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FUJI SPEEDWAY, Oyama, Japan: On this speedway on the
foothills of majestic Mount Fuji, a group of Filipino journalists
tested in less than an hour up to eight hybrid cars made by Toyota
Motor Corp., majority owner since 2000 of this 44-year-old race
track. The speedway was once considered dangerous because of a sharp
bank turn that caused major accidents and deaths. After an absence
of 40 years, Fuji hosted the Japanese Grand Prix this year which was
won by England’s Lewis Hamilton with a McLaren Mercedes.
Testing the hybrids on a
dangerous one-kilometer circuit has more than symbolism for Toyota.
The Japanese auto giant has motorsports ambitions. At the same time,
it wants to prove that its hybrid cars are both sporty and safe
aside of course from being environment friendly and yes,
luxurious.
It was an unusually clear and
sunny day and the Toyota people said that meant we were lucky. We
had a clear view of Japan’s famous 3,776-meter-high Fuji mountain
peak in all its splendor. The volcano is a sleeping giant and could
erupt any time. (It erupted in 1707; remember our own Pinatubo was
dormant for 400 years).
What Toyota is doing presently
could be considered earth-shaking in many ways. “Gasoline and
diesel will remain the mainstream automobile fuels for decades to
come,” predicts Yutaka Matsumoto, project general manager of
TMC’s R and D Management Division. “Alternative fuels pose many
challenges,” he notes. These include biofuels, gaseous fuels like
CNG and LPG, and hydrogen. But not electricity.
Toyota uses three parameters in
measuring the viability of an automotive fuel, what it calls
“sustainable mobility”—one, energy density which basically
means how far you can go using it; two, well-to-wheel emissions
which means how much pollution it causes; and three, resources,
which means easy availability—at the volume, time and price you
want to pay for it.
Being liquid and capable of being
stored in small tank, diesel, petrol and ethanol are tops as auto
fuels. Hydrogen and CNG are gases and will require huge tanks in a
car. But they are cleaner and less polluting than petrol and diesel.
Biofuel such as ethanol (from sugarcane, corn, grass and wood) seems
best but supply is a problem. “Bioethanol is suited to
low-concentration blends for the time being,” says Toyota’s
Matsumoto.
Ordinary car engines waste energy
during braking, at stoplights and whenever you cannot run the engine
at optimum speed. By reducing energy wastage and applying energy
more efficiently, a hybrid system can simultaneously double fuel
economy, slash emissions, provide quiet operation, and deliver
“fun to drive” performance, says Toyota.
Toyota first put its hybrid
engine in a bus in 1997 and in the Prius also in 1997. It equipped
an Estima van and a Crown sedan with a hybrid engine in 2001 and an
SUV in 2002. But it was not until September 2003 when Toyota put
more sportiness and styling into the Prius Hybrid did sales really
take off. The onboard computer was also redesigned so that it could
readily switch between the electric motor (for accelerating) and the
gas engine (for cruising speeds) to produce better mileage and for
the car to perform like, well, a car. The Prius became the status
symbol for the celebrity green-minded.
It took three years, from 1998 to
2000 for Prius Hybrid to reach its first 50,000 units in sales and
another two years 2001 and 2002, to get to the 100,000th mark.
After the September 2003 redesign
of the Prius Hybrid, coupled with the launching of the Dyna Hybrid
and Toyoace Hybrid in Japan in November 2003, and the Harrier Hybrid
(RX 400h) and Kluger (Highlander) Hybrid in March 2005, sales grew
tenfold in just 25 months to 500,000. The world’s first
mass-produced hybrid car, Prius can run 35.5kms per liter of
gasoline, twice that of a Corolla 1.5.
In another 21 months up to May
31, 2007, Toyota had sped to the one-millionth mark. Since then, the
company has been selling 40,000 hybrids a month. Production is being
ramped up with hybrid lines in Toyota’s Tsutsumi, Sichuan and
Kentucky plants. Camry and Lexus were fitted with hybrid engines.
Toyota has sold cumulatively
since 1997 over a million hybrids. “We are making money,”
enthuses Matsumoto who declines to give the development cost for
hybrids.
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