Toyota Puts Brakes on EV Plans, Builds Just 100 Units of iQ EV

[danwat1234]

[citation][nom]ubercake[/nom]Funny... Hybrids were all the rage when the economy tanked and governments were giving out free money for EV research. Once Obama announced the end of government alternative energy funding, GM announced the end of the Volt program. Now we see Toyota pulling back in this area as well (there are Toyota assembly plants in the U.S.).[/citation]
[citation][nom]jj463rd[/nom]Electric cars will always be a failure because of the high inefficiency caused by their wasteful heavy mass.Most of the energy transporting the driver,passengers (less common) and small cargo is used up by the heavy mass of the vehicle.On the other hand electric motorized super aerodynamic low cross section Velomobiles weighing under 150 pounds or so with carbon fiber composite and/or Kevlar bodies (and just as safe as those Formula 1 cars) are just the opposite with mostly a mass ration inversion being extremely energy efficient and they should be the future electric single occupancy or possibly passenger vehicles instead.[/citation]
Uh, don't know where you heard that. The Volt program is not ending. The plant is closed for a while so they can re-tool it. More Volts are being sold each month than previous months and the government has ordered something like 1,000 of them to replace old Impalas and Vics. Starting to ramp up. I just started seeing Volts on the road these past few weeks, pretty exciting.
The Toyota Prius Plug-in is staying too. Extended range EVs are win.
@463rd, heard of regenerative braking?
That is how the ~4700 pound Model S can still get 89MPGe combined EPA.

 

[jj463rd]

[citation][nom]danwat1234[/nom]Uh, don't know where you heard that. The Volt program is not ending. The plant is closed for a while so they can re-tool it. More Volts are being sold each month than previous months and the government has ordered something like 1,000 of them to replace old Impalas and Vics. Starting to ramp up. I just started seeing Volts on the road these past few weeks, pretty exciting.The Toyota Prius Plug-in is staying too. Extended range EVs are win.@463rd, heard of regenerative braking?That is how the ~4700 pound Model S can still get 89MPGe combined EPA.[/citation]

Yep I sure have heard of regenerative braking a long long time ago. 89MPGe is poor and unsustainable.
What do I mean about sustainability? The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has concluded that the transportation sector is the number 1 culprit in anthropogenic global warming.There are over 1 billion motor vehicle users on this planet and it's unsustainable.To get sustainability with 1 billion people using motorized transport (and I am not talking about heavy cargo transport like trucks etc) you would need the vehicle to reach an estimated energy equivalency efficiency of somewhere around 300 mpg.

89 MPGe would be sustainable if there were only 300 million people or less driving those vehicles in the entire Earth.Unfortunately there are 1 billion drivers/users and it's expected to have 2 billion motor vehicle users so to have that sustainable the vehicles must reach a mpg equivalency of 600 mpg energy efficiency or so.
Impossible to reach on a wasteful heavy mass vehicle.Methods of reaching that or better are walking,running,EPAMD's,bicycles,electric bikes,Velomobiles or electric Velomobiles.
Heavy cars are a failure and illogical physics wise in terms of efficiency.
If auto makers made the Saturn V moon rocket like they make current passenger vehicles it would weigh 20 times as much,never get into space,tip over on the pad and blow up with the force of a small nuclear bomb.It's the heavy mass that makes them extremely inefficient.Change this and it's a workable solution sustain-ably wise.I already get 600 mpg energy efficiency equivalency on my personal transport vehicle so I can laugh about how inefficient the Chevy Volt is.

 

[danwat1234]

Yep I sure have heard of regenerative braking a long long time ago. 89MPGe is poor and unsustainable.
What do I mean about sustainability? The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has concluded that the transportation sector is the number 1 culprit in anthropogenic global warming.There are over 1 billion motor vehicle users on this planet and it's unsustainable.To get sustainability with 1 billion people using motorized transport (and I am not talking about heavy cargo transport like trucks etc) you would need the vehicle to reach an estimated energy equivalency efficiency of somewhere around 300 mpg.

89 MPGe would be sustainable if there were only 300 million people or less driving those vehicles in the entire Earth.Unfortunately there are 1 billion drivers/users and it's expected to have 2 billion motor vehicle users so to have that sustainable the vehicles must reach a mpg equivalency of 600 mpg energy efficiency or so.
Impossible to reach on a wasteful heavy mass vehicle.Methods of reaching that or better are walking,running,EPAMD's,bicycles,electric bikes,Velomobiles or electric Velomobiles.
Heavy cars are a failure and illogical physics wise in terms of efficiency.
If auto makers made the Saturn V moon rocket like they make current passenger vehicles it would weigh 20 times as much,never get into space,tip over on the pad and blow up with the force of a small nuclear bomb.It's the heavy mass that makes them extremely inefficient.Change this and it's a workable solution sustain-ably wise.I already get 600 mpg energy efficiency equivalency on my personal transport vehicle so I can laugh about how inefficient the Chevy Volt is.

The only problem is that walking, biking can not be done all the time since people are busy and a lot are too fat to travel long distances on their own power.
To travel at high speeds with any kind of safety, you can only achieve about 200MPGe, with the Aptera 2e which weighs about 1800 pounds. There is no fully enclosed EV with airbags, seat belts, stability/traction control that gets better MPGe than this.

There is a self-stabilizing bike via gyros by Lit Motors and is set to be released in 2014, but the safety will be a lot less than an Aptera or a regular car for that matter.


Yes you can travel around in an electric bike, but then if you are travelling fast, injury or death is very likely. Also travelling in severe weather would be problematic and families can't travel long distances on their own power.