Saturday, January 10, 2009

Toyota: moving backward

Toyota will be showing a battery electric car - the 50 miles range FT-EV - in Detroit. But before you get too excited, Irv Miller, Group Vice President - Environmental and External Affairs, has some words of caution in his blog.
"It’s important to note that at this point the FT-EV remains strictly a concept."
Lest we forget, ten years ago Toyota produced the 100+ miles range RAV4 EV. And most of them are still on the road. For the record, mine currently has 65,000 miles on the original battery pack and still gets over 100 miles per charge.

The tragedy is that Toyota could put plug-in cars in showrooms today, but they refuse to be first. Rest assured, they won't be last.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes indeed! No major car maker will jump the gun in which the market isn't forcing them to build an EV.(They have to be pushed to bankruptcy if the market doesn't due them in) But sooner or later they will be forced to. And consumers, new EVs, and emerging market will make them make an EV in a VERY short time.

Thank you for your blog Marc Gellar.

John1

Anonymous said...

I am insulted by the recent electric car offerings by Toyota.
The paradigm shift has not yet occurred. Those that want electric cars must demand them and tell the manufacturers we are not fooled by your delay. The technology exists for us to save our plannet with electric drive train vehicles - if we can just get over the short term greed impulse.

Wow Gold said...

WOW GOLD, nice blog. its worth reading. I liked it very much

B and W Hitch said...

Well, I guess all we can do is wait that they will release the car. We definitely need more plug-in cars on the road!

Anonymous said...

I hope by now the FT-EV has been released and no longer just a concept. Toyotas are not my favorite because they last for long and i need something that will end up quickly and i get bored with. But that's a good thing; its called quality. Good work by them.