Japan's Big Three Rev Up Green Cars

By NORIHIKO SHIROUZU And MARIKO SANCHANTA
TOKYO—As the competition for greener cars ratchets up,Toyota Motor Corp. signaled its strong endorsement Wednesday of a new generation of gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles that may serve as a successor to its best-selling Prius.
Toyota, along with rival Honda Motor Co., is pursuing plug-in hybrid technology. Such cars can be recharged via an electrical socket and drive many miles on electricity but have a gasoline engine that charges the battery when it runs out of power. Ordinary hybrids such as the Prius run on a combination of gasoline and internally generated electricity but can travel just a short distance on electricity only.

"The plug-in hybrid vehicle... can be driven without anxiety about how much power might remain in the battery or whether there may not be charging facilities nearby," said new Toyota President Akio Toyoda at the Tokyo Motor Show, as he unveiled the Prius plug-in hybrid concept car. "We believe the plug-in hybrid is more than ready for a full-fledged adaptation in the near future."
Also Wednesday, Toyota Executive Vice President Takeshi Uchiyamada said gasoline-electric hybrids would account for 30% of Toyota's global sales by 2020. Within that group, the new generation of plug-in hybrids would claim a significant share, he said. He didn't provide details but said plug-in electric hybrid cars should "spread the way the Prius has."
Plug-in hybrids still face a high-cost hurdle, but Toyota says it will try to contain that by giving them a relatively short electric-only driving range, limiting the amount of expensive battery capacity they need. The plug-in Prius prototype can go only about 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) on battery power, then would operate like a regular hybrid, it says.
At this year's auto show in Tokyo, auto makers are trading in engines for batteries to cash in on the 'green' car hype. WSJ's Akiko Fujita takes a tour of three electric car models.
The push comes as Japan's Big Three—Toyota, Honda and Nissan Motor Co.—gamble on the future of vehicle technology. Missing the next big thing could mean years of development and heavy spending to catch up, which many rivals faced when the Prius unexpectedly caught on earlier in the decade.
All three car makers also demonstrated all-electric battery cars at the Tokyo show, which opened to the media Wednesday. They include Honda's boxy EV-N, Toyota's FT-EV II mini four-seater and Nissan's skinny two-seated Land Glider.
But behind the scenes, only Nissan appeared to stake its future on full electric cars—which, unlike hybrids, can travel only as far as their battery charge lasts—while Toyota and Honda executives expressed skepticism over that technology. Toyota's Mr. Uchiyamada said the company believes full-electric battery cars "will likely gain only a highly limited share" of the global auto market.
Honda Chief Executive Takanobu Ito said fully electric cars "are likely to face difficulty in becoming a mainstream solution in the foreseeable future." Honda, he said, is therefore "devoting our energy in getting the most fuel-efficiency out of the battery system and electric power motors to come up with a truly compelling hybrid."
Critics of all-electric cars cite the high cost of batteries and the likely need for sizable government subsidies and incentives to make all-electric battery cars affordable. The lack of a wide network of battery-charging stations also could be an impediment.
Both Toyota and Honda say a full-electric car may work for certain consumers if they are willing to treat it as a town car with limited driving range. They also say the ultimate green car over the long run will be hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, which they believe will be more efficient than full-electric battery cars. Fuel-cell cars would create their own electricity through a reaction between hydrogen and oxygen.
By contrast, Nissan on Wednesday underscored its confidence in electric vehicles by unveiling a fourth battery-only concept car, a tiny, two-person vehicle that is envisioned for urban use.
Nissan already sells an Altima hybrid midsize sedan in the U.S., but the car uses licensed technology from Toyota. To close the gap, the auto maker has been developing a few hybridmodels on its own and is expected to launch them in the U.S., Japan and possibly elsewhere over the next two years.
Carlos Ghosn, Nissan's CEO, acknowledged his company was late to jump onto the hybrid bandwagon, and now plans to concentrate on battery-only cars. "We have had a period where we have had to catch up, but now we will exercise our technological power," he said. "We are aiming for leadership in [electric vehicles]."
Nissan believes it has found a way to make electric cars—such as the Leaf, a hatchback it plans to start selling late next year in the U.S., Europe and Japan—nearly as affordable as a gasoline-fueled compact cars.
Nissan hasn't yet disclosed the Leaf's business model, but one way to realize such a low price for a full electric car is to sell it without its on-board battery pack. Instead, Nissan may lease the battery pack to the customer for an affordable month fee, among other means, its executives said.
But Nissan executives also stressed that government support is necessary to launch the Leaf, which it aims to sell world-wide in 2012.
"We are asking governments to cover [the investment] up to the point when we can reach volume momentum—this will take several years," said Carlos Tavares, who heads Nissan's Americas operations. Mr. Ghosn estimated that this would take three to four years.
Write to Norihiko Shirouzu at norihiko.shirouzu@wsj.com and Mariko Sanchanta at Mariko.Sanchanta@wsj.com