Nissan Adding Plug-in Hybrid To Electric Lineup

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By John O'Dell October 24, 2011

A plug-in hybrid vehicle will join Nissan Motor Co. Ltd.’s lineup of electric-drive vehicles by 2015, part of the automaker’s drive to become – along with its French partner Renault SA – the world’s leading provider of advanced-technology vehicles. The new plug-in will be part of a broader slate that will include a replacement in the 2013-2014 timeframe for the discontinued Altima Hybrid and, as Nissan has previously announced, three more all-electric vehicles to join the Leaf EV hatchback the company launched almost 11 months ago.

Details about the new EVs were not announced, but the plug-in hybrid is expected to be a small car using a platform being co-developed by Nissan and Germany’s Daimler AG. The conventional hybrid, which Nissan hinted at previously, will be a Nissan-developed gas-electric system to replace the system that was licensed from Toyota Motor Corp. and used in the Altima hybrid that was discontinued for the 2012 model year. While Nissan hasn’t said so, most industry watchers expect the new car to be part of the popular Altima lineup. Nissan is already using an in-house-developed conventional hybrid system for its new Infiniti M Hybrid launched earlier this year as a 2012 model.

Green Plan
The automaker announced the new vehicles and restated its intent to add three more all-electric cars during its annual update this morning in Japan (above) of its “Nissan Green” 6-year environmental plan. The automaker repeated its goal of achieving cumulative sales along with Renault of 1.5 million emissions-free vehicles globally by the end of its 2017 fiscal year and said that it would achieve a 35-percent improvement of its fleet-wide average fuel economy and a 20-percent reduction in its corporate carbon-dioxide emissions by the end of 2016. The company is using 2005 levels as the base from which to achieve the gains and reductions. Nissan said it expected to spend about 300 billion yen ($3.9 billion), or 70 percent of its advanced research and development budget over the next six years, on environmental technologies.

Among them is a new-generation continuously variable transmission (CVT) and continued development in partnership with Renault and Daimler of fuel-cell electric vehicles to augment the companies’ battery-electric vehicle programs. Fuel-cell electric vehicles use essentially the same electric-drive systems as battery-electric cars, but rather than storing power in heavy advanced-chemistry batteries, they produce it on-board from stored hydrogen in a thermochemical reaction that takes place in a relatively compact fuel cell stack. Fuel-cell vehicles would need hydrogen fuel made in a low-carbon system and delivered via a widespread distribution network. But if the vehicles, fuel and fueling infrastructure all can be economically delivered, supporters believe fuel-cell electric cars and trucks would offer clean, petroleum-free transportation for motorists who need to travel long distances that now are impractical for range-limited battery-electric vehicles.

John O'Dell:  is an AutoObserver Senior Editor. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.

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70 Miles Is Dividing Line For Volt, Prius Plug-in

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By Danny King October 20, 2011

The 2012 Chevrolet Volt extended-range plug-in hybrid has lower fuel costs than the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in hybrid if the driver regularly drives 14 to 70 miles between recharges, while the Prius Plug-in is a cheaper ride at longer recharging intervals, according to green-vehicles industry analyst John Gartner. At 70 miles, the two cars are even at $4.75 in fuel expenses, while the Prius Plug-in driver would be at about $1 ahead of Volt-owning neighbors if each vehicle was driven 110 miles a day, Gartner found. For the first 14 miles, both vehicles would be running on power from their grid-charged batteries and their fuel costs would be the same, said Gartner, a senior analyst at Colorado-based clean-technology markets research firm Pike Research.

Gartner’s fuel-cost report, related in a Pike blog post earlier this week, indicates that many potential plug-in electric vehicle buyers may compare the Prius Plug-in to the Volt when the rechargeable Toyota hybrid debuts in 14 U.S. states next spring. Industry watchers expect the two cars to be fierce rivals in the infant plug-in market segment and Toyota seems confident its plug-in hybrid will outsell Chevrolet’s. Toyota Division Group Vice President and General Manager Bob Carter in September estimated that dealers wills sell about 15,000 plug-in Priuses during its first year. Chevrolet dealers through the first nine months of this year have sold just 3,900 Volts, though the automaker claims sales numbers have been constrained by limited supply.

