Toyota Doubles Prius Sales, Will Hold 70% Of 2005 Hybrid Market

April 19 (Bloomberg) -- "Toyota Motor Corp., the world's largest seller of gasoline-electric autos, widened its lead in U.S. sales of the fuel-efficient hybrids, which more than doubled in the first quarter amid record fuel prices.

Hybrid sales rose to 35,474 cars and sport-utility vehicles from 16,087 a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Toyota's Prius car accounted for 22,880. Honda Motor Co. sold a total of 9,025 gas-electric Civic, Accord and Insight cars, and Ford Motor Co. sold 3,569 of its hybrid Escape SUVs

``Toyota strategically has hit the sweet spot'' because the Prius design reinforces that the car is a hybrid, said Daniel Gorrell, senior analyst at San Diego-based Strategic Vision, which analyzes consumer preferences for carmakers. Honda's Civic and Accord and Ford's Escape are versions of vehicles that mainly sell as gasoline-only models, he said.

Hybrid sales were aided by retail gasoline prices that rose to an average $2.15 a gallon in March's last week and since climbed to $2.28. The vehicles reduce fuel use by combining a gas engine and an electric motor powered by batteries that recharge during braking and when the engine is running. Fuel economy is about 50 percent higher than for similar gas-only models. The gasoline prices, up 22 percent in the quarter based on U.S. Energy Department figures, and the increase in hybrid models are spurring sales, said Jeremy Anwyl, president of automotive data service Edmunds.com in Santa Monica, California."

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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000101&sid=aRcRjOFqg7uw&refer=japan

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Here's the commentary I wrote today for my web site: Earthside.com

The comment is in response to the news that yesterday the US House voted down an increase in the miles per gallon standard, and the news that Ford and GM are tanking.

We've had our Prius for three years ... we average about 50 miles per gallon ... one of the best cars we've ever owned.

Earthside Comments: Two news reports today demonstrate just how venal, shortsighted, and stupid American car manufacturers are ... and also their lackeys in Washington, D.C.

Toyota and Honda hybrid cars are selling like hot cakes here in the U.S. Folks are dumping their SUVs in numbers that are seriously impacting the profits of Ford and General Motors. Meanwhile, gasoline prices are still up, up, up ... And as Earthside readers know, Peak Oil is finally influencing mainstream consciousness - we're all beginning to understand there's a problem with petroleum supplies.

Yet, when given the opportunity to create a level playing field for U.S. car makers, by increasing the miles per gallon standards for all vehicles sold in this country, Detroit corporate officials, the autoworkers union, and the Neanderthal anti-science radical Republicans find common cause to defeat such an obvious conservation measure.

Completely contradictory, of course, is that the same people will tell you that Peak Oil is not a problem (if it exists) because new technology will provide innovations to get us out of the depletion tar pit ... but apparently not better miles per gallon technology.

Proponents of better car fuel efficiency have made the point that they are not interested in taking anyone's right to buy an SUV away from them, they just want an SUV to get higher miles per gallon than cars did in the 1970s. Thirty-three miles per gallon efficiency would save us from importing 2 millions barrels of oil per day ... Not interested said the U.S. House of Representatives. They'd rather have us keep our economy hostage to foreign oil, and as gas prices go up, compel us to buy Japanese cars that we can afford to fill-up. Please explain to us how that saves American jobs? Once again, the story seems to be one of total arrogance ... no one is going to tell Americans what to do! We'll keep guzzling the gas until we're just flat on our back, belly up - but at least we'll sink our own economy our own way.

So Earthside recommends to our fellow Americans to get over any apprehensions you may have left about not buying foreign-made automobiles because of loyalty to union labor ... they, along with the GM and Ford corporate suits, made the decision for you yesterday: they don't want your business. Go ahead and do what is best for you and for the planet - buy a hybrid Toyota (we did) or Honda ... fifty miles per gallon feels pretty good.

Thanks to a favorable settlement of a mid-1990's patent law suit over aspects of Ni-MH batteries, GM has a license under Toyota's "Intellectual Property" (patents, designs, blue prints, CAD-CAM files, etc.) to build GM hybrids and market them.

The last car that GM tried to "copy" and "scale" was the Corvair.

