For the most part, we're still looking off into the future when it comes to EVs. Right now, the only mass-produced electric car you can actually buy from a major manufacturer is the Nissan Leaf. But next year, the market will be crawling with them. Toyota will have three if you count the plug-in: the Scion iQ, the plug-in Toyota Prius and the Toyota RAV4 EV.
We had a long-term plug-in Prius prototype a few months ago. We haven't driven the iQ yet, and this week, we got to drive a five-mile suburban loop in a RAV4 EV prototype. We found it just about ready for market right now.
But we're easier to please than Toyota, apparently. The production version of the RAV4 EV won't arrive for another year, but the prototype was so close to production standards that other car companies could learn a lot from Toyota.
Both Tesla and Toyota are hoping to learn from each other in this partnership. Tesla, which makes the powertrain for this battery-electric car in a partnership with Toyota, is hoping to learn about manufacturing. Toyota, for its part, is hoping to learn about electric cars and also about how to make a corporate decision in less than two years and with fewer than 16 layers of management, each layer of which is desperately trying to preserve its job and not rock the boat.
It could be a marriage made in heaven, or at least in Fremont, the northern California town where these things will be made.
The drivetrain shares a lot of componentry with the Tesla Roadster, including the power control module that sits topmost in the "engine" bay and the lithium-ion battery packs that ride slung beneath the front and rear seats. Specific parts of the powertrain will be different from those in the Tesla Roadster, but we will get details on those closer to production.
The prototype RAV4 EV weighs about 3,860 pounds, which is 220 pounds more than the gasoline-powered RAV4. The extra weight comes from the lithium-ion batteries carried in two modules beneath the front and rear seats. Toyota says there are 37 kilowatt-hours of "useable" power in those batteries, no doubt referring to the top 80 percent of capacity, below which engineers prefer not dipping in order to preserve battery life. So we could probably round up battery capacity in this rig to 40 kilowatt-hours, which is substantial.
That battery is about 50 percent bigger than the one in the Leaf, and Toyota says to expect 100 miles-plus of "real-world range" despite the RAV4's heavier curb weight.
There was a fairly high amount of regenerative braking dialed into the RAV, which really slowed the car as soon as we lifted off the accelerator. But the production version will likely have far less regen. When we suggested a thumb wheel to adjust regen on the fly, so that you could coast or decel depending on what was most efficient, we didn't get any takers among the Toyota techs present. So don't look for that feature come 2012.
We had a long-term plug-in Prius prototype a few months ago. We haven't driven the iQ yet, and this week, we got to drive a five-mile suburban loop in a RAV4 EV prototype. We found it just about ready for market right now.
But we're easier to please than Toyota, apparently. The production version of the RAV4 EV won't arrive for another year, but the prototype was so close to production standards that other car companies could learn a lot from Toyota.
Both Tesla and Toyota are hoping to learn from each other in this partnership. Tesla, which makes the powertrain for this battery-electric car in a partnership with Toyota, is hoping to learn about manufacturing. Toyota, for its part, is hoping to learn about electric cars and also about how to make a corporate decision in less than two years and with fewer than 16 layers of management, each layer of which is desperately trying to preserve its job and not rock the boat.
It could be a marriage made in heaven, or at least in Fremont, the northern California town where these things will be made.
The drivetrain shares a lot of componentry with the Tesla Roadster, including the power control module that sits topmost in the "engine" bay and the lithium-ion battery packs that ride slung beneath the front and rear seats. Specific parts of the powertrain will be different from those in the Tesla Roadster, but we will get details on those closer to production.
The prototype RAV4 EV weighs about 3,860 pounds, which is 220 pounds more than the gasoline-powered RAV4. The extra weight comes from the lithium-ion batteries carried in two modules beneath the front and rear seats. Toyota says there are 37 kilowatt-hours of "useable" power in those batteries, no doubt referring to the top 80 percent of capacity, below which engineers prefer not dipping in order to preserve battery life. So we could probably round up battery capacity in this rig to 40 kilowatt-hours, which is substantial.
That battery is about 50 percent bigger than the one in the Leaf, and Toyota says to expect 100 miles-plus of "real-world range" despite the RAV4's heavier curb weight.
There was a fairly high amount of regenerative braking dialed into the RAV, which really slowed the car as soon as we lifted off the accelerator. But the production version will likely have far less regen. When we suggested a thumb wheel to adjust regen on the fly, so that you could coast or decel depending on what was most efficient, we didn't get any takers among the Toyota techs present. So don't look for that feature come 2012.