The Volt might appear to get a marketplace boost from its $7,500 federal tax credit versus a $2,500 credit for the Prius Plug-in because of its markedly smaller battery pack. Battery capacity is the metric the federal government uses to determine the size of a rechargeable vehicle’s tax credit. But the Volt’s higher sticker price – it starts at $39,995 versus $32,760 for the Prius Plug-in – ends up making it about $2,000 more expensive than the Toyota. Additionally, Prius plug-in drivers will get to drive solo in some states' high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, while Volt drivers will have to wait until mid-2012, when the 2013 model is released with an engine-generator retuned to reduce emissions enough to qualify for single-occupancy carpool lanes. While those comparisons will help consumers make their choice, Gartner believes that the most important factor will be fuel economy and fuel savings.

Efficiency Or Environmental?
“Winning the hearts and wallets of consumers could come down to one number,” said Gartner. Edmunds.com data shows that fuel efficiency and fuel prices are closely tied in the conventional-car market, with sales of more-efficient vehicles rising during times of increasing fuel costs. Conventional (non plug-in) hybrid sales, however, have not always followed that trend, in large part because their higher prices make them more vulnerable to a weak economy. In his study, Gartner factored in gas prices at $3.50 a gallon and electricity at 11 cents per kilowatt-hour. Higher gasoline prices would improve the Prius’ cost efficiency over the Volt at longer distances because the Prius Plug-in is expected to be rated at 50 miles per gallon when its gasoline engine is running, versus the Volt’s 37-mpg EPA rating for gas-only travel.

Toyota spokesman John Hanson says a September report by Carnegie Mellon University provides one reason environmentally minded drivers may choose the plug-in variant of the Prius over the Volt regardless of potentially higher fueling costs: the report says electric-drive cars with larger battery packs may cause more environmental damage than cars with smaller packs because the bigger battery packs are heavier, produce more emissions when they are manufactured and require more charging infrastructure. The Volt has a 16-kilowatt-hour pack, the Prius plug-in a 4.4 kilowatt-hour pack.

Danny King:  is a frequent contributor to AutoObserver.com.

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Plug-In Day Spotlights EVs, EV Issues

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By John O'Dell October 14, 2011

Supporters of electric cars have declared Sunday to be National Plug-In Day and have been organizing grass-roots convoys -- parades, if you will -- to show off the growing number of EVs in the country. As the owners (well, lessees) of a 2011 Nissan Leaf, my wife and I will be participating in one of them, boastfully displaying a placard that says our cayenne red hatchback has traveled 1,970 miles oil free since we picked it up at the dealership at the end of May. I can attend the parade because it is being staged in the town in which I live, so I won’t stress the Leaf’s battery charge getting there and going home afterward.

The country's big event is being held in the city of Santa Monica, on the coast just west of Los Angeles, but I won’t be attending that one. It is a 108-mile round-trip from my house and that’s a distance the Leaf cannot tackle without a lengthy recharge of its battery pack. So instead of adding to the 180 or so electric-drive vehicles -- cars and trucks with plugs -- that will be plying the streets of Santa Monica on Sunday, my wife and I will be driving our Nissan Leaf five miles to the city library in Orange, CA., to participate in a more modest procession of around 30 EVs. There will be similar parades of plug-in vehicles in two-dozen cities across the country – organized by local chapters of the Sierra Club, Plug In America and the Electric Auto Association.

As a Southern California teenager, I often made a pilgrimage to the beach on New Year’s Day to bask in our usually warm winter sun and think about relatives stuck in the snowy Midwest. Now, as an EV driver, I’ll be dedicating my participation in Sunday’s parade to those EV owners who live too far away from one of the events to participate and to the wanna-be EV owners whose driving distances or financial situations make today’s electric cars impractical or impossible.

Although to hear some enthusiasts talk, the day will show America that the electric car has arrived, I’m not sure that’s the case. Instead, I see it as a chance to let people put eyes on the electric cars they might have read about -- or heard about on TV or their favorite Internet news amalgamator -- but that many have never seen because there still aren’t that many out there. Perhaps the parades, speeches and other events will get people thinking, and talking, about a future in which oil is for home heating, for industry, for the military and for commercial transportation, and we exercise the privilege of personal transportation in vehicles that don’t squander that particular resource.

If an onlooker asks me what I think about my EV, I’ll say that I really like it and that it meets all my expectations -- because I didn’t expect too much. I don’t believe that today’s electric cars are mainstream vehicles. They won’t be until they can overcome the handicap of expensive batteries that can’t provide much more than 100 miles of range on a single charge (it varies, depending on the vehicle’s weight, speed, the terrain and ambient temperature, size of the battery pack, the battery chemistry the manufacturer chose, and a few other factors). But as a second vehicle for households that can afford one, an EV starts making sense.

