It looks like those waiting for the next generation
Prius to hit the road are going to have to hold out a little bit longer. Toyota announced this week that it would be delaying plans to bring its plug-in, lithium-ion-based model to market until 2011, as opposed to 2008, due to safety concerns over the company's chosen battery. In
very related news,
GM has struck a deal with Massachusetts-based battery developer A123 Systems to produce flat lithium-ion batteries for use in upcoming plug-in electric vehicles, such as the
Chevy Volt. With regards to whether Toyota's setback could give GM an edge in the electric car game, Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said, "I think that our No. 1 competitor has some problems with their technology, and I do think that it very definitely opens a window of opportunity for us to be first to market with a genuine plug-in hybrid," which sounds like fightin' words, if you ask us.
Read -- Toyota delays next-gen lithium-ion Prius
Read -- GM says it could lead electric car race
posted August 10th 2007 10:27PM
Two of the worst automobile manufacturers go head to head. Ford has the best, quality cars. I don't know why so many of you are so stupid that you think that Toyota's are reliable. In 2006, they recalled 2.38 million vehicles but only sold 2.26 million. I bet you didn't hear about that in your newspaper. If it was a Ford recall, you can bet that it'll be on the front page. And a major flaw with the Toyota Tundra is that the cam shaft breaks a lot, and they needed to recall those trucks. Toyota=poor quality.
That's something that pisses me off... But Ford wasn't really that great until the Edge, really.
My Escort broke down so many times, I tell ya.
I cant remember the last time I was so disappointed by the quality of the comments on an engadget story.
Why are people's identities so wraped up their brand of car, and so thretened by other peoples opinions?
Competition is healthy. May the those who work hard and achieve be rewarded - regardless of thier nationatlity.
Also, I dont understand how the "buy American" mentality is supposed to help us, as it seems like it would undermine competition. Good, honest competition is supposed to be thought of as healthy, and a companie's succeed based on performance. Blind alegience undermines this, harming the verry companies we are trying to "keep afloat" by luling them into a false sense of security. Bloat and inefficiency should never be encouraged, right?
I assume you're not living near the great lakes - you have no idea how the regional economy/morale/etc.'s been affected by all the closures.
Yes, competition is indeed healthy, but Toyota's ways aren't.
True, I don't live near the Great Lakes, and closures are nothing to shrug one's shoulders at. But I suppose my point and my question is this: Isn't some of this GM's own fault? It seems to me that for a while, their quality was just bad. When I've been car hunting, the repair histories, and recal notes such as "wheels can fall off" for "American made" cars (including GM) are not encouraging. I'm glad to be an American (born and raised), but I have found it hard to feel proud about the quality of our cars, American arogance, and the supersized obnoxious SUV mentality. Being taken down a few notches can be a good and yes, ultimately healthy thing when one deserves it.
In general, the overarching experience/perception is that Toyotas just last, and need less time in the shop. I know I've certainly experienced this.
Where could I find more information about Toyota's ways being unhealthy?
1+2) I don't know about the "bringing profits back home" part, how many plants have GM closed in the US in the last 10 years and how many new plants have they opened overseas? "Bringing profits back home" may be for a selected few on the top, but probably not for the domestic factory workers. They don't give a F about their workers, whenever they post a lost, first thing in the exec's mind is "We need to close some plants and cut some jobs"
3)As far as I know, the Daewoo Kalos was based on a prototype back in 2001, that was before GM buying Daewoo, so being however good or bad it is, GM has nothing to do with it.
We have a great commentary about this competition.
View it here:
http://www.gm-volt.com/2007/08/08/who-will-dominate-the-future-hybrid-market-gm-or-toyota/
Note that it was published two days before this Engadget post and 2 days before the A123 announcement.
F Li-Ion batteries..... Solid State Hydrogen Fuel Cells for the win! And no I didn't just make that up.
The push to electric is primarily due to concern over global warming from the exhaust of gasoline engines (and various other sources). Batteries are a patch on an immediate problem definitely not a final solution. Being able to control the waste at a central source (Power plant) is considerably more managable than doing it for every vehicle.
Whether you do or don't believe in global warming, and it's accelerated process triggered by us humans, is really not relevant. The point is to be energy smart and energy efficient. Our social structure needs to change so that we:
1. Don't waste energy needlessly -- the daily commute is a classic example, is this really necessary in today's day and age, not really -- it just requires some social and attitude changes.
2. For sunny parts of the world why not have solar panels on the roofs of all homes? Why does the government not encourage the manditory installation? One or two solar panels here and there make little or no difference, but requiring them to be install on every home makes a huge difference. Instead of subsidising oil to make it "appear" cheaper, why not subsidise solar panels on homes?
If you want to be more energy efficient go get solar installed in your home and take yourself OFF the grid and charge your Prius all day.
But if you really think about it, we can remove the need to gather at a central location, but until people remove their fear of simple technology (IM, EMail, video conference, etc) we're stuck wasting a ton of energy and time going to and from a central meeting place.
And why the Brand loyalty, most of the GM parts are made outside of the US just as most of Toyota's steal is from outside of Japan -- so what? Think Global and stop creating artificial boundaries with emotion limits.
Evolve!