Toyota Prius PHV Plug-In
You can now order the Toyota Prius PHV, which is the first plug-in hybrid car that the company has produced. Toyota believes that this is the way forward and that it will be more popular than cars powered entirely by batteries. Surprisingly the PHV will cost less than the Nissan Leaf, a wholly battery powered car. Targeted sales volumes are 60,000 pa world wide and the first European models will be available in Europe from June 2012 at a price of around €37,000.
The PHV differs from the conventional Prius in that there are more batteries, which are of the high capacity lithium-ion type, and that they can be charged from a standard electricity socket in 90 minutes. The batteries have been developed and will be built by Panasonic.
Where a plug-in hybrid scores over a pure electric vehicle is that it doesn’t engender ‘range-anxiety’, a constant problem of many electric vehicle owners which tend to have a maximum range of around 100 miles.
Naturally the range of the PHV is less than this just using the electric motor (it is only around 16.5 miles) but the total range is around 620 miles. Around 600 of these cars have been trialled successfully in Europe, Japan and the USA and they have received many plaudits. One user was able to drive 249 km using just one litre of petrol by recharging it after each journey.
More Toyota plug-in cars are on their way including hybrids and all-electric vehicles. In total 3.4 million Prius cars have been sold since their launch.
Competition is expected from General Motors planned introduction of the more expensive Volt plug-in hybrid which uses new technology for extending the range, though its launch has been delayed due to safety concerns regarding the tendency of its batteries to catch fire.
