Another article on Toyota Prius, dated Sept. 10 1998.
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Toyota Prius hybrid car recharges its own batteries
Gas-electric combo will go global soon
September 10, 1998
BY RACHEL KONRAD
Free Press Automotive Writer
Forget the hype. The Toyota Prius is not the car of the future.
But the world's first mass-marketed hybrid vehicle, powered by a combination of batteries and gasoline, is a critical link between today's conventional cars and more futuristic personal transportation that the world will glimpse sometime in the 21st Century.
The Prius -- from the Latin word meaning "to go before" -- has been on sale in Japan since December. Demand for the Prius has been so overwhelming that Toyota President Hiroshi Okuda decided it was time to take the Prius global. It will debut in the United States and Europe in 2000, and possibly elsewhere after that.
The thing that makes the Prius different from other cars is its unique way of getting energy. The Prius sedan -- which is a bit roomier than its conventionally powered cousin, the Toyota Corolla, has a 1.5-liter gasoline engine and an electric motor. It operates on electricity from batteries at low speeds and switches automatically to the gas engine at higher speeds.
When you start the Prius, it's dead quiet, similar to fully electric vehicles, such as General Motors Corp.'s EV1. It doesn't make any noise or emit any pollutants from the tailpipe when you start moving from a dead stop because at that moment the vehicle gets its power exclusively from the batteries.
When you hit 10 or 15 miles per hour, the gas engine quietly kicks in, and the Prius behaves and sounds like an ordinary vehicle. The Prius is capable of cruising at 88 m.p.h. on gasoline alone. It can accelerate up to 100 m.p.h. in short bursts using the engine and batteries together. Performance is expected to be improved before the vehicle's North American debut.
During deceleration or braking, the motor functions as a generator and recharges the batteries. When a battery's charge starts getting low, the electric generator routes power to charge the battery in a complicated mechanical ballet under the hood that the drivers and passengers never notice.
The batteries never need to be recharged from an external source, such as the giant garage adaptor needed to power electric vehicles.
Since Toyota launched the Prius in December, it has slowly won over skeptical automotive critics.
The Prius isn't any faster or more exciting-looking than lower-priced vehicles such as the Honda Civic or Dodge Neon, they say. And in an era of record low prices for gasoline, critics note, there's not much incentive to buy a high-tech hybrid to increase fuel efficiency.
But it's vastly more convenient than fully electric vehicles, which cannot go much more than 100 miles without needing to be plugged into a power source for several hours.
"An electric vehicle is too troublesome for most consumers," said David Champion, director of automotive testing at Consumer Reports in East Haddam, Conn. "This is a little more friendly."
Some of Toyota's investors have been the only ones to complain about the money-losing vehicle. According to estimates from automotive analysts, Toyota loses as much as $20,000 on each Prius -- more than what it costs to buy one.
The Prius' sticker price in Japan is about $16,000, although that's artificially low because of the diminishing value of the Japanese yen. The Prius debuted in Japan costing about $17,000 when measured in U.S. dollars. In the United States, the Prius is expected to cost somewhere between a Corolla (about $15,500) and a Camry (about $21,000).
Toyota is willing to lose the money on the Prius because it wants to be the first automaker to mass market a gas-electric hybrid.
Toyota's research has shown that most people -- especially Americans -- refuse to pay more money for a car that's environmentally responsible. It wouldn't make sense for Toyota to market a high-tech vehicle that no one could afford.
If the Prius catches on, Toyota stands to reap a fortune.
Chris Cedergren, president of Nextrend Inc. of Thousand Oaks, Calif., estimates that up to 25 percent of vehicles worldwide could be powered by alternative methods by around 2020. If Toyota is the first to the market with hybrids, and if the program doesn't suddenly turn disastrous, consumers will likely think of the Prius as the most reputable choice, Cedergren said.
"You have to give credit to Toyota for doing this," he said. "If the Prius works, they'll put it (the technology) into other vehicles. Then, watch out."
Rachel Konrad can be reached at 1-313-222-5394 or by E-mail at konrad@freepress.com
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PRIUS SPECS
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In Japan, the 1998 Prius gets 66 miles per gallon of gasoline. It can go 850 miles per tank. Fuel efficiency will be less impressive in the United States, however, where the Prius will get about 50 m.p.g.
Unlike conventional gas-powered cars, which getter better mileage in highway driving, the Prius performs better in stop-and-go traffic, when it is either idling or moving slowly. At those times, the Prius is powered by a battery and hardly uses any gas. At high speeds, the Prius mostly uses gas.
In Japan, the narrow streets and congested highways require lots of stop-and-go maneuvers. Wide-open highways are rare. By contrast, many parts of the United States are covered by empty highways.
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