My wife uses our Leaf during the week -- her job is much closer to home than mine so she never comes close to exhausting the previous night’s charge -- and I’m the designated driver on weekends. We use it for almost all of our weekend transportation -- shopping, going out to dinner or a movie, visiting friends-- and the gas-burner sits in the driveway under a car cover except those times we take a trip that’s longer than 70 miles. So far, since getting the Leaf on May 22, we’ve had to purchase only a couple tanks of gas. That’s a far cry from the days when it was four to six tanks a month to keep two gasoline-powered cars running (a caveat here; I work from home a lot, and when I do drive into the Edmunds.com office in Santa Monica I use our third car, a 2007 natural-gas powered Honda Civic that allows me single occupant access to the freeway carpool lanes and has more than sufficient range for a round trip between fill-ups.) The savings in gasoline alone almost makes the Leaf’s monthly lease payment.

I’d also say that if you really want to maximize the savings and the feeling of doing something good for the environment that you get from owning an electric car, adding a home solar system to produce most of the electricity for your EV is a good way to go. We put one in almost 20 months ago, long before we decided to get the Leaf EV. While we now have the car and have to charge it several times a week, we hardly notice its impact on an electricity bill that is averaging just under $20 a month so far this year. We were paying Southern California  Edison Co. an average of  $160 a month for the year before the solar system went active.

All this was made possible by all of you out there -- we got close to $11,000 worth of federal tax credits and utility district rebates when we installed the solar system and $12,500 in state rebates and federal tax credits when we acquired the Leaf.  That’s another drawback of electric vehicles -- and green energy. At this point, they are affordable to many only because of the incentives provided by government. Without those incentives, I’d certainly not be driving a Leaf, or any EV, down to the city library for Sunday’s parade. 

Call me biased, but I think the expense is worth it -- I’d much rather see tax dollars spent encouraging the spread of energy efficiency and reduced oil use than on wars, government-paid healthcare for members of Congress or a few dozen other things that I consider wastes of taxpayers’ dimes. So even if you don’t agree with me, thanks for the help.  And if you have been toying with the idea of adding an oil-free vehicle to your personal (or business) fleet, drop by one of Sunday’s parades and talk to a few of the people who already own and drive one. It just could  be enlightening.

John O'Dell:  is an AutoObserver Senior Editor. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.

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2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in Betting On HOV Access

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By Scott Doggett September 19, 2011

Toyota is counting on access to high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to drive initial U.S. sales of the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in, its first-ever plug-in hybrid-electric vehicle (PHEV).  Toyota's first-year sales estimate for the Prius Plug-in, which arrives in spring and will be distributed in only 14 states initially, is a seemingly conservative 15,000 units, Toyota Division Group Vice President and General Manager Bob Carter said at last week’s introduction of the car. By contrast, Toyota sells about that many standard-issue Prius liftback models in America in a single month.

So far, a handful of states have granted solo occupants of the Prius Plug-in access to HOV lanes. Among them is California (the others are North Carolina and Virginia), which accounts for one of every four Prius models sold in the U.S. Massachusetts is considering joining the trio. HOV lane access can slash more than an hour off a daily commute in Los Angeles and other traffic-choked cities. The 2012 Chevy Volt -- the only other mass-produced plug-in hybrid available in the U.S. -- is not eligible for solo-occupant HOV lane use due to its dirtier tailpipe emissions. This gives the Toyota plug-in hybrid a potentially huge competitive advantage -- especially given the fact that hybrid drivers in California and Utah recently lost their right to use HOV lanes when driving solo. Virginia will strip its regular-hybrid drivers of their special access to carpool lanes in June 2012. In Maryland, the practice ends in September 2013.

Toyota also hopes consumers will see the price advantage of the Prius Plug-in over its competitors. The U.S. price of the 2012 Prius Plug-in hybrid hatchback will start at $32,000. The plug-in vehicle is expected to qualify for a federal tax credit of $2,500, dropping the price to $29,500. By comparison, the 2012 Volt starts at $39,145 and is eligible for a $7,500 federal tax credit, dropping the base price of the Volt to $31,645. That puts the after-incentives starting price of the Toyota at $2,145 below that of the Chevrolet. The all-electric 2012 Nissan Leaf, an altogether different vehicle due to its driving-range limitations, starts at $35,700 and drops to $27,700 after a $7,500 tax credit is applied. The Chevy and Nissan enjoy bigger federal tax credits, because their batteries are substantially larger than the battery inside the Toyota. Toyota will begin taking online orders in October for the 14 launch states. They are California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia. Customer deliveries are slated to start in March.

