Talk of Tacoma powertrain upgrade from head guy at Toyota US...

huh?

 

Or cadmium...

 

Curious about your statement regarding how dirty lithium 'mining' is , so how do they do it ?

 

I wonder why there is so much talk on mpgs and fuel economy. 2-4 here and there is minuscule imho and makes no significant difference on my pocket book. I average 19 mpgs, the only thing that would make even remotely excited about fuel