Toyota to show its 1st PHV Prius in Frankfurt

• Source: Global Times
• [16:49 September 10 2009]
• Comments

Toyota Motor Corp., the world's biggest seller of autos powered by a combination of gasoline and electricity, said it will display its first hybrid car that can be recharged at a household outlet in Frankfurt next week.

The 2010 Prius plug-in hybrid vehicle, or PHV, will be shown at the Frankfurt Motor Show, which opens to the press September 14, the company said in a statement today. Toyota plans to deliver 500 of the cars to global test fleets starting this year, including 150 in the US.

Unlike a standard Prius, which uses a nickel metal hydride battery recharged from braking and deceleration to improve fuel economy, the plug-in Prius travels 12 miles (19 kilometers) solely on electricity from a lithium-ion pack. When the battery's initial charge is depleted, the PHV functions like a normal hybrid.

Toyota joins General Motors Co. and Nissan Motor Co. in readying cars with lithium batteries, touted as lighter and more powerful than those in most hybrids sold for the past decade. The Toyota City, Japan-based company has been slower than Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. to develop electric vehicles, citing the high costs and complexity of battery production and the limited range of battery cars relative to gasoline models.

"Although we like to be first to market with these technologies, it's more important that we are best to market," Irv Miller, Toyota's US group vice president for environmental and public affairs, said in the statement.

(Bloomberg)