  

Prius Plug-in Vs. Volt
In addition to HOV lane access and a lower starting price, Toyota will emphasize another difference between the Prius Plug-in and its prime competitor, the Volt, in the months ahead: the Toyota’s battery can go from fully depleted to fully charged in three hours using a standard 120-volt outlet. A fully depleted Volt battery requires about 10 hours to fully charge using the same outlet. The amount of time needed to charge a Volt battery using an ordinary electrical outlet is usually enough motivation for the Volt owner to spend at least $2,000 on a 240-volt charger to speed up the charging process. After a full charge, the Volt can go 25 to 50 miles using only electricity before an onboard gasoline generator comes on to supply the vehicle's lithium-ion battery with more juice.

The Prius Plug-in is also fitted with a lithium-ion battery, but it is much smaller than the Volt's and so is its all-electric range -- 15 miles, according to Toyota. After the electric range, the Prius Plug-In behaves just like a regular Prius liftback and achieves nearly the same fuel economy: 49 mpg in combined city and highway driving versus 50 mpg in the standard 2012 Prius hybrid, according to Toyota. Edmunds.com has not yet officially tested the Prius Plug-in. Edmunds’ vehicle testers found the Volt achieved 31.4 mpg in mixed driving after its battery ran out of power.

Studies show that perceived value is a much bigger factor in an Americans’ vehicle purchases than environmental consideration. To that end, Toyota's Carter said he believes the Prius Plug-in’s pre-incentive starting price of $32,000 "will provide a good value for the consumer." But with no experience selling a plug-in hybrid vehicle, Toyota cannot be sure of sales so the automaker is being conservative in its forecast for the model. In addition, Toyota is monitoring General Motors’ experience selling the Volt, which went on sale in December. GM says it is on track to sell 10,000 Volts this year, though it may not make that number, in part due to a shutdown of the plant that makes the Volt for preparation to build other GM models.

  

Bests The Prototype
AutoObserver and editors at Edmunds’ InsideLine.com have written extensively about the prototype of the 2012 Prius Plug-in over the past 18 months. Test drives of the production version of the Prius Plug-in at a Toyota media event in the San Francisco Bay Area last week demonstrated that it drives just like a standard Prius, which is to say that it drives like a regular car. Major changes from the prototype to the production version are in the size of the battery. The size and its location give the plug-in the same cargo capacity as the standard third-generation Prius. A small but appreciated change from the prototype is the more flexible onboard charging cable that makes it easier to handle and plug into an outlet.

At the same event, Toyota allowed test drives of the regular 2012 Prius liftback, but did not announce its price. The 2011 Prius liftback starts at $23,520 and is currently available in four trim levels (level 1 has sold out). Level 3 starts at $24,520 and Level 5 starts at $28,790. The Prius Plug-in is available in two trim levels, the Standard and the Advanced. In terms of features, the Standard version is most like the 2012 Prius liftback with the Level 3 trim package (again, price unknown), and the Advanced trim level of the plug-in resembles the 2012 Prius liftback with the Level 5 options. The base 2012 Prius Plug-in will, as mentioned, start at $32,000, excluding the $2,500 federal tax credit. The 2012 Prius Plug-in Advanced will start at $39,525, excluding the tax credit.

Assuming the price of the Prius liftback with the Level 3 trim package doesn't change, the price difference between it and the base 2012 Plug-in Prius would be $4,980, including the tax credit. It would take quite a lot of driving in electric-only mode to make purchasing a Prius Plug-in a better financial move than buying a regular Prius liftback with the Level 3 trim. That’s probably why Toyota is talking up the HOV lane access that the plug-in model will enjoy in three and possibly more states. For some people, the price difference is nothing compared to the torment and time waste of sitting in freeway gridlock and watching solo occupants in other vehicles whiz by in a carpool lane. Reflecting on that Prius Plug-in perk, Carter said: "The customer now has motivation for a higher MPG, more efficiency…and can get in the HOV lane. That dynamic I think is going to be pretty big."

While the arrival of the Prius Plug-in remains some months away, Toyota is going to market in October with the Prius V wagon. It has 58 percent more cargo capacity than the Prius liftback and the Prius Plug-in; indeed more cargo space than 80 percent of the small SUVs on the road today. Last week, Toyota announced the Prius V’s manufacturer's suggested retail price is $26,400. Toyota now has introduced the regular 2012 Prius liftback, the roomier Prius V and the Prius Plug-in. Next up is the Prius C, which Toyota promises will be the most fuel-efficient hybrid in the U.S. without a plug. Toyota debuts the production version at the Detroit Auto Show in January.

  

Scott Doggett:  is an AutoObserver.com Associate Editor.

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