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Toyota Electric Car May Have Half the Range of GM's (Update4)

By Jeff Green and Alan Ohnsman

Chevrolet Volt E-flex Fuel Cell car Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp.'s plug-in electric car may have less than half the range of a competing vehicle planned by General Motors Corp., people with knowledge of both companies' development programs said.

GM wants its Chevrolet Volt to travel at least 40 miles after being charged at a normal household outlet, while the Toyota model may go no more than 20 miles on a single charge, said the people, who asked not to be identified because details of the plans are still secret.

Beating Toyota in new technology like rechargeable vehicles is part of Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner's plan to show GM can compete with the Japanese automaker. Toyota is poised to surpass GM as the largest automaker this year, helped by fuel- efficient cars such as the Prius, the world's top-selling hybrid.

``The latest arms race is being driven by GM,'' said Jack Nerad, an analyst at Irvine, California-based Kelley Blue Book and author of ``The Complete Idiot's Guide to Hybrid & Alternative Fuel Vehicles.'' ``They one-upped everyone with the Volt, and they are saying they aren't going to be out-greened by anyone anymore.''

The market for cars less reliant on gasoline is growing as automakers face stricter exhaust and carbon pollution rules from governments around the world. The companies also are under pressure to boost fuel economy amid U.S. gasoline prices that reached a record $3.22 a gallon in May.

Breakthrough Potential

Prius shows the potential for breakthrough technology. Toyota sold 5,562 of the cars in 2000. Sales tripled the following year, and totaled 110,565 units this year through July. That makes the Prius the 12th most popular vehicle in the U.S., according to Autodata Corp., a Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, company that monitors the industry.

Prius helped the Toyota City, Japan-based automaker earn a record $14 billion in its last fiscal year. GM lost $1.98 billion in 2006. GM shares have fallen 23 percent the last five years while Toyota's have more than doubled.

GM shares fell $1.35, or 4 percent, to $32.04 at 4:03 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They've gained 4.3 percent this year. American depositary receipts of Toyota rose 31 cents to $118.90. They have fallen 11 percent this year.

Toyota said on July 25 it will road-test experimental plug- in Prius cars this year in the U.S. and Japan. The cars go about eight miles on a charge, Toyota Executive Vice President Masatami Takimoto said at a press conference in Tokyo.

A plug-in Prius for the consumer market would probably go farther, said Jaycie Chitwood, a U.S. senior strategic planner with Toyota's advanced vehicle group in Torrance, California. She declined to provide Toyota's target range.

Toyota believes producing an electric car with a range of 40 miles or more can't be done at a cost that would make the vehicle affordable for most consumers, she said, citing the need for advanced batteries and special recharging equipment. ``We're not going that route because of those obstacles,'' she said.

A plug-in Prius probably would have an electricity-only range of 20 miles or less, and maybe as little as 10 miles, according to a person with direct knowledge of Toyota's plans who didn't want to be identified.

Toyota working with University of California on plug-in hybrids 

Blog Every Car I Drive: Plug-in hybrid race gets early kick

In a sign that it's moving closer to announcing a production date for a high-mileage plug-in hybrid, Toyota said this morning that it soon will deliver prototype versions to two California universities for research.

The prototypes, based on the current generation of the gas-electric Prius hybrid but with bigger battery packs, will go to UC-Berkeley's Institute of Transportation and UC-Irvine's Advanced Power and Energy Program.

"I think it's significant because this is the first automaker plug-in hybrid" to be studied, said Susan Shaheen, a Berkeley researcher. "It's not a conversion."

Toyota has been the leading proponent of hybrid technology - Toyota vehicles accounted for 80 percent of U.S. hybrid sales in May - where a battery pack and electric motors combine with a gasoline engine to increase fuel economy. A plug-in hybrid vehicle (PHEV) is the next step, as it relies more heavily on electricity and promises even higher mileage.

