TOYOTA CITY, Japan--Toyota Motor can't achieve full production capacity for its hot-selling Prius hybrid because of battery and inverter shortages at its parts makers.
The two Japan factories making the Prius are working overtime and holiday shifts to produce roughly 46,000 cars a month for global markets.
Toyota could dial up output, but the plants don't have the parts to support it, said Hidenori Nagai, general manager of Toyota's Tsutsumi plant, which makes 30,000 Prius sedans a month.
"Even though we have the capacity on the assembly line, for some parts we don't have enough numbers," Nagai said in an interview. He cited batteries and inverters as examples of several hybrid-specific components that are in short supply.
Component bottlenecks have limited output of the third-generation Prius since production began in April. Toyota's supplier of nickel-metal hydride batteries, Panasonic EV Energy, fell behind the initial surge in demand. But it is adding a third Japanese factory next year that will boost annual capacity to 1 million battery packs.
Toyota is targeting global Prius sales of 500,000 to 600,000 units in its first full year. But by the end of September, the company faced a backlog of 150,000 orders, Nagai said.
Filling those orders will require Tsutsumi to keep operating at its same rate until July, Nagai said. The plant's two lines are churning out a car every 57 seconds. The new Prius accounts for about 80 percent of Tsutsumi's output.
By contrast, a year ago, when Tsutsumi was making only the previous-generation Prius, the model accounted for just 25 percent of the factory's output, Nagai said.
Even if suppliers suddenly were to increase the flow of batteries, inverters, and other hybrid components, Nagai said there are other limitations to ramping up the Prius. For example, Toyota would have to find new manufacturing sites for the other models being built at Tsutsumi: the Scion tC small coupe and the Japan-market Premio and Allion sedans.
Also, any increase in battery supply would need to be shared among the Prius and Toyota's other hybrid models. Last month the company launched a new dedicated hybrid called the Sai. It is expected to soak up 36,000 battery packs a year.
"We need to think of the balance between batteries supplied to the Prius and also to other hybrid models," Nagai said, "so we don't know exactly how much we could increase the Prius."
(Source: Automotive News)
Five cars enter, one car leaves. Well, actually all five cars get to leave, but only one with the title.
(Credit: CNET)Every year, for the past four years, Green Car Journal picks its Green Car of the Year at the LA Auto Show. Well, the LA Show will be here before you know it, so it's time to start thinking about this year's contestants, which have been narrowed down to five finalists.
The finalists include the Audi A3 TDI, the Honda Insight, the Mercury Milan Hybrid, the Toyota Prius, and the Volkswagen Golf TDI. That's two VW turbodiesels and a trio of hybrids; or four small hatchbacks and a small sedan. No matter how you look at it, there's not too much variation this year. However, three of the vehicles have taken our Editors' Choice award at different times this year and two of them have already done battle in a CNET Prizefight, so it will be interesting to see which is chosen as the overall winner.
A panel of jurors (which includes notables such as Jay Leno, Jean-Michel Cousteau, Carroll Shelby, Matt Petersen of Global Green USA and the Sierra Club's Carl Pope) will have to pick one of these vehicles to be crowned the fifth annual Green Car of the Year--which, by the way, is a very different thing from Greenest Car of the Year. There's apparently a bit more that goes into the choosing than just raw fuel economy and emissions numbers.
Last year, it was the Volkswagen Jetta TDI that walked rolled off with the 2009 crown by winning over the judges with its real-world performance and relatively low price. The year before that, it was the Chevy Tahoe Hybrid which was a really big hybrid that didn't return really big mpgs, but still managed to improve fuel economy by a massive 25-percent over the conventional model. Looking way back to the 2007 and 2006 winners, we can see that the Toyota Camry Hybrid and the Mercury Mariner Hybrid have also seen time in the winners' circle.
Editor's note: Polling is closed, the judges have voted, and the results are in. The 2010 Green Car of the Year award has gone to...
Even the world's sexiest Prius is still just a Prius.
(Credit: Tommi Kaira)Apparently, the 2010 Toyota Prius was feeling a bit frumpy and has decided to shake things up with a new look. So, the humble hybrid has gone under the knife of Japanese vehicle modifiers Tommi Kaira. The result is a new, sexy look and not much else.
