RE: Toyota To Create Electric Supercar
RE: Toyota To Create Electric Supercar
Tuesday 20th July 2010

Toyota To Create Electric Supercar

Japanese giant goes electric with help from Tesla


Electric supercar will take cues from LFA
Electric supercar will take cues from LFA
Toyota is set to join the electric supercar craze with a 500hp rival to the Mercedes SLS AMG E-cell and Audi e-tron – and part of the technical help could come from electric sports car specialists Tesla.

US car mag Motor Trend reports that plans are underway at Toyota to develop a 500hp, four-motor (two on each axle) electric supercar that can sprint to 60mph in around 4.0secs. Toyota is said to be aiming for a 2015 launch for the car.

Tesla, which has recently inked a £33 million deal with Toyota to co-develop electric propulsion tech, is likely to lend some of its fast electric car know-how to the project. Quite what form that will take is unknown, but Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda has apparently already gone for a spin in the Tesla Roadster after a dinner with Tesla boss Elon Musk.

Expect the electric supercar to take plenty of design cues from the Lexus LFA supercar project, as well as much of its aerodynamic trickery. The automated composite manufacturing techniques pioneered on the largely carbon fibre LFA are also likely to find their way on to any future electric sports car.

Author
Discussion

A Scotsman

Original Poster:

1,001 posts

229 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all
Why?

FlossyThePig

4,143 posts

273 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all
A Scotsman said:
Why?
Why not?

thinfourth2

32,414 posts

234 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all
Many many years ago someone invented a strange form of transport that was terrible compared the commonest form of transport.

Its was slow, expensive, unreliable, uncomfortable, hard to refuel, hard to operate, had a terrible range and could only operate of the very best of roads

And they called this strange thing a car

And upon seeing this a very sensible person said

A Scotsman said:
Why?

Rusty-C

291 posts

205 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all
thinfourth2 said:
Many many years ago someone invented a strange form of transport that was terrible compared the commonest form of transport.

Its was slow, expensive, unreliable, uncomfortable, hard to refuel, hard to operate, had a terrible range and could only operate of the very best of roads

And they called this strange thing a car

And upon seeing this a very sensible person said

A Scotsman said:
Why?
It may have been all of the above, but at least it would of made an interesting noise (or just plain noise). I've yet to meet an electric car that does either, other than artificially.

ctallchris

1,266 posts

209 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all
A Scotsman said:
Why?
travel somewhere on a diesil train. then change onto an electric train.

Then tell me which one was smoother, Which one was faster, Which one smelt of diesil.

why because the drivetrain is cheaper and better in just about every imaginable way.

the only question is how to get the electricity to the motors. This would however be a How question.

Chris_w666

22,655 posts

229 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all
A Scotsman said:
Why?
Because Toyota desperately need a Halo product that has its own unique place in the worldwide market place and electronic supercars is one of the emptiest market segments available.

Mark Wibble

211 posts

254 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all
Yeah, this is a good thing. With all the competition between manufacturers to out-perform each other's e-supercar, technology moves along and becomes more affordable, and there's a much greater chance that we'll start seeing some genuinely decent hybrid or pure electric daily-drive cars.

Besides, petrol doing what it's doing it'll happen one day whether we like it or not.

A Scotsman

Original Poster:

1,001 posts

229 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all
The cost of installing a country wide charging infrastructure is massive. The additional generation capacity required is significant. The battery life issue means range is still an issue compared with liquid fuel and the recharge times are still too slow.

That now withstanding there is a case for the use of EVs for local commuting but EV Supercars? Nah sorry. It just does not compute. The technology may be interesting but the practicality issue is too important to ignore.


Mr Gear

9,416 posts

220 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all
A Scotsman said:
The cost of installing a country wide charging infrastructure is massive. The additional generation capacity required is significant. The battery life issue means range is still an issue compared with liquid fuel and the recharge times are still too slow.

That now withstanding there is a case for the use of EVs for local commuting but EV Supercars? Nah sorry. It just does not compute. The technology may be interesting but the practicality issue is too important to ignore.
This has all been covered a million times on PHs. None of it is insurmountable. We put a man on the moon for goodness sake.


Paul 8v

730 posts

210 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all
The main thing about the LFA is the sound and with an electric motor it would lose this, it looked quite normal next to all the other supercars in the Sunday Times area at Goodwood untill it started up, then it was a different matter biggrin.

the Fantom

113 posts

211 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all
This can only be a good thing.

A Scotsman

Original Poster:

1,001 posts

229 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all

[quote]
This has all been covered a million times on PHs. None of it is insurmountable. We put a man on the moon for goodness sake.

[/quote]

Errr .... No. "We" didn't put a man on the moon the American taxpayer did. Are you suggesting we should pay for things like a charging infrastructure through extra taxation?

Anyway putting a man on the moon was relatively simple compared with improving battery technologies to make their capacity and charge time compatable with liquid fuels.


Chris_w666

22,655 posts

229 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all
A Scotsman said:
mrgear said:
This has all been covered a million times on PHs. None of it is insurmountable. We put a man on the moon for goodness sake.
Errr .... No. "We" didn't put a man on the moon the American taxpayer did. Are you suggesting we should pay for things like a charging infrastructure through extra taxation?

Anyway putting a man on the moon was relatively simple compared with improving battery technologies to make their capacity and charge time compatable with liquid fuels.
So what you are saying is that because the future is going to be expensive and hard we should just give up and let the natural resources run out with no contingency plans?

ctallchris

1,266 posts

209 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all
A Scotsman said:
[quote]
This has all been covered a million times on PHs. None of it is insurmountable. We put a man on the moon for goodness sake.
Errr .... No. "We" didn't put a man on the moon the American taxpayer did. Are you suggesting we should pay for things like a charging infrastructure through extra taxation?

Anyway putting a man on the moon was relatively simple compared with improving battery technologies to make their capacity and charge time compatable with liquid fuels.
overnight the generating and national grid has enough excess capacity to charge 5-10 million electric cars.

We have the infrastructure for the next 5-10 years of ev car sales at least what we do not have is the fast charging infrastructure but given that will only need to be implimented at motorway service stations it's not as challenging as it may seem.

the charge time is immaterial. How often do you drive more than 200 miles a day? If your answer is frequently then leave the conversation the cars are not for you. otherwise the technology exists. charging times don't matter because as long as they charge within 8 hours they will be finished by the time you wake up.

moon done, Batteries done. electric rail on motorways? give it time.

Mr Gear

9,416 posts

220 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all
ctallchris said:
moon done, Batteries done. electric rail on motorways? give it time.
I have an electric toothbrush that charges without touching the base. Yes, wireless electricity! It's not magic, it's quite easy. There's no reason why we couldn't have a strip that runs down a lane on the motorway that as long as your two wheels are either side of that line, you'd be able to charge your car as you drive. Like Scalextric, but without a contacting set of "braids".

The hard part (building the actual motorway) has already been done.

Paul 8v

730 posts

210 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all
Mr Gear said:
ctallchris said:
moon done, Batteries done. electric rail on motorways? give it time.
I have an electric toothbrush that charges without touching the base. Yes, wireless electricity! It's not magic, it's quite easy. There's no reason why we couldn't have a strip that runs down a lane on the motorway that as long as your two wheels are either side of that line, you'd be able to charge your car as you drive. Like Scalextric, but without a contacting set of "braids".

The hard part (building the actual motorway) has already been done.
those scaletrix braids are a pain in the ass, glad it won't have them...

Crow555

1,037 posts

224 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all
Mr Gear said:
A Scotsman said:
The cost of installing a country wide charging infrastructure is massive. The additional generation capacity required is significant. The battery life issue means range is still an issue compared with liquid fuel and the recharge times are still too slow.

That now withstanding there is a case for the use of EVs for local commuting but EV Supercars? Nah sorry. It just does not compute. The technology may be interesting but the practicality issue is too important to ignore.
This has all been covered a million times on PHs. None of it is insurmountable. We put a man on the moon for goodness sake.
Precisely. If we all had A Scotsman's attitude we'd still be living in caves fighting over the last sabretooth leg. The likes of the Tesla have shown that it is possible to have an electric sports car. I'd be more worried if we were forced to use public transport and the personal car was banned.

WorAl

10,877 posts

218 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all
A Scotsman said:
mrgear said:
This has all been covered a million times on PHs. None of it is insurmountable. We put a man on the moon for goodness sake.
Errr .... No. "We" didn't put a man on the moon the American taxpayer did. Are you suggesting we should pay for things like a charging infrastructure through extra taxation?

Anyway putting a man on the moon was relatively simple compared with improving battery technologies to make their capacity and charge time compatable with liquid fuels.
So what do you suggest we do? Once the oil dries up we should just stop using cars?

I do realise that there is millions and millions of tonnes of oil left in the ground, probably enough to last a few more generations, but, the harder it becomes to find/produce the more expensive it gets, up to a point where it isn't cost effective anymore and this will happen sooner than you think.

I know one thing, if electric cars finally become a viable alternative (which I'm sure they will using hydrogen) I'd rather have a 500bhp car with no engine noise than not have a car at all.

How about you?

WorAl

10,877 posts

218 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all
TBH I think it's a silly idea having cars that charge up, it's not convenient enough.
I think they need to go down Hondas rout and figure out how to up the production of hydrogen and the fuel cells.

geoffracing

617 posts

205 months

Tuesday 20th July 2010
quotequote all
Rusty-C said:
thinfourth2 said:
Many many years ago someone invented a strange form of transport that was terrible compared the commonest form of transport.

Its was slow, expensive, unreliable, uncomfortable, hard to refuel, hard to operate, had a terrible range and could only operate of the very best of roads

And they called this strange thing a car

And upon seeing this a very sensible person said

A Scotsman said:
Why?
It may have been all of the above, but at least it would of made an interesting noise (or just plain noise). I've yet to meet an electric car that does either, other than artificially.
And silent electric cars are DANGEROUS.
Yes, in a supermaket car park, I got out of my car, opened the boot, closed it, and as I turned back... was knocked by a Toyota Prius.
I had a long chat with the driver (who found that amusing), but I just hate those cars.
Not only are they silent, but ugly ugly ugly !