One of Toyota's most senior global executives has outlined big changes coming to the brand's most popular hybrid vehicles, and laid out a timeframe of exactly when to expect them.
While conceding the brand's current hybrid technology is about as efficient as it can get using current technology – suggesting gains of just one, two or three per cent are possible – Toyota Europe Vice President of R&D, Gerald Killmann, says big changes are coming.
While most brands appear to be readying solid-state battery technology for their electric vehicles, Toyota says the tech will arrive within the next four years, and will launch in its hybrid range before anything else.
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The new battery tech will allow for much more effective regenerative braking, deliver a lighter, more powerful hybrid system, and allow for big gains in fuel efficiency and emissions. That, combined with a switch from silicon semiconductors to silicon carbide, will allow for more power while using less fuel.
"One of the key questions is how can we get as much energy as possible into the battery. In a hybrid we have a small battery for weight and cost and affordability reasons, but that means the amount of energy that can go in is limited, especially at certain times such as braking" Mr Killmann told US outlet Automotive News.
"It’s essential that the power electronics can cope with this amount of energy and that we can feed it into the battery; that means absorption of energy and speed are essential. Here, solid-state batteries will offer an opportunity.
"They won’t be on all of our cars tomorrow – we will bring them by the end of the decade, and my personal assumption is for exactly that reason solid state will first be on a hybrid, then in a BEV."
The Toyota executive went on to clarify the timeframe, suggesting solid state batteries are around four years away from production. But drivers won't have to wait that long for new tech, with the brand's Performance Battery and lithium iron phosphate technology coming to an EV near you, both of which should launch by 2027.
First announced in 2023, the Performance Battery won't just increase range, in fact, it could double it, but will also reduce cost, with Toyota forecasting the new tech will be 20 per cent cheaper than its current batteries.
The lithium iron phosphate batteries are intended to reduce costs by as much as 40 per cent, while increasing range estimates by 20 per cent.
"The performance battery will come in roughly two years, with an optimised cell technology that will allow faster charging and, through its layout and the advantages I mentioned before like aerodynamics, will offer a higher range for a given capacity. LFP will appear in a similar time range as the performance battery," Mr Killman says.
"Solid state will appear about two years later, but still in this decade, however, in small quantities to control the parameters for production — having the right quality and not having critical cracks between anode and electrolyte and electrolyte and cathode."
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