TESLA IS AGREAT SUCCESS WHERE ALMOST EVERY OTHER NEW ENTRANT HAS FAILED.TESLA HAS TO MOVE QUICKLY TO LOW COST ELECTRIC CAR MAY BE MANUFACTURED IN EUROPE, INDIA AND CHINA TO ENABLE THE WORLD TO GET RID OF POLLUTION,OIL, TERRORISM AND POVERTY. WORLD CAN SURVIVE ONLY IN THIS WAY.

So the 4th generation Prius will get about 55mpg (US).
Good, but not exactly earth shattering.
If they could reduce the price as well, it would probably have a bigger impact.
No mention of supercaps for the standard Prius.

On the PHEV thing, it strikes me that what you want is a modular battery so people can decide for themselves how much they want to pay and how much trunk space they want to sacrifice for better E miles or mpg.

The problem is the trunk space - people will happily pay more for better numbers (as you can see with ICE engine size in BMW and Mercedes cars.) Let them slide the price to what they want to pay for the car.

However, if this is also at the cost of trunk space, and suddenly you can't put the golf clubs in the car, then you have a problem.

Nonetheless, I think the small battery PHEV is the way to go (until batteries get really cheap/high capacity).

Allowing for charging losses the 100 mile rated Toyota SUV EV with a 40kwh battery pack gets something like 450wh/mile.

At the typical efficiency of the US grid, around 33%,
the total consumption including generation and transmission losses is around 1,350Wh/mile

The FCEV version gets 68mpge (1kg of hydrogen)
Allowing for reforming and compression losses of around a third and taking 1kg of hydrogen at 33kwh, the FCEV uses around 750Wh/mile.

The FCEV also has more space and a lot more range.

Peter,

The Prius's main markets (California and Japan) both effectively outlaw cheap passenger car diesels for public health reasons, so the comparison isn't all that enlightening. If you live somewhere where smog and particulates aren't a big concern, diesel can be a valid option.

It's good to see that Toyota is working on improving handling. The current Prius can be scary at highway speed. That's nothing to do with the hybrid tech, the Corolla is just as bad.

I believe that HEV and PHEV should not share the same engine and drive train. The PHEV should have 1/2 the engine of the HEV version, having 2 cylinders instead of 4 cylinders. This will allow savings in cost, weight, and internal space. The shorter engine in the front will yield room for another battery pack, in order increase trunk space in the rear.

Additionally, in the PHEV version, Toyota's HSD architecture is no longer necessary, nor desirable. Honda Accord PHEV's 2-motor electric CVT is simpler and more functional in the PHEV mode. However, when converting the Honda Accord Hybrid to the PHEV version, the engine, the generator and the motor can all be downsized. The reason for this is that with a smaller engine, there is no need for a large generator. Then, one may ask, why also down size the motor? Answer: the motor can be downsized if in the electric-only mode, the generator can also provide power. In order to do that, another clutch is needed between the engine and the generator. Thus, the engine is declutched, and the generator now can contribute power to the drive train. Thus, instead of having a 124 kW motor, and then another 100kW generator in the HEV vehicle, the PHEV version will only need a 60 kW generator/motor and a 84 kW motor. The advantages of engine and motor/generator downsizing are obviously weight, cost, and space saving in order to make up for the larger battery of the PHEV.

Thus, a dedicated PHEV design from a clean-sheet approach needs not much cost more, nor weight a lot more, nor having less trunk space than a HEV, yet will offer higher saving in fuel cost and more energy independence. This will open for much higher penetration of PHEV than is the case right now. In the future, we may see PHEV's to be predominant over HEV's with battery prices going down and performance going up. BEV's are there to satisfy BEV purists or to satisfy the anti-ICE faction group, but PHEV's are actually more practical, having dual power plants in one vehicle.

Of course, FCV's will have their own niche, which will grow over time. Do not discount FCV's.

@Davemart,
Actually people throw around that 33% number as "the US grid". But that's really just the average of the coal plants which is now only 37% of US electric generation.

The weighted average for the entire US Grid is actually 39% efficient and getting higher because NG is 42% efficient and replacing coal. Hydro is MUCH more efficient than any of them but is pretty much capped at about 6-7% of the grid here in the US but still helps bring the average efficiency up.

You can do the math by looking at this link and going to the excel spreadsheet on line 1.1:
http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/index.cfm

And the efficiency for each source can be found here:
http://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_08_01.html
Just divide 3,412 by each of the numbers in that second link and you get efficiency for each source over the last 10 years.

DaveD:
I gave grid efficiency, not production efficiency.
The US grid loses a pretty horrid 7% of its power in transmission.
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=105&t=3

I have done the exercise of looking at each power source in the past, but am not going to repeat it as they bounce around, although it takes some time for the averaged figures over a few years to alter much due to momentum.

At the moment NG prices have risen somewhat, so more coal is being burnt, which has a different efficiency to NG.

NG can be burnt very efficiently, but is often used and peaking power not too efficiently as that costs more, and increasing wind and solar mean that such sub optimal use is increasing.

Nuclear also acts as a stabilising influence, as the efficiency is something like 32% from memory as it operates at a lower temperature than coal or gas turbines, and since that comes out to around 25% after transmission losses and makes up around 18% of electricity it keeps the overall efficiency low, although in nuclear's case it doesn't much matter as the fuel is so cheap and carbon emissions so low.

So I am comfortable in my ~33% figure at the wall socket.
There is also a surprisingly high 20% loss in charging the batteries in the Leaf, for instance, according to the Leaf owner's forum.

@Davemart,

Granted, I wasn't counting "to the socket". But you were also using a fairly horrid example in that RAV4 SUV in efficiency. The Model S is ~27% more efficient and the newer models coming on the market like those two VW EVs announced yesterday are twice as efficient as the Model S.

@DavidD:
I am using the Toyota because it is a SUV by the same manufacturer.
As an SUV, of course it is inefficient energetically.

That seems to me to be the appropriate metric for comparison, just as the efficiency of the grid needs to be measured at the socket.

Roger Pharm,

MPGe is very confusing therefore I alwayas been against it. I am talking about thermal efficiency of fuel. In case you combust 34 kW of coal with 33 % efficiency according Devenmart you can get 11,5 kWh and on that ammount of electricity you could go 50 miles with BEV. BEV efficiency is 75% therefore overall coal to wheels thermal efficiency is 24%. In case coal to wheels thermal efficiency would be 40% I would be able traveling arround 80 miles.
The same with gasoline. With 34 kW gasoline energy with 40% thermal efficiency I must go the same 80 miles. Thats phisics and full stop.

P.S.
For me as utility guy is alway strange to hear "superb" ICE thermal efficiencies. Very often they exceeding carefuly maintained steadyly operated supper efficien power plant's outputs.

Peter,

Small diesels are "effectively" outlawed outlawed in California because the cost of emissions equipment and of diesel fuel makes them more expensive to purchase, maintain and run than hybrids. Bigger diesels in pickups and German luxury cars do better, but those markets are not as price-sensitive.

The only small diesels sold in CA are the Golf/Jetta and now the Cruze. If you go to fueleconomy.gov, you will see that either of these will run you 70% extra in fuel costs compared to a less expensive Prius. The Cruze diesel actually costs 10% more to run than the cheaper Cruze Eco.

That's why I wrote that small diesels are effectively outlawed at the price-sensitive end of the market. There are lots of diesels sold in heavy trucks and (German) luxury cars.