Toyota is obviously very serious about hybrid vehicles. Are these more non-royalty bearing NIMH batteries from panasonic, you know the ones that could not be improved.
Toyota develops CVT-equipped hybrid power train
.c Kyodo News Service
NAGOYA, Oct. 8 (Kyodo) - Toyota Motor Corp. on Friday took the wraps off a new hybrid power train for vehicles, combined with a transmission system that it says helps vehicles make deeper cuts in fuel consumption than can be achieved by its hybrid Prius sedan.
At the same time, Toyota unveiled the world's first hybrid four-wheel-drive power train, called the E-Four.
A power train is the mechanism in a vehicle by which power is transmitted from the engine to the axle.
The four-wheel-drive system comprises the front-axle hybrid power train equipped with fuel-saving continually variable transmission (CVT) and a separate power-boosting rear motor for propelling rear wheels.
Toyota has used a 2.4-liter gasoline engine as a basis for the new CVT-equipped front-axle power train.
Toyota will likely install the new power train on the Estima minivan to be put on the market shortly.
CVT is a type of automatic transmission that helps minimize energy loss when a motor vehicle accelerates or decelerates.
A hybrid vehicle runs on both a gasoline engine and an electric motor that supplies power to the wheels when it accelerates. When the vehicle decelerates, the motor becomes a generator which charges a special battery.
'A low-friction road brings out the most in the E-Four,' Toyota said in a press statement.
When front-wheel slippage is detected, the power to the front axle is reduced by diverting power received from the engine. The diverted power is used to drive the front motor as a generator.
The electricity thus generated is transferred to the rear motor to be used as power, creating extra drive to turn the rear wheels. In this manner, the mechanism combats the slippage.
Having two motors that can separately supply power to the front and rear wheels eliminates the need for the propeller shaft that connects the front and rear axles in conventional four-wheel-drive vehicles, it said.
Toyota equipped the new power train with a newly developed nickel-metal hydride battery that can generate the same levels of power as its older version despite a 40% cut in its volume and a 20% weight reduction.
The battery was jointly developed by Panasonic EV Energy Co., a joint venture between Toyota and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. |
