Toyota zips ahead with electric hybrid

By Micheline Maynard
Published: January 12, 2009

DETROIT: Toyota plans to introduce its plug-in hybrid electric vehicle late this year, a year earlier than originally planned and a year ahead of the Chevrolet Volt.
James Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales USA, said in an interview at the North American International Auto Show that Toyota planned initially to make about 500 plug-in hybrids, which will be made available first to commercial customers. About 150 plug-ins will be scheduled for customers in the United States, Lentz said.
At the auto show last year, Toyota's president, Katsuaki Watanabe, said it planned to introduce a plug-in hybrid vehicle in 2010. The vehicle, which could be recharged by plugging it into a wall outlet, would join a lineup of other hybrid electric vehicles sold by Toyota, including the Prius.
General Motors said it planned to introduce its plug-in Volt by late 2010. The Volt, which will be made in Detroit and powered by a lithium ion battery, is the centerpiece of GM's efforts to market environmentally friendly cars.
The Toyota plug-in hybrid will be built in Japan, where Toyota also builds the Prius. The first plug-ins will be essentially built by hand, said Masami Doi, Toyota's general manager for global strategic planning.

The plug-ins also will be powered by lithium ion batteries, Lentz said, unlike the Prius, which will continue to be powered by a nickel-metal hydride battery. The lithium ion batteries will be produced in Japan by Panasonic, which also produces batteries for the Prius, Doi said.
GM unveiled the Volt as a concept car at the Detroit show in 2007, beating Toyota with word that it was developing a plug-in hybrid. Lentz did not say Sunday why Toyota had sped up its program.
But if Toyota stays on its new schedule, it will win at least a psychological advantage over GM, said Andrew Shapiro, an industry analyst with the Casesa Shapiro group.
"GM announced it first, and Toyota gets it to the market first," Shapiro said.
Lentz sought to play down any impression that Toyota was in a race with GM. The initial Toyota plug-ins will not be available to individual consumers, unlike the Volt, which GM says will go on sale to the public at the end of 2010. Lentz said the first Toyota plug-ins would be provided to customers like utility companies and others where their use could be carefully monitored. "We'll learn how they're used, and where people want to recharge them," like stations at the office or at home, he said.
Toyota also could study "the trade-offs between performance and range," meaning the distance the car could travel before its battery needed to be recharged, Lentz said.