a mad man revving your engine high enough
             | to achieve that.
             | 
             | 5s is ridiculously fast and that kind of acceleration
             | should _never_ be used in the middle of traffic or city
             | roads.
        
               | fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
               | My Tesla's 0-60 makes a huge difference in normal
               | driving, because the acceleration profile at low speeds
               | is a lot more "do the right thing now". Driving my
               | minivan or other ICE cars feels laggy to me now.
        
               | RosanaAnaDana wrote:
               | This is the sense I was trying to communicate.
               | 
               | I'm not flooring it, but when I make a speed adjustment,
               | it happens 'right away'. There is no delay. Its
               | immediate.
        
               | AtlasBarfed wrote:
               | A lot of that is the automatic transmission in ICE
               | drivetrains. a manual transmission delivers immediate
               | acceleration but still not as good as a Tesla
        
               | a_t48 wrote:
               | I drive a Jetta GLI, it's 6.1 (edit - 6.4?) seconds -
               | fairly fast but not a fancy sports car, no obnoxious
               | reviving required. It's a four cylinder, too!
        
             | quicklime wrote:
             | The Nissan Leaf has an official 0-100km/h sprint time of
             | 7.9 seconds, while the Leaf e+ achieves a sprint time of
             | 6.9 seconds.
             | 
             | This is easily achievable by many ICE cars. You can get a
             | Toyota Corolla that matches this (and I'm not talking about
             | the GR Corolla).
        
               | KennyBlanken wrote:
               | 6.5 seconds used to be pretty fast, thirty years ago.
               | 
               | Now nearly every mainstream sedan or minivan with a V6
               | will do that, often better.
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | golemiprague wrote:
             | [dead]
        
           | ronnier wrote:
           | I do. My Tesla 0-60 is 1.99~ and gets about 400 mile range
        
           | fragmede wrote:
           | Are we gatekeeping liking fast, expensive cars now? Cars are
           | an absolute _fixture_ of American society, and even a blind
           | person can feel the difference between a 5-second 0-60 and a
           | 15-second 0-60.
           | 
           | It's fair to point out that, eg, a Corvette from 1960 was
           | slower than 5 seconds for 0-60, but you don't have to be a
           | total gearhead to want to be the fastest off the light.
        
           | AtlasBarfed wrote:
           | There's a saying in car manufacturers that Americans buy
           | horsepower but drive torque.
           | 
           | Torque is generally what you need when you need that. Beat
           | the person off the line because you didn't merge into the
           | right turn lane early enough acceleration onto the highway
           | and two lane highway passing.
           | 
           | Horsepower is largely a metric for top speed of the vehicle,
           | and if we're talking about in a relative statistic for road
           | cars, top speed is far more useless than 0-60
        
           | ZeroGravitas wrote:
           | > When did this become a metric that mattered to any normal
           | person?
           | 
           | 1946 it seems:
           | 
           | https://www.motortrend.com/vehicle-genres/c12-0603-icons-
           | unc...
        
           | pipeline_peak wrote:
           | Because 0 to 60 in 5 means 0 to 30 in even less than it used
           | to take.
           | 
           | No need to be a sour puss, let car people love their cars
        
           | matheusmoreira wrote:
           | > Why do you feel it needs to be faster?
           | 
           | Because there's nothing I hate more than a car that doesn't
           | respond when I try to accelerate.
        
           | Dig1t wrote:
           | For Americans: always
           | 
           | For the rest of the world: I have no idea.
           | 
           | I have seen car commercials my entire life stating the car's
           | 0-60. EV's I think are especially good for this though
           | because it's fun to accelerate in an EV. Fun does sell cars,
           | see the Miata, S2000, every convertible, etc There are tons
           | of examples.
           | 
           | I, personally, as an average Joe, definitely would consider
           | acceleration when buying a brand new car, I think it can be a
           | good differentiator.
        
           | pengaru wrote:
           | > When did this become a metric that mattered to any normal
           | person?
           | 
           | Are you seriously going to try gaslight us that nobody cares
           | about 0-60 times?
           | 
           | I'll be charitable and assume you're confusing max speed with
           | 0-60. Most people care about 0-60 performance as it's what
           | they experience after.every.single.stop. They may not know
           | the documented 0-60 time, but they generally know and
           | appreciate better acceleration.
           | 
           | But I do doubt most people know the actual top speed of their
           | vehicles, and relatively few have ever operated their
           | vehicles near or at vmax.
        
         | RosanaAnaDana wrote:
         | >196mi range
         | 
         | Oof size "La Grande".
        
         | BizarreByte wrote:
         | I don't know what Toyota's future looks like in terms of
         | electrics, but I know that I won't own an electric car until
         | they sell an electric Corolla, or something equivalent.
        
           | willmadden wrote:
           | Just get the new Prius Prime. The battery is large enough to
           | go 44+ miles all electric, plus you can still use gasoline
           | for long road trips. It has more cargo space than a corolla
           | and actually looks kind of cool.
        
           | hedora wrote:
           | I wouldn't hold my breath for something called a "Corolla".
           | Their roadmap is a big gaping hole for the next 3 years.
           | 
           | However, this exists, and kind of looks like a tall Corolla:
           | 
           | https://www.toyota.com/bz4x/
        
         | reducesuffering wrote:
         | It's telling how ashamed they are at the range when they have
         | an entire screen filled with info about how range is affected
         | by a variety of conditions. And the actual 220mi/196mi range is
         | found in tiny font hidden behind a tab.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | AtlasBarfed wrote:
         | They were supposed to have solid state battery cars and
         | vehicles for the Tokyo Olympics. It was obvious that wasn't
         | going to happen and it didn't.
         | 
         | Toyota has been completely asleep at the switch for EVs which
         | is baffling since they pioneered the hybrid electric vehicle.
         | 
         | What's really strange is after having such a huge lead and
         | hybrid electric vehicle, they have really crawled behind other
         | manufacturers and producing plug-in hybrid electric vehicles
         | which are really just a plug adder onto the vehicle.
         | 
         | It really is mystifying
         | 
         | Keep in mind they're basically isn't a single car manufacturer
         | outside of China and maybe Tesla. They're actually doing
         | original battery research. They are all partnering with actual
         | battery manufacturers like Panasonic, Samsung, etc
        
         | ZeroGravitas wrote:
         | They're trying to Osborne effect their competitors.
         | 
         | Don't buy our competitors EVs, something much better is coming
         | soon we promise...
        
         | ricardobeat wrote:
         | Overcompensating from their statements that EVs were a fad and
         | hydrogen was the way to go?
        
           | dv_dt wrote:
           | It's Toyota version of the remote work snafu. Buying a
           | futuristic car where you still have to go somewhere else to
           | fill up is backwards compared to charging at home 99% of the
           | time.
        
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