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At the Detroit Auto Show earlier this year, Toyota announced that they will produce a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) by 2010.  The vehicles will be available first to commercial fleets such as government agencies and corporations.  This move pits Toyota in a direct race with GM, who hope to release the Chevy Volt around the same time.  The competition in this field will no doubt benefit the consumers as well as the auto industry. 

I can only imagine what GM is thinking.  Even if they beat Toyota in a release date, Toyota still has the advantage of being the current hybrid king, and the massive success that is the Prius will give consumers confidence in their vehicle.  I think there will be plenty of market share for both companies if they both deliver the goods, but I don’t know if either would be content with a tie.  GM would probably love nothing better than to at least temporarily knock Toyota off their high horse.  Whether Toyota is only counteracting GM’s move is beside the point.  There is now real competition. 

Toyota said that they will be studying consumer demand for a car that must be plugged in and powered off the grid.  Like I’ve said before, with rising gas prices and tighter demand for world oil supplies, I don’t think it will bother consumers too much.  With continued growth in wind, solar, and geothermal energy, as well as cleaner coal burning technology, plug-ins should be much greener than traditional hybrids.  It will be extremely interesting to watch this play out. 

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 9th, 2008 at 7:16 pm and is filed under Alternatives, Cars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.