Attention car companies who desperately want to beat Toyota at the green car game: start building diesel hybrids now. Accordingt to Automotive News [sub], Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe says his company has no plans to build a hybrid diesel car. Toyota leads worldwide sales of gas – electric hybrids, plans to offer diesels on the Tundra/Sequoia platform and sells a truck in Japan with a hybrid diesel powertrain. So what's the issue? Unlike other companies we could mention (cough, GM, cough), Toyota doesn't see the value in rushing prohibitively expensive green technology to market. "A diesel hybrid car would cost more than a gasoline hybrid," explains Watanabe, reminding the greenrush crowd that the car business is still a business. So what of diesel hybrid concepts from Mercedes and Volkswagen? We can only assume that consumers have long become accustomed to overpaying for German offerings.
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Diesel Tundra is nice, but how about a Diesel Tacoma? Pretty please? Or can someone out there give us a small oil-burning truck? GM? Ford? Anyone? Bueller?
I want 35 MPG and 5000 lbs of towing. Is that entirely unreasonable?
But diesel hybrids are what the people want.
You got to give the people, give the people what they want…
(okay, no more O’Jays at the karaoke for me)
Diesel Hybrid. Big, heavy, expensive engine that’s already tuned to get maximum thrust per molecule of hydrocarbon, and we want to couple that with a big, heavy, expensive set of batteries to assist in propelling it? It really doesn’t make a lot of engineering or economic sense.
Unless your scale is really, really big, like locomotive scale.
At least that’s my understanding. Please correct me if I’m mistaken.
There is the pollution problem with diesel that the hybrid system magnifies. When running on the batteries the cat cools and pollution increases.
I want 35 MPG and 5000 lbs of towing. Is that entirely unreasonable?
Apparently. Why buy a truck that suits your needs when you can get a much bigger one? A 4 cylinder diesel is still a 4 cylinder, so it’s only halfway there.
“Toyota doesn’t see the value in rushing prohibitively expensive green technology to market. “A diesel hybrid car would cost more than a gasoline hybrid,” explains Watanabe”
Wait, wait, wait. Let me try to re-arrange this quote as if it were 1995…
Toyota doesn’t see the value in rushing prohibitively expensive green technology to market. “A gasoline hybrid car would cost more than a gasoline engine only,” explains Watanabe.
Ok, there we go. Using that rational, hybrid synergy drive should never have been done either. But they did bring an expensive green technology to market and it worked. Not saying its a guarantee to work again, but with that rationale, nothing would ever evolve.
I agree with Jerome. Toyota is too comfortable with their hybrid tech. Apparently, they’ve built up all the green cred they need to coast past their looming reliability problems. They won’t pursue diesel or other alternative energy. They backed off on hybridizing their fleet. It smells like laurels being rested on to me.
Watanabe’s right. Forget the hybrid diesel.
What I’d really like to see is the Cummins turbo-diesel in the Tundra – with a 6 speed manual.
There was a limited production Hummer knock-off that Toyota built last decade with a 4cyl 4.1L turbodiesel which had max torque just over 300lb/ft. It’s used by the Japanese military.
CarShark: Resting on laurels? They’re bringing out diesels and expanding the lineup of Hybrid Synergy Drive vehicles. And looming reliability problems? Just because a few models fell from grace in Consumer Reports’ recommended list? My 2004 and 2005 Camrys have been trouble-free.
I think GM would trumpet this as a triumph for the dual mode transmission. GM says that Toyota’s hybrid synergy drive is incapable of scalilng up to handle lots of torque or towing.
In essense, Toyota is making excuses for the limits of its hybrid technology, at least from GM’s perspective.
SherbornSean,
Maybe Toyota’s plan is to let GM dominate the consumer full-size pickup and SUV market with a hybrid system that costs GM a bargeload of money to build while Toyota dominates the small-to-mid-size car maket with a system that costs far less to build and which they sell for a reasonable markup to 250K buyers per year, thus spreading the development costs far and wide.
Let’s also bear in mind that we don’t know what the market for full-size pickup and SUV hybrids is like. Are the people who buy Yukaburbahoes interested in shelling out another $10K for a hybrid? Nobody expects good fuel economy in a truck, so maybe improved fuel economy isn’t a selling point if it costs an extra $10K to get it.
I figure the thought process goes like this: “Let’s see… for $50K, I can buy a hybrid Tahoe or I can buy a base Tahoe and two ATVs?” Gas going over $4/gallon may change that.
Of course, one can also downsize and save money on fuel… and on the purchase price, insurance and maybe other things. Is an Encadilook so much smaller than a Yukaburbahoe that it’s a crippling problem for what would otherwise be Yukaburbahoe prospects?
“Let’s see… for $50K, I can get a hybrid Yukaburbahoe or I can get a well-equipped Encadilook with the same fuel economy and two ATVs?”
But people freak out about this… witness the recent blizzard of notes accompanying the Acadia review complaining that the Rav4 was in nowhere near the same class as the Encadilook and that to raise the very idea of not just downsizing from a Yukaburbahoe to an Encadilook but all the way down to a Rav4 was just unthinkable!