In Berkeley, Shaheen is one of two researchers who will use the vehicle, plus a $750,000 grant from the California Air Resources Board and the state's Energy Commission, to study plug-in hybrids.

"My role really is to look at how do users respond to this new technology," said Shaheen, a research director at the Institute of Transportation. "How do they feel about vehicle range, and the whole recharging aspect."

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Toyota Revs Longo But Galpin Skidding

AUTOS: Domestic dealerships consolidate as imports drive sales.

By RICHARD CLOUGH Los Angeles Business Journal Staff

Camry, Corolla, Prius.

They are not only three of the five best-selling cars in Los Angeles, but also a huge reason why Longo Toyota in El Monte has been the nation’s largest automobile dealership for more than a decade.

But as the massive 64-acre dealership basks in the prosperity of Toyota Motor Corp., many of its competitors are not faring so well.

Galpin Ford, the North Hills dealer that had long held the No. 2 ranking on the list of L.A.’s top auto dealerships, slipped into the third spot for the first time in more than 10 years. Its new car sales dropped 17 percent over the last year. Longo, meanwhile, saw its sales climb 6 percent in that same period.

Galpin remains the country’s largest Ford dealership, but it is struggling as Ford Motor Co. and its Detroit contemporaries face a drought brought on by sagging sales and a glut of dealerships.

“The domestic dealers are in for a long hard slog,” said Mark Rikess, chief executive of Burbank-based Rikess Group, an auto dealership consultant. “There’s just too many of them and not enough customers coming in the door.”

Ford recently announced plans to eliminate about 200 of its 4,200 U.S. dealerships this year and hundreds more over the next few years.

General Motors Corp. has about 7,000 dealerships and Chrysler, which is owned by Cerberus Capital Management LP, has about 3,700 – and both companies are looking to cut back. Toyota, meanwhile, has just 1,400 dealers across the country.

“There’s a consolidation taking place,” Rikess said. “When you’ve got so many dealerships, then none of them are making any money.”

But closing dealerships is not easy. The law prevents car companies from shutting dealers down, leaving the automakers with two primary options: buying out dealerships – which can be costly – or waiting for the dealership to close on its own.

A relic of the days when domestic vehicles outsold foreign brands three or four to one, the abundance of domestic dealerships has exacerbated the troubles for American automakers as domestic brands have lost their luster over the past few decades. And today, the dealers are paying the price with what had been their core demographic: drivers between the ages of 25 and 40.

“They’ve really lost that generation,” Rikess said. The baby boomers that fueled the growth of Detroit’s automakers have moved on to luxury brands, he said, while younger consumers are increasingly opting for foreign rides.

In fact, only four of L.A.’s top 25 auto dealerships sell domestic cars.

And though Galpin remains a leading Ford dealer, its numbers have fallen dramatically. In the past five years, new car sales dropped a whopping 34 percent to 7,080 units, while its revenue decreased 19 percent to $324 million.

To try to stop the bleeding, Galpin started selling Honda cars last year in the hopes that the popular Japanese brand will boost sales.

Galpin did not return repeated calls for comment.

Rise of Toyota

Longo President Tom Rudnai said he owes his company’s growth largely to the success of the entire brand.

“I don’t know if it’s so much Longo as it is Toyota,” he said. “We’re very confident in Toyota. The product has been phenomenal.”

The automaker outpaced all other companies to start the year, becoming the world’s top-selling car brand. With 2.35 million vehicles sold worldwide in the first three months of 2007, Toyota for the first time beat General Motors for an entire quarter.

Toyota still trails Ford and General Motors in U.S. sales, but the foreign brand is gaining on its domestic rivals. With 13.4 percent of the U.S. market share, Toyota recently surpassed Chrysler for the No. 3 spot and has its sights set on No. 2 Ford, which owns 16.4 percent of the market.

And as Toyota has risen, so too has Longo. In the past five years, Longo’s new vehicle sales have climbed 30 percent to 25,207 cars, and its annual revenue jumped 33 percent to $728 million.

