Electricnick, The EV Revolution

It’s hard to fathom why one of the hybrid industry leader is so slow to come out with more advanced hybrid vehicle, HEV.

The gist is that it’s difficult to imagine why Toyota hasn’t brought out more advanced HEVs and plug-in hybrids, PHEV on the market.  Surely the market demand is there, the consumers have asked for it and the technology is decent enough.  Could it be a strategy questions whereby Toyota has chosen to make as much a profit from its current HEV line in order to lower the costs of PHEV, with pure electric vehicles, EVs to follow?

Cost Versus What People Are Willing To Pay.  According to Toyota it is a simple case of people not willing to pay for the added cost of a PHEV.  In an article on BNET, both Irv Miller, Toyota’s group vice president of environmental and public affairs and Bill Reinert, the national manager of advanced technology agreed with this point.  They backed by saying that instead of the 100 mpg claimed, the reality was closer to 50 and 55 mpg with PHEVs.  So why not educate consumers and have special contests for those who do go above estimates?  Surely, this would motivate a few and catch on to the general public.

Slowly But Surely.  Even though Toyota is slowly releasing its PHEV technology by leasing it soon in Japan, eventually in Europe and the U.S., via Edmunds, the company is choosing to perfect the technology by bringing down its costs through massively selling simple HEVs.  According to Bloomberg, this could make sense, considering Toyota now faces a $1 billion investment in order to meet California’s new stringent fuel economy.  Even now, Toyota still doesn’t fully embrace a pure electric vehicle, according to IBTimes.

Somewhere down the line, we can’t help but think how much further we would be today had these car makers not fought states wanting to implement emission restrictions.  Then again, hindsight is 20/20.  Another point is that Toyota has sold its HEVs at a lost for sometime, only returning a hair thin profit margin these last few years.  Surely the current automobile market’s demand for fuel efficient cars could pay for the research on lowering costs for advanced PHEVs and EVs.  Toyota has some good fuel sippers that seem to be all the rage with the new young market.