Toyota Announces Second, Then Third Battery Plant To Supply Hybrid Market

[hatrack]

TOKYO -- Toyota is preparing to rev up production of hybrids, announcing Tuesday its third plant in Japan for producing batteries that are key components for the "green" cars. Just last week, it announced that it was building a second such battery plant.

Toyota Motor Corp. has emerged the world leader in hybrids with its hit Prius, which has sold more than a cumulative 1 million vehicles over the last decade. Sometime after 2010, it hopes to sell 1 million hybrids a year.

For that, it needs to boost battery production as Honda Motor Co. and other automakers aim to catch up with their new gas-and-electric hybrids -- a technology that is growing in appeal for the world's drivers as gas prices soar.

The 30 billion yen ($291 million) plant in Miyagi prefecture, northern Japan, will be operated by Panasonic EV Energy Co., Toyota's joint venture with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Set to be running by 2010, the factory will make nickel-metal hydride batteries, with production capacity at 200,000 a year, with start-up production at about half of that.

EDIT

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080527/AUTO01/805270380/1148

[Cant trust em]

1. Someone told me that the net negative impact of battery production could be greater

than the net negative of continued gas consumption. Does anyone know anything about this?

Thanks.

[thoughtanarchist]

2. That was a red herring

The result of mining the nickel from one poorly operated mine in Canada.

We can change our procedures for mining. We cannot burn gas in such a way so it doesn't pollute.

[wtmusic]

3. Not to mention nickel is 100% recyclable. nt

[ET Awful]

4. Pure myth.

This claim typically stems from a flawed study which purported to prove that a Hummer was more environmentally conscious or "greener" than a Prius.

The flaw in the "study" was that it only studied the initial manufacturing phase, not the entire life of the vehicle. The environmental "cost" of a vehicle during it's lifetime is comprised of a small percentage during production and over 80% during driving the vehicle during it's life.

While it requires less energy to BUILD a conventional vehicle, it costs less energy to own a hybrid throughout it's lifetime. This ownership phase is where the vast majority of the energy consumed by any vehicle takes place.

The study from which this claim arises also cites an unrealistically low life expectancy for a hybrid vehicle. (They actually claimed a life of 109,000 miles for a Prius and 379,000 for a Hummer).

For a more detailed article read: http://www.thecarconnection.com/article/1010861_prius-versus-hummer-exploding-the-myth

[Cant trust em]

5. There goes another right-wing talking point.

Thanks for posting.

[unpossibles]

6. thank you! My father in law is always bringing this up

I like when I am prepared to counter his talking points.

[GliderGuider]

7. Wow. A million hybrids a year!

And each one of them will only use about a third the gasoline of a regular car. If each "regular" car uses 1000 gallons of gasoline a year, that's a savings of 666 million gallons of gasoline a year. That's a huge amount, right?

Well, at 42 gallons per barrel, that's almost 16 million barrels of gasoline a year.
Spread out over 365 days we'll be saving 43,000 barrels of petroleum a day.

Oh wait, the United States uses 20 million barrels a day, so every year you will save a whopping 0.22% of your oil consumption by putting a million hybrids on the road. Do that for 10 years, and you'll save 2.2% of your petroleum consumption.

The problem is, if the Peak Oil moonbats are right the world could be losing oil production ten or fifteen times that fast by then (i.e. 2% to 3% each year...)

Let's say the world production of Prii and similar hybrids goes up to ten times that number by 2018. Even at that rate the savings in oil consumption will be outweighed 5:1 by the expected decline in the world oil supply. Which will be fantastic for the climate, but maybe not so good for people who want to drive.

To balance out a 3% decline in world oil supplies and maintain our current mobility we'll need to be putting 40 million fully electric cars a year on the world's roads within 10 years.

A million Prii a year won't help much. By all means do it, but don't expect too much.

[phantom power]

8. Pixie-killer.

[GliderGuider]

9. You mean like this?

[phantom power]

10. Yes...

:spray:

[Finishline42]

11. Come on GG, it's not that bad...

I need a little help with your numbers. But first, out of that 42 gallon barrel of crude, only about 19 gallons of gas is produced. Then, only 2/3 of the oil consumed is used for transportation, and gas is only 2/3 of fuel used for transportation.

EIA data: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/oil_market_basics/demand_text.htm#U.S.%20Consumption%20by%20sector

Not to discount the gravity of the task ahead, just trying to put a little life into the pixie. LOL.

[GliderGuider]

15. Yes, we only get 19 or so barrels of gasoline from a barrel of oil

The 43,000 barrels of gasoline a day I calculated above would require 95,000 barrels of crude oil to produce. After the gasoline is extracted though, the remaining fractions of that crude oil are still useful. It would therefore be more accurate to say that the net reduction in demand would be 43,000 barrels of petroleum products (specifically gasoline). Given that the gasoline that could be refined out of those 95,000 original barrels is not used, there would be either a slight surplus of gasoline if the crude oil was refined anyway to get the heavier fractions, or a deficit of the heavier fractions if the crude was not refined in order to avoid a surplus of gasoline.

This sort of analysis is too far down in the weeds for these volumes, though -- it's easier to assume that the balance will be redressed at other points in the system (storage, refinery adjustments, shifts in usage etc.) and that the overall reduction in demand would be on the order of an insignificant 43,000 barrels per day.

The fact that 2/3 of the oil is used for transportation and gasoline is only 2/3 of that fraction has no bearing on my argument.

[kristopher]

12. Typical

If you look at daily or annual automobile use as a bell curve with least driving to the left and most driving to the right, then the peak is at 40 miles per day. This means that electric cars that deliver 150 miles will serve the needs of MOST usage patterns.

The average market here is about 17,000,000 vehicles sold per year.

Most homes are multi-automobile households. So the willingness to replace one ICE vehicle with a more efficient (and long term less expensive) EV is enhanced with the remaining ICE as "insurance" (the fear of dependence on new technology is mitigated).

All of the manufacturers are gearing to produce runs of EV that are in the hundreds of thousands per year by 2010-2011. We know that building an EV is much simpler than building an ICE; retooling is much less difficult.

We know that battery electric is approaching the state of a mature technology; with what is in the pipeline, we know they can fully meet the performance needs of light vehicle consumers.

We know the economics of battery EV are very favorable to both the consumer and the power industry.

There is every reason to believe that by 2014 or so, with similar or higher gasoline prices as part of the future, most of the demand represented by the 17m number will be for EVs.

The pressure of consumers seeking relief from gasoline prices (still high because of world demand) should actually motivate much higher numbers - the question will be can the manufacturers keep up?

Book mark this for 10 years from now: I suggest that 20 million EVs sold in 2018 is a realistic prediction.

[GliderGuider]

13. Aside from the US-centric POV, I agree

EVs with a 250 km range would do very nicely. Can the world put 40 million per year on the road within 10 years? We'll see.

There's also the question of how much the rising oil prices of the next decade will impact the cost of EVs, both for production and distribution. Again, we'll see.

As you say, the question is whether the manufacturers will be able to keep up -- that's one of my questions as well. Again, we'll see.

When you start looking at bell curves, keep in mind that EVs will start off replacing low-mileage cars, so their impact on gasoline consumption on a per-unit basis may be less than it might at first appear.

The point of my post wasn't to denigrate EVs, but to point out that a million hybrid batteries a year isn't all that big a contribution to the world's motoring habit. Most people don't have a sense of the scales involved in this arena.

[losthills]

14. If they start producing a million hybrids per year,

they will get better mileage each year, and the electric components will improve each year, leading to more all-electrics each year, so the barrels of oil saved will increase each year...

[GliderGuider]

16. Sure. Or we could go all the way to BEVs that consume no gasoline at all.

As I say above, even in this most halcyon of scenarios, in ten years we would need to be putting 40 million or so fully electric cars on the road each year in order to keep on with our Happy Motoring when the world oil supply starts to dwindle.