EV advocates have long
been puzzled by Toyota’s
public dismissal of pure
EVs - the company has long
insisted that hybrids are
superior, and diverted re-
sources to fuel cell vehicles.
However, Reuters reports that Toyota seems to be
accelerating its electrification plans, projecting that
electrified vehicles will account for half of global sales by
2025, five years ahead of previous forecasts.
Toyota says it aims to have at least 10 electrified mod-
els by 2020, covering vehicle categories from compacts to
medium-sized crossovers and sedans to SUVs and min-
ivans. The company released images showing six possi-
ble new models, although it didn’t indicate which ones
might be pure EVs and which hybrids. The company also
isn’t saying when, or whether, any of the new models will
make it to the US (other automakers have recently been
teasing new EVs aimed at the Chinese market).
The increasing pace of electrification is causing Toyota
to broaden its list of battery suppliers. Toyota is facing
higher-than-expected demand for batteries – perhaps a
20-fold increase by 2025.
“We consider ourselves as a maker of electric vehicle
batteries, going back to when we developed the battery
for the Prius, but there may be a gap between the amount
of batteries we can produce, and the amount of batteries
we may need,” Executive Vice President Shigeki Terashi
told journalists recently.
Toyota has been developing its own battery technology
for decades, and has also partnered with Panasonic to
develop prismatic cells. Now it plans to add two Chinese
battery suppliers to the mix: BYD, one of China’s biggest
EV makers, and Contemporary Amperex Technology
(CATL), which already sells batteries to Honda, Nissan,
BMW and Volvo.
As several other global auto execs have, Terashi
conceded that EVs are likely to be money-losers in the
medium term, as it will take years to generate the nec-
essary economies of scale. The key to profits in the BEV
business may lie in developing new mobility models such
as on-demand ride-sharing services, he said.Data collected by Nissan
indicates that a LEAF
battery should last as
long as 22 years, accord-
ing to Francisco Carran-
za, Managing Director of
Renault-Nissan Energy
Services. Nissan moni-
tors various parameters,
including charging
patterns and battery degradation, on the over 400,000
LEAFs it has sold in Europe since 2011.
Carranza did not discuss the issue of capacity loss,
nor did he say how long the batteries would be suitable
for use in a vehicle, but he did imply that Nissan sees
second-life batteries as a way to boost revenue, as elec-
trification is expected to cut into some of automakers’
traditional revenue streams.
“We are going to have to recover those batteries,”
Carranza told journalists at the recent Automotive News
Europe Congress. “Aftersales revenue will massively
suffer from electrification,” Carranza said.
Nissan has a number of second-life battery projects
underway. Last year a three-megawatt storage system
using the equivalent of 148 LEAF batteries went into
service at Amsterdam’s ArenA soccer stadium. Nissan
also offers solar panels and battery storage for homes (a
la Tesla) under the Nissan Energy Solar brand. “We are
stepping away from the garage and closer to the living
room,” Carranza said.
Nissan is also exploring ways to use EVs to balance
supply and demand on the electrical grid. The company
recently participated in a cross-brand V2G demonstra-
tion in Denmark. The LEAF is certified as an “energy
plant” in Germany, Denmark and the UK, allowing it to
be connected to the grid. “It’s working even better than
we anticipated, selling back to grid,” Carranza said. “The
more you dig, the more you find gold. The amount of
revenue and profit by using vehicles to provide services
to the grid is big.”
42
Nissan: LEAF batteries should
last 22 years
THE VEHICLES
Toyota accelerates its
electrification plans
Image courtesy of NissanImage courtesy of Toyota