New energy car, Toyota tangled

- Nakayama, vice president of Toyota responsible for technology, asked reporters to discuss with China’s relevant departments and companies like gambling betting on electric vehicles, different electric vehicles “Great Leap Forward”, Toyota insisted on pushing their own world-leading hybrid vehicles, and in the new Energy vehicles are hesitant in their future development. Is the future dominated by electric vehicles or by hydrogen fuel cell vehicles? Although Toyota is a leader in both technologies, it is still very tangled with who is the mainstay. A few days ago, Toyota’s vice president of technology, Uchiyamada, answered the questions raised by “International Business Daily” at the Toyoda Toyota Hall in Aichi Prefecture, Japan.

"International Business Daily": Your competitor German Volkswagen in China's main turbocharged direct injection engine and dual clutch gearbox, which is the new powertrain TSI + DSD, is very popular. How does Toyota respond?

Uchiyamada: The direct injection and turbocharger technology is used in the engine, and the gears of the CVT are added to the gearbox. We have been carrying out improvement work in this area. In Europe, we have also launched many turbocharged engine products. In some Asian markets, there are now turbocharged technologies. In Japan, we do not use turbocharged technology in gasoline engines because Japanese consumers believe that hybrid technology can provide better fuel economy while maintaining good driving performance. In China, due to fierce market competition, we also hope that we can put this brand new powertrain model into the Chinese market as soon as possible, and we already have relevant plans.

"International Business Daily": Is there a timetable?

Uchiyamada: I'm very sorry, I can't give a specific time, because the introduction of these should be considered in conjunction with the replacement of this model.

"International Business Daily": In terms of new energy vehicles, why is Toyota pushing hybrid vehicles?

Uchiyamada: Hybrid models can significantly improve fuel economy. Of course, we are also developing plug-in hybrid electric vehicles as well as pure electric vehicles, including hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for the future. However, we believe that hybrid technology is, to a certain extent, a relatively mature and relatively mature technology, and there are still other issues that need to be addressed in order to popularize other technologies.

"International Business Daily": What is Toyota's positioning for pure electric cars and hydrogen fuel cell cars?

Uchiyamada: With regard to electric vehicles, electric vehicles are still not enough to replace traditionally powered vehicles with the current battery performance, and have not yet reached such a level. If you want to replace it, you must make a significant reduction in the space and cost of the battery. Therefore, we believe that electric vehicles are still suitable for mobile tools used in short-distance travel in cities.

As for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, we think it has great potential for development. Based on this judgment, we are also very active in related development. Why do we think hydrogen fuel is very promising, on the one hand, because hydrogen fuel can be produced in many ways, and on the other hand, it takes a long time after being filled with hydrogen fuel and there is absolutely no exhaust emissions. Of course, the biggest problem for fuel cell vehicles is the high cost, which is far higher than that of electric vehicles.

"International Business Daily": If you choose between electric cars and hydrogen fuel cell cars, Toyota will choose which?

Uchiyamada: It is still hard to choose. The main problem with electric vehicles is that they have short cruising range. To increase mileage, they can only increase the number of battery packs. This will not only take up more space, increase weight, but also increase the already high cost; the main problem for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is the cost is too high. We can set a goal—the intersection of cruising range and cost. The electric vehicle must solve the two problems of cruising range and cost to achieve this goal, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles can only achieve this goal by solving the cost problem. However, the cost of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is much lower than that of electric vehicles. The current situation is that the battery technology of electric vehicles is continuously developing, and the cost of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is also declining. Both are constantly improving.

"International Business Daily": Which kind of technology do you think can break through to reach this intersection?

Uchiyamada: It is difficult to predict who will reach this intersection first. If we know it, then we can concentrate on developing in one direction. But now both technologies are in development. To be honest, we don't know that the possibility is even greater.

"International Business Daily": In the hydrogen fuel cell car, Toyota's current progress?

Uchiyamada: Now, the cruising range of a fuel cell vehicle can basically reach a cruising range of 800 kilometers with one fuel. However, fuel cell vehicles also have the problem of requiring an infrastructure for refueling stations. We plan to bring fuel cell vehicles to market in 2015. I think that first, in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, it is a large bus or a truck driving in the city. This type of vehicle may be the most suitable fuel cell system.

"International Business Daily": How do you see the extended Chevrolet Volt-type extended-range electric vehicle (which can rely on extra charging to drive a certain mileage and then use a gasoline engine to generate electricity and the vehicle is always driven by an electric motor)?

Uchiyamada: Wolanda is still based on pure electric power, that is, when the battery is exhausted, the engine provides electricity to run, it requires a larger motor and more batteries.

We can look at Toyota's hybrid system, remove the engine, the fuel tank, and at the same time increase the battery capacity, then it becomes a pure electric car. In the case of plug-in hybrids, the battery capacity is slightly increased, while an external rechargeable device is added. Then, the fuel cell car is based on the Toyota hybrid system, replacing the fuel tank and engine with hydrogen storage tanks and fuel cell power modules. It looks as if the future of new energy automotive technologies will have different directions of development, but we are now focusing on various resources for the development of hybrid systems. In the future, we can more simply integrate with various future new energy vehicle technologies because these Technology requires the essence of hybrid power - energy recovery and storage, automatic switching and so on.

"International Business Daily": Is it possible to understand this way, it is easy to develop from hybrid to other new energy vehicle technologies, but it is difficult to reverse development?

Uchiyamada: It's really like you said, it's very difficult to drive from pure electric vehicles to hybrid power, or to the direction of fuel cell power. From a practical point of view, experimental data done in Japan show that if hybrid technology is used, the fuel consumption of a car will be reduced to half of the current level. On the contrary, the maximum mileage for a pure electric vehicle is 160 kilometers. If the user's travel mileage exceeds 100 kilometers today, he must also have another conventional power car, or a hybrid car. . According to the comprehensive calculation results of different users' travel habits, hybrid power can reduce fuel consumption by 50%, pure electric vehicles + conventional power cars can reduce fuel consumption by 75%, and plug-in hybrid vehicles can reduce fuel consumption by 74%. Therefore, the energy-saving effect of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles is basically the same, and 75% of pure electric vehicles still need more than two vehicles to achieve.

The cruising range of Toyota's plug-in hybrid electric vehicle in pure EV mode is relatively short, only about 20 kilometers, mainly because more than half of Japanese users have daily driving mileage below 20 kilometers, if most users have a daily mileage of 30 kilometers. , adding some batteries is not a difficult thing