The company has benefited not only from a relative decline in the appeal of domestic vehicles, but also in the rise of the so-called “green movement,” Rikess said. Low-emissions, high-mileage vehicles have gained in popularity recently, and Toyota’s Prius has been the most high-profile of hybrid vehicles.

With 10,029 sold, the Prius was the fifth most popular car in Los Angeles last year.

“They’ve been able to position themselves because of the Prius as the green automobile manufacturer,” Rikess said. “And more people than ever are trying to be green.”

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Toyota 2007 output to overshoot plan: reports

Toyota Motor Corp  plans to build 8.74 million vehicles in 2007, or 270,000 units more than its announced plan due to brisk sales overseas, the Mid-Japan Economist newspaper, partly owned by Toyota, reported.

Excluding units Daihatsu Motor Co (7262.T: Quote, Profile, Research) and Hino Motors Ltd (7205.T: Quote, Profile, Research), Japan's top automaker had said in late 2006 that it planned to build 4.27 million cars in Japan and 4.2 million overseas this year.

A revised plan now calls for domestic production of 4.25 million units and overseas output of 4.49 million units, with expanded production in the United States and Asia, the newspaper said on Monday, without citing its source.

Toyota declined to confirm the report.

In the first eight months of the year, Toyota built 2.73 million vehicles in Japan and 2.82 million vehicles abroad. The reported figures would mark the first time that Toyota would manufacture more cars abroad than in Japan on an annual basis.

Toyota is racing to add manufacturing capacity around the world, with new factories planned in Russia, Canada and elsewhere over the next few years.

Combined with Daihatsu and Hino, it is set to produce more vehicles this year than General Motors Corp (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research

Toyota Tries to Sell Priuses Where Tractors Are Sexy

Over the roar of engines that get as little as four miles per gallon, a woman with a microphone asked a crowd milling inside a Toyota exhibit at a Nascar race here, "Does anybody know how much we spend on imported gas?"

"Too much," said a man in a T-shirt that read, "She Thinks My Tractor is Sexy." Not exactly, but not too far off: $800 million a day. Some of the racing fans -- in shirts and hats bedecked with the sponsor logos ubiquitous on the Nascar circuit -- shook their heads in dismay or swore at the answer.

A traveling exhibit aims to move the Prius's popularity beyond the coasts. So it goes as Toyota Motor Corp. -- maker of the best-selling gas-electric hybrid car, the Prius -- campaigns to break out of the blue states and into the red with its green message.

With a 53-foot aqua-blue trailer filled with exhibits on energy consumption and fossil fuels, Toyota is making 150 stops at many venues where pickups, SUVs and cars sporting Detroit brands have reigned. Dubbed the "Highway to the Future" tour, it is making stops in places like Des Moines, Iowa; Livingston, Mont., and Chattanooga, Tenn.

"We've won over a certain group of people but we needed to talk to more and get the information out there," said Celeste Migliore, Toyota's national manager of advanced technology vehicles. "With this tour, we're reaching people that we've never reached before."

Propelled in part by gasoline prices hovering near $3 a gallon, sales of the Prius have surged 69% this year compared with a year ago. Toyota is on track to surpass its goal of selling 150,000 Priuses this year, about 50,000 more than it has sold in past years. The Prius is beating models like the Ford Fusion sedan in sales and is now Toyota's fourth best-selling model, after the Camry and Corolla sedans and the Tundra pickup.

Still, hybrid vehicles overall remain a niche product, mainly purchased by affluent consumers on the coasts. Hybrids of all kinds made up just 1.5% of all new vehicle sales in 2006, with the Washington, D.C., area, Oregon and California ranking in the top three for the highest percentage of hybrids sold among new cars, according to R.L. Polk & Co.

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

See the quiz Toyota gives visitors to its hybrid roadshow.In Indiana, where Toyota made a stop in July, hybrids made up about 1% of new car sales last year. Mississippi, Louisiana and Oklahoma ranked in the bottom three, with hybrids making up a maximum of 0.6% of new car sales, according to R.L. Polk.