Thanks to their NUMMI agreements with Toyota, GM can do a Matrix-Vibe, Prism-Corolla "cloning" and "branding" of any Toyota hybrid at the NUMMI factory in Fremont CA.

A better path for GM - but the "financials" may not be to Waggoner's or Lutz's liking. Who knows.

In any event, GM has not exercised their rights - but has gone for an alternative hybrid design. They have a very strong "Not Invented Here" culture at GM, frequently to their detriment. Unfortunately, the GM system takes the worst of the Honda and Toyota systems.

I have Ford fleet privileges, and I'm getting ready to buy a new car. I've been considering a hybrid Escape, even though I get no discount on that model. There isn't a single dealer in south Florida who has one in stock. I'm going buy from a specific dealer (due to prior business dealings with him), and he's only had 4 hybrids. His waiting list is 6+ months, and they're no longer adding to it because they don't know if they'll be able to deliver hybrids to those already on the list.

But like GM, Ford has a major problem, its dealers. I went to the Ford Web Site to look into the Ford Hybrid, at the web cite you can request your local dealer to contact you about ordering a Hybrid. This is what my Local Dealer wrote me (Please Note I live in Johnstown Pa, technically an urban area, but one of the smallest in the Country, when I drive I actually drive more in Rural Areas than urban/suburban areas, but then he wants to sell me a new car today, not six months from now):


"Hi Paul! My name is ************ and I am in charge of the Internet department here at Suppes Ford. I saw where you had recently inquired online about a 2005 Ford Escape Hybrid. We are unable to get this vehicle at this time, but If gas mileage is your main concern, I do want to share some information with you. I want to inform you that Hybrid would only help a little on city driving. See, the way it works is that when you are stopped in traffic, the gas motor shuts off and the electric motor keeps all of the accessories going. If you are traveling mostly highway miles, the Hybrid gets the same gas mileage as the four-cylinder XLS on the highway. So you won't be gaining anything from the Hybrid. Also, because the way the Hybrid is built, it is impossible to go in reverse up a hill. It may seem like a small concern, but around here with the mountainous terrain, inevitably, you will have to backup a hill sooner or later. Another thing, there will be very few garages in the US equipped to handle repairs on an electric motor and from what I can tell, the four-cylinder XLS may be less of a headache and still serve the same exact purpose. Throw the idea around and email me back with what you think."

Ford's Web Site for its Hybrid:
http://www.fordvehicles.com/escapehybrid/home/

Toyota also has the Lexus RX400h coming.... and the Nissan Altima hybrid is planned for 2006...

I'm sure my father, a certified car-nut, could name way more...

they are going for V8 performance from v6 drive trains with v6 economy. The Prius uses a much smaller engine, does not tout itself as a lightning fast accelerating vehicle, and gets the phenomenal gas mileage.

Honda
http://automobiles.honda.com/models/model_overview.asp?ModelName=Accord+Hybrid
http://automobiles.honda.com/models/model_overview.asp?ModelName=Civic+GX
http://automobiles.honda.com/models/model_overview.asp?ModelName=Civic+Hybrid
http://automobiles.honda.com/models/model_overview.asp?ModelName=Insight

Toyota
http://www.toyota.com/vehicles/future/cs.html
http://www.toyota.com/vehicles/minisite/hhybrid/index.html
http://www.toyota.com/vehicles/future/volta.html
http://www.toyota.com/vehicles/future/fines.html

--besides "unlimited range" (limited only by gas stations) and the suitability of the present "gasoline stations."

All of them consume less petroleum then present gasoline engine cars. (Hybrids less so; fuel cells' gasoline consumption depends on the source of hydrogen; ev's depends on the source of the electricity).

Hybrids are tied to the gasoline infrastructure (an "advantage" as "peak oil" bites? I am no James Hopward Kunstler of "The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of the Oil Age, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century" authoprship - far far from it, but hybrids do not address "peak oil"). Fuel cells are tied to an non-existent hydrogen fueling station infrastructure (where the hydrogen may come from thermal decomposition of hydrocarbons). Straight electrics are tied to the electric utility infrastructure (where the electricity may be generated by burning coal or gas - or by solar, geothermal, nuke, etc).

Electrics and fuel cell vehicles apply the same "science" and "engineering" - electrochemistry. Electrochemical reactions generate electricity that runs electric motors.

Hybrids and present day cars utilize internal combustion engines and gasoline (or diesel fuel in the case of some hybrid prototypes), similar manufacturing and maintenance "know how."

I am still at a complete loss as to why the auto industry derisively dissed straight ev's - and actually "tried to fail." (I was on the waiting list to rent a GM EV1, worked on the EV1 project with a primary vendor).

I have a lot of "insider" biases and prejudices and unhealed wounds about EV's. I have a hybrid - and I am happy with it. But I know, as we enter the age of the down slope of "Peak Oil" that "we could have done better."

One of my biases/prejudices - is that if we had put the same engineering and scientific "people years" into batteries and electric motors and electric power control circuits that we put into internal combustion engines (and automatic transmissions) .... Oh well.

I'm one of those people who believes that the long term probably does involve battery-powered and fuel cell automobiles. But building the infrastructure to support such vehicles will take years and cost billions of dollars. In the meantime, I believe that hybrids are a good, fuel-saving short-term measure.

I am one of those people who believes that Gee Dubya, the energy companies, and all too many auto makers have used the someday, somehow vision of the hydrogen fuel cell automobile as an excuse for maintaining the energy status quo.

In the long term, I suspect that the infrastructure for a fuel cell-powered automobile system will begin to be in place twenty years from now--which ought to be about when the majority of today's hybrids ought to be ready for the junk yard.

This is what VW and Daimler/ Chrysler is committed to. The VW Lupo gets even BETTER fuel economy than the Primus but is NOT sold in the US.

http://www.carsurvey.org/model_Volkswagen_Lupo.html



The primary reason hybrids are big right now is they promise better fuel economy with similar performance as existing vehicles. If you decide the future will be to slower and smaller cars than hybrids advantages disappear and you are better off with something like to Lupo.

The Lupo does many of the same things the gasoline engine in the Primus does, for example shuts down going down hill or at red lights (and than re-starts when you hit the gas pedal) BUT without the added weight of batteries and electric motors. This is achieved by accepting and optimizing the Lupo for much lower performance than today's car (and the reason it is NOT sold in the US today).

Hybrids beat out cars like the Lupo but only if you want performance equal to today's cars. Most of that performance is not needed 90% of the time and a Hybrid recovers that lost power by converting it into electric battery power for use when needed (and once the batteries are full shuts down the engine till extra power is needed).

The Lupo "solves" the problem of the lost of excess power by being underpowered and proud of that fact. I do not even know if the Lupo can do the EPA fuel economy test for it may not be able to get up to 50 mph on the test bed. This is what Europe thinks the cars of the future will be, not the Hybrid. Lower speeds, smaller engines and higher fuel efficiency.

around Detroit. One neat one is the GM Opel Astra Diesel Hybrid.

The diesel engine was used instead of the gasoline engine.

http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,66949,00.html
http://www.autobytel.com/content/shared/articles/templates/index.cfm/article_page_order_int/15/article_id_int/228

One "set" of prototypes was for a high endurance successor to the Hummer for the Marine Corps. (Even had Li ion batteries instead of NiMH batteries -- more amp-hours per unit weight)

http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/adv_tech/600_tt/640_tomorrow/army_hybrid_010903.html

The other one was for one of the neatest GM luxury prototypes ever - trying to recapture the "feel" of a 1966 Toronado-El Dorado-Rivera 4 door diesel "Precept" hybrid. They showed it at some shows, drove it around Oakland County - then it disappeared.
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Which is the key to the Daimler "Smart" series of Vehicles and the VW Lupe. It is the reduction is performance that is the key to the Lupo and Smart vehicles great fuel economy NOT that their are diesel.

The Smart Car:


VW's 100km per litre car (235mpg car):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VW_1-litre_car

better then no performance.

As I have said, I do NOT buy into the "gloom and doom" Malthusianism of Kuntsler ("The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of the Oil Age, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century", "Geography Of Nowhere: The Rise And Declineof America'S Man-Made Landscape", and "HOME FROM NOWHERE: REMAKING OUR EVERYDAY WORLD FOR THE 21ST CENTURY"), but I do buy into Ken Deffeye's ("Beyond Oil : The View from Hubbert's Peak", and "Hubbert's Peak : The Impending World Oil Shortage") model of worse barely satisfactory mediocre alternatives to petroleum - that are more expensive.

And we will be happy with "underpowered" fuel cell and electric boxes that look like Mini-Coopers
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and Toyota Scions
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and Honda Elements
<>.

I am of the opinion that hybrids are an interim solution - until we get to full fuel cell vehicles or full electrics.

Not pretty - except in a utilitarian sort of way.

Things will change, but once you look at the situation as a whole life will be interesting but life will continue.

The big problem will be transport. At the international level as oil prices goes up, trade will decline. Right now given cheap oil, where something is made is becoming less and less important, but with oil prices going through the roof, trade will decline. I do see sail coming back just to reduce the use of oil, but international trade will be reserved more and more to high end goods. Trade will continue but with our present knowledge of computers we can make sailing ships that are more efficient in the use of the wind. Radio communications can spread information on winds so you will have less chance of being becalmed. Using the wind can reduce the use of fuel to those areas where the wind can not be used but ships have to travel.

Another area of energy savings is the use of LEDs. LCD are so efficient that they can provide lighting (through in a restricted area, LEDs can be used to project light but not as bright as other lights). I bring this up as an example of new technology that uses a lot less energy than present technology.

Another way to save energy is the lap top computer. Computers are getting smaller and smaller, and more energy efficient. While computers use energy for you to read a book from the net, but energy cost will be low compared to the energy needed to transport books. If you look at the energy costs to transport books compared to the energy cost to use a Laptop and the net, the net and laptop is more energy efficient than transporting paper to the printer than printing the books and than transporting the books. If you look at the WHOLE system,

As to land transport, high end bicycles are easier to pedal than cheaper "high Tension steel" bicycles. Thus the cost to produce high end bikes will be worth the extra costs in money and energy. Another step will be smaller engine cars like the VW I mentioned. Todays cars must not only be able to haul its driver and any other load, but the weight of the body of the car and the engine. If you reduce performance, the engine can become much smaller and lighter, which means you can make the body and frame of the Car smaller and lighter (The the body and frame does NOT have to be as strong do to the lighter weight of the Engine). Thus reducing performance just feeds on itself, less performance, smaller engine, smaller body, weight goes down and the engine can be made even smaller and lighter (and use even less fuel). The same with heavy trucks, smaller engines better fuel economy (I also foresee better management of truck transport, for example truck transport adopting something like what the railroad does when a train goes through the mountains, when a truck comes to a grade it will pull over and another "tractor" added to it, till it is on top of the grade OR through the mountain (The truckers may want to keep the extra tractor for extra breaking going down the other side of the Mountain, which is what the Railroads do when it comes to Mountain grades). Again better planning will lead to better fuel usage (and the planning may include increase use of the Railroads and electrifying the Railroad lines). It may be even deem important enough to electrify the Interstate highway system so that trucks traveling on the Interstate will connect to over wires like electric trains, saving the costs of hauling fuel as the truck moves (Through at the lost of electric power as electricity goes through the power lines to the trucks).

I can go on, for example adoption of the horse for farming (and biomass fuel as a major farm "crop"), concentrating people in urban "centers" so that Human powered transport can be used to get items to individuals. Use of "flatboats" to get products to market instead of Diesel tow boats. Complete abandonment of Air Transportation (and withdraw from fighting foreign wars just to save the oil used in such operations for higher priority domestic usage, such as food production).

Prior to the widespread use of coal (which pre-dated the use of oil and natural Gas by Centuries) people traveled all over this planet and reached ever Continent except Antarctica (And while Antarctic was discovered after coal had come into general use, it was a sailing ship that first saw and had a person land on Antarctica). People did get around. You also have new technology that better use the energy will have access to, thus a return to the pre-coal age will NOT occur. I am looking as a post-oil world NOT a return to pre-oil and coal days. The people of this plant has better knowledge of how things work than they did in 1700, people in the post-oil age will have the remains of what was built with oil and coal since 1700 (generally the highway and railroad system), people will have access to information more than people did in 1700. Between the better knowledge, the access to the knowledge AND the remains of what was built with oil, you will have great legacy to build an enduring society. I foresee such a society being built. Some people will have to be dragged into the new society but we will enter a post-oil age and in many ways it will be a better society than todays (Through they will be some that will "regret" the fall of Suburbia just like people in the Dark Ages regretted the Fall of the Western Roman Empire.)