Post-op, the Prius' front bumper has been replaced by a more aggressive unit with an integrated lip spoiler and larger intakes. Updated side skirts and rear bumper round out the Prius' new look. Peeking from beneath the bumper is a dual-muffler, quad-tipped exhaust that probably sounds good, but most likely doesn't do any favors for the Prius' horsepower or fuel efficiency. Requisite larger wheels and tires and a lowered suspension round out the tuning package.
I'm sure those quad-exhaust tips are really helping the Prius' 1.8-liter gasoline engine breathe.
(Credit: Tommi Kaira)You'll notice that we haven't mentioned any engine mods. That's because there aren't any. (Can you really call it "tuning" if you don't tune the engine?) The Tommi Kaira Prius makes its stock 134 horsepower and stock 50 mpg fuel economy rating. That is, if the aero upgrades haven't hurt Toyota's wind-tunnel-tested drag coefficient.
As long as changes are being made, I wonder if Tommi Kaira can do something about the Prius' dated DVD-based navigation system.
All the droolworthy stuff from Frankfurt, what it will *really* take to sell the Chevy Volt, Toyota's gonna' call everything a Prius, and this is the first episode of 'Car Tech Live', the new live video edition of the CNET Car Tech Podcast.
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EPISODE 136
SHOW NOTES• CNET coverage of the Frankfurt auto show
• What's the funny noise coming from your electric Nissan?
• Hertz NeverLost supports USB drives to load your navigation destinations
(Credit:
Toyota)
TOKYO -- Booming North American demand pushed cumulative sales of hybrid vehicles at Toyota Motor Corp. past the 2 million-unit mark last month as the Japanese automaker marched closer to its goal of selling 1 million gasoline-electric cars per year sometime in the next decade.
As of Aug. 9, Toyota sold 2.017 million hybrids worldwide since the vehicles debuted in 1997.
Toyota reached the 2 million milestone as it targets selling 1 million hybrids a year as early as possible in the 2010s. The company came a little closer to the goal with this year's launch of the popular third-generation Prius. Toyota expects that car alone to sell 600,000 units in its first full year on the market.
Today, Toyota sells 13 hybrid vehicle models in about 50 countries.
(Source: Automotive News)
(Credit:
Antuan Goodwin/CNET)
When we were introduced to Lexus' new hybrid, we were assured that the HS250h was more than just a Toyota Prius with a premium price tag. Having spent time with the "world's first dedicated hybrid luxury vehicle," we can safely say that in many ways, it is a very different animal.
Most obviously, the HS has a standard-issue sedan profile instead of the Prius' efficiency blob shape. The HS also has a bigger engine (2.4-liters) and a more refined suspension. Better interior materials and a higher grade of available cabin tech and safety tech combine to create a very pleasant behind-the-wheel experience.
However, with more power, more weight, and more features comes an increased thirst for fuel. While the HS250h's fuel economy is still better than the competition in its price class, we can't help but feel that its miles-per-gallon are a bit low for a hybrid.
Check out our full review of the Lexus HS250h for more info.
It's a good thing the redesigned Honda Insight is surpassing sales expectations in Japan, because its debut in the United States has been a disappointment.
Despite a major advertising campaign and the Insight's $2,000 price advantage over the redesigned Toyota Prius, U.S. consumers are not embracing Honda's new hybrid.
"Both are great cars [but] Prius is greenspeak for 'hybrid,'" said David Wilson, president of Wilson Automotive Group in Orange, Calif., which has both Honda and Toyota franchises.
Honda had hoped to sell 90,000 Insights a year in the United States, but the sour economy forced a revision at the time of the hybrid's March launch, to 60,000 units. So far Honda is off that pace, with only 7,524 sales through June. By contrast, Toyota sold 55,751 Priuses from January 1 through June.
... Read moreDetails emerge on cash for guzzlers--and some of it's ugly! It's a bad, bad week for TomTom. Our hybrid car tech Prizefight divides the CNET car community. And a ride in the best fun car you can get less than $30,000.
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SHOW NOTES
• The full details of the guzzlers program (PDF)
• CNET Prizefight: Insight vs. Prius
• First look at the real version of the Acura ZDX
A huge week of electric car announcements; the new Jaguar XJ reaches for the title of Top Tech Car; GM's out of BK; Dodge saves the Viper; and we take you for a ride in the hottest green car on the planet.
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• New Jaguar XJ launched, dripping with tech
• Best Buy moves hard into electric vehicles
At this point, I don't feel like I need to burnish my eco-credentials, given that I write for CNET's Green Tech blog every day. But when it came to buying a car, I got the iconic, even cliched, 2010 Toyota Prius.
Having driven almost 2,500 miles on it so far, I like it, although I have not yet been able to get the advertised 50-plus miles per gallon when I go around town, which is the bulk of my driving. But it's early still, I tell myself, so maybe the Prius can show me the way. (See also CNET's review of the 2010 Toyota Prius.)
Buying a hybrid was not at all my plan. My wife and I were generally content with a 10-year-old Corolla that got us from point A to B with good mileage. As you can tell, fuel efficiency and reliability are high on my wish lists, not luxury features. In fact, what I really wanted to do was hold out for a plug-in electric vehicle.
But a few weeks ago, our well-maintained sedan was totaled by a teenager in an SUV (no serious injuries, thankfully). That meant I needed to get a new car--fast. We went from accident to test drive to transaction in about a week since we needed a new car before we left for a long-planned vacation. Nothing like a deadline to focus the mind.
I was surprised to see how few hybrid options there are. Certainly the Honda Insight was tempting and early reviews were positive. But reviews also said that space in the back seat isn't great, which was a priority for us, while the new Prius improves on interior space.
I also thought of the Ford Fusion hybrid, which I drove this spring. One advantage was the tax rebate I would have gotten for buying a fuel-efficient American car. It gets over 40 miles per gallon in city driving and I liked driving it a second time--it had a comfortingly familiar look and feel, both inside and out, even though it's a hybrid. But with the bigger battery, the trunk didn't seem very roomy and you can't push down the back seats for big loads.
Next stop was the Toyota dealership. The base price of the new Prius is a few thousand dollars higher than that of the Insight but less than the listed base of the Fusion. We took the Prius for a spin and were pleased.
There's not exactly a waiting list for the 2010 Prius, but each car is basically spoken for before it arrives, at least in the Boston area. Our sales guy had one coming in. We grabbed it. Did I mention we were in a hurry?
The day after delivery we started our long drive for vacation. Gas mileage for our roughly 2,000 miles of highway travel in total was about 51 miles per gallon. A limited sample of city driving (less than 100 miles) has me getting in the middle to high 40s.
Different state of mind
The biggest change with driving a hybrid is the feedback system. The 2010 Prius has a few different display options. It's interesting to know what's going on under the covers--how the gasoline engine, generator, and battery coordinate to maximize your mileage.
But so far what I've ended up using is the Eco dashboard, which tells you when you're driving just on the battery and when going out of the super-efficient zone. The big lesson here: don't accelerate aggressively. Picking up speed slowly is the key to fuel-efficiency nirvana, the Prius tells me.
What a difference from my old cars. I've always driven a stick shift, which means a direct sense of controlling your car's functions: put it in gear, hit the accelerator, and you're in control.
The Prius is fly by wire. You tell the computer what to do and it controls the car. The 2010 model has a few modes that you can put it in: all EV, which only works up to about 20 miles per hour; the Eco mode; and the Power mode.
I've used the Power mode to jump onto highways and it works fine. The Eco mode makes it harder to push on the accelerator so my preference is to only use that with cruise control on the highway. With my day-to-day driving, I've ended up not picking a specific mode and just eyeing the dashboard for feedback.
Show me the way, oh eco-indicator. The Hybrid System Indicator coaches you on how to sip gas.
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET)For a far more thorough run-through, I suggest this review by my colleague Wayne Cunningham at CNET Car Tech. If you want to know how the hybrid system works under the covers, check out this video from the CNET Green Show.
Of course, there's the cost of the car. I ended up with a relatively low-end model, which is fine because I don't rely on GPS or need a solar moonroof (the solar panel powers a fan to keep the car from heating up in the sun.)
I don't drive a whole lot of miles per year so I wasn't going to get out a calculator and run an ROI analysis on buying a Prius with 48/50 miles per gallon mileage versus something else.
Hybrid technology just makes sense and it's a feature I wanted, just like getting video on my digital camera. Why should my car be burning gas when it's standing still? And I think it's brilliant that I'm recouping energy for my battery when I'm decelerating or hitting the brake.
Now when I drive around I notice the other Priuses. And I keep wondering, are you getting over 50 miles per gallon? Any tips you can share?