"In the past, the Prius was mainly popular with the Hollywood crowd, but with people more concerned about gas prices, Toyota now has the chance to spread the word to others," said Michael Omotoso, senior manager of global powertrain forecasting for J.D. Power & Associates.

Toyota isn't the only car maker that's using the idea of a roving technology show. General Motors Corp. launched a tour this summer to promote ethanol in places outside the Midwestern Corn Belt, such as Miami, Atlanta, Houston and Chicago. Many GM vehicles can run on a blend of 85% ethanol -- produced by the fermentation of sugars in corn and other grain products -- and 15% gasoline. Most of this so-called E-85 is made and sold in the Midwest.

To bring the hybrids to the masses, Toyota decided to create a tour to educate consumers, many of whom still question whether the Prius needs to be plugged into an outlet. (No, but car makers, including Toyota and GM, are exploring so-called plug-in hybrids that can go farther on electric power only.) Toyota marketing executives they had to find a way of reaching skeptics in a more personal way than a 30-second TV ad. One result: The rolling hybrid display in the big blue trailer.

Outside the trailer at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Nascar fans who wandered behind the U.S. Army recruiting booth outside the track saw a Prius, Highlander SUV hybrid and a Camry hybrid on display. A Toyota representative invited attendees to check out the hybrid vehicles or step inside the trailer to learn more. At some venues, Toyota allows consumers to test drive the vehicles.

Two hours before the race began, Mac Recker of Cincinnati, who said his wife needed a new car, was checking out the Camry hybrid. His son had bought a Prius, but Mr. Recker said he was still wondering how they would hold up in the long run.

"Gas is a huge worry, so I'm starting to think about hybrids," said Mr. Recker, who owns a Ford Mustang, among other vehicles.

Inside, the Toyota trailer was packed. Visitors waited in line at various stations to learn about the world's finite resources, test their knowledge about alternative fuels or calculate their carbon footprint. The more stations visitors stopped at, the more points they earned, which determined the prize they got at the end.

Bill Coudriet and his wife, who both work for utility companies in Pittsburgh, became believers in hybrids after spending more than a half hour inside the trailer. He tried out the Prius driving simulator that showed how the gasoline engine remained off when he drove at 30 miles per hour, while his wife found out her individual carbon footprint totaled 45,000 pounds per year, which equaled the average of a two-person household.

"With gas at $2, hybrids didn't make sense to me," said Mr. Coudriet, who owns a Corvette, two Harley-Davidson motorcycles and other vehicles. "But gas keeps going up."

Not everyone who stopped by Toyota's hybrid booth was converted. Julian Cininni of Montreal spent several minutes checking out a map that showed Toyota's environmental efforts at its various locations around the world. Mr. Cininni, who was wearing a dog tag that he got from the nearby U.S. Army booth, was impressed with Toyota's green efforts, but said he would be looking to buy a Mercedes E-Class diesel.

"I have misgivings about hybrids, like the amount of energy it takes to produce one," said Mr. Cininni, who drives a BMW 5-series and works in the oil industry. (Some studies have shown that it takes more energy to produce a hybrid vehicle, particularly the electrical system, than a traditional gasoline-engine vehicle.) "I think we're better off with other technology, like diesels."

With four people in line behind him, Lyle Hankins of Kinmundy, Ill., was testing his knowledge of alternative fuels at one of the stations. Sporting a Budweiser T-shirt and a Nascar hat, he said it was a bit odd that Toyota was at a stock-car race promoting hybrids. And he said he favors diesels because that is what he uses in the ambulance he drives as an emergency medical technician.

Despite his concerns, Mr. Hankins managed to stop by enough stations to earn the top prize: a regenerative flashlight. The second prize was a tree planted in the national forest or park. Toyota aims to plant 50,000 trees to offset the emissions created from the tour itself. The last prize is a pencil made out of recycled newspaper, money or denim.

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