Plug-in hybrids might not be as popular as president Obama’s administration predicts, Bill Reinert, Toyota’s manager for advanced technology told a National Academy of Sciences panel in Washington.
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Price, recharge time and battery durability could limit annual sales of hybrids that can be recharged at home to around 50,000 units at most and as few as 3,500, he said. Toyota sold around 159,000 of its petrol-electric Prius hybrid last year.
President Obama has said he wants 1m plug-in hybrids on the roads by 2015 while the US energy department has set aside a portion of $25bn in low-cost federal loans to companies that build plug-ins and other fuel-efficient vehicles at US factories.
General Motors will start selling its Volt plug-in hybrid from next year. The Volt has an all-electric range of 40 miles (about 65km) before the petrol engine kicks in to start recharging but full recharging has to be done using an electric socket.
Toyota said it has no plans as yet to sell plug-in hybrids while Honda said it was studying them.
But Toyota is nonetheless building a test fleet of 500 plug-in Priuses with lithium-ion batteries as part of an ongoing development process, Shinichi Abe, head of Toyota’s hybrid vehicle management system, told the National Academy which is preparing a report for the Washington administration on advanced batteries and plug-in hybrids. The report is expected to be published by August.