For some, maybe it is. However, if I have the industry-standard 2.3 kids, what’s the real difference between a Yukaburbahoe that seats 8, an Encadilook that seats 8 or a Rav4 that seats 7?
Do I really care how comfortable the kids in the wayback are on the 15 minute ride to a soccer game? Does a ship’s captain care if the cargo is comfortable? No.
You might also reflect that a credit crunch will also impact people’s ability to get the giant loan necessary to pay for a hybrid Yukaburbahoe.
And growing numbers of people could admit that they never actually go off-road and just buy the damned minivan.
Hmmm…. I can’t help but thing this is a strategic feint by Toyota to get GM to drop the ball. What if GM takes this as face value and stays the path of… whatever it is GM is or isn’t doing. Then one day in 2010 or 2011 Toyota releases a small hybrid diesel for their truck line.
GM will be caught totally off guard and flat footed.
Ouch. Game over.
Kixstart,
If you have more than 2 young kids, you care about the difference between an Acadia and a RAV4 because the third row in the Acadia is accessible. Accessible not just to the kids who go back there, but also to the parents who have go way back and belt them in. It’s a real pain in 90% of 3-row SUVs.
But I take your point that most people looking at Yukaburbahoes would just as well off with Acadias as much more expensive hybrid Yukaburbahoes.
FYI: Toyota *IS* developing diesel hybrids, but currently, the cost is too prohibitive.
The cost premium of a diesel full hybrid would be at least 10K over a regular gasoline equivalent.
The Euro makers are showing diesel mild hybrids, NOT diesel full hybrids. Plus the Euro makers aren’t saying a word regarding pricing.
Toyota is not saying they will never offer a diesel hybrid. Toyota is simply saying that *at the moment* they have no plans to offer one.
I want 35 MPG and 5000 lbs of towing. Is that entirely unreasonable?
Take your pick, any of the euro pickups with a 4 banger diesel TDi operates close to those specs. The first carmaker to bring one of those in would have a major winner on their hands. Then only reson I gan thing that they do not is to protect their full size offerings that would be laughably inefficient to any of these models.
There are plenty of diesel hybrids carrying freight.. they are called trains.
So what of diesel hybrid concepts from Mercedes and Volkswagen?
They serve different markets, so they have different priorities.
The most obvious market for diesel hybrids is in Europe. Consumers there are buying diesels now, and they have the money to pay a premium for hybrid technology. Europe is obviously a prime market for both VW and Mercedes, so it makes sense for them to expand and refine their diesel options.
In contrast, Europe is a relatively modest part of Toyota’s business. Much of Toyota’s product mix is dominated by products geared toward satisfying American tastes, and Americans don’t particularly want diesels. The developing countries in Asia that want diesel trucks can’t and won’t pay the hybrid premium, so there’s little point for Toyota to invest much effort in this. Toyota may as well stay on the sidelines, see how everyone else does with it, and then leap in only if it proves to be a sleeper hit.
drifter:There are plenty of diesel hybrids carrying freight.. they are called trains
Except for a very few new switch-yard locomotives, diesel locomotives are not hybrids. “Hybrid” means that the power source comes from two discreet sources. Diesel locomotives’ only power source is the electricity coming from the generator; there is no second source, like from the batteries in a hybrid car.
So what of diesel hybrid concepts from Mercedes and Volkswagen?
The 2010 Prius will be further optimized for aerodynamics, regen capacity, and engine efficiency. I predict it will be as, or very close to as efficient as the non-aerodynamically optimized Golf diesel hybrid.
The Prius’ Atkinson cycle engine runs very efficiently; the gap between it and a clean diesel engine is perhaps around 10-15%. The Prius’ more efficient fybrid drive and other optimization more than makes up the difference.
I agree with Watanabe-san. No need for diesel hybrids but Toyota has Subaru’s flat 4 diesel in their hip pocket if for some crazy reason diesel hybrids become in demand.
In theory, diesel hybrid sounds like a great idea but I think in practical practice it will not be.
For once somebody make sense.
Think VERY small diesel engine, with an electric motor to assist at slow speeds. Like the technically mid-sized Prius with a 1.5L gas engine, a diesel electric hybrid with a 1.0L 3-cyl diesel / electric motor would be great in a Passat sized car. The combined torque of both engines will be great for get up and go, in town you would run on mostly electric power, and the diesel will be great on the highway where you need very little power. Hmm, what’s not to like? Of course it is expensive, but isn’t all new technology?
I wouldn’t pay too much attention to Watanabe-san. It is generally regarded that he is a transition CEO because Akio Toyoda was considered too young at the time*. Also, Fujio Cho (the man who was a key architect behind Toyota, as they are now, is still serving as president and still pulling a few strings. One of the reasons Toyota bought a stake in Isuzu was to develop its diesel expertise and possibly build a diesel hybrid**.
* = http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/22/business/worldbusiness/22toyotaside.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/M/Maynard,%20Micheline&pagewanted=all
= http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061114/FREE/61113017/1024/LATESTNEWS