Our Beloved leader had a joint press conference in Japan this morning and announced that Toyota would start production of Hybrids at the Altona Plant sometime before 2010. The Govt would 'invest' 35 million in the tooling up for production and in R&D into clean vehicle technology. The Commonwealth and Victorian Govts have stated that they will change their fleets over to hybrids in 2010. That is about 6000 vehicles per year out of a proposed Australian production of 10000 per year at Altona.
The Green groups and the auto industry unions have supported the move for obvious symbolic, but not very well thought out reasons.
Very smart work on the part of Toyota, but it shows how the power of symbolism overcomes both logic and technology.
I have no argument with hydrids like Prius, Lexus, Honda or the Hino and Isuzu which use the battery regen principle as city and inner urban transport and delivery vehicles. They make good sense in that environment, but to stick all the eggs in that basket, particularly as a large percentage of motoring in Australia is highway and country road running is plain daft.
The problem with this whole decision is the lack of local input into future development by Ford, Holden and previously Mitsubishi. The dumb twits have let US and Japan head offices, and the local fixation with 'full size cars' with big engines push our motor industry down a dead end track. I think Holden Ford and Mitsu signed their own death warrants when the introduced their latest models without even a diesel option, let alone any form of energy recycling technology. Can anyone think of a reason (other than dumb stupidity) that there are not turbo deisel options for Commodore, Falcon, and in particular Territory?
The difficulty with Prius technology outside the constant stop start cycle in the city is that the car has to lug around up to 200kg of batteries which at constant cruise become just dead wieght, and in fact a fuel using handicap. Turbo diesel is much more efficient for that type of work. The Prius technology is at it's best in high traffic density patterns, just the section of transportation which is best handled by an efficent Public Transport system, while turbo deisel is much more efficient in transport patterns where high density Public Transport is not a cost effective proposition.
If Holden and Ford get their buts into gear right now and come up with some specialised technology to handle LCSG (Liquified Coalseam Gas) or LPG as the prime fuel, together with some KERS type technology wich gives braking energy recycling with out the fuel penalty of lugging batteries around they might have a hope. I would suggest that they have about 3 years to have it in production or Bye Bye Holden and Ford.
By the way LCSG in Queensland has claimed proven reserves enough to supply all of Australia's transport fuel needs for an estimated 100 years, and the LPG reseves off WA and in the Timor gap are even bigger. Both burn cleaner than petrol and would reduce the carbon footprint of private motoring.
Meanwhile, I hate to say it, but V8SC just took another major blow as the wrong image for the sport.
Topic: Eco-friendly/Green Road Cars News and Discussion (Read 2988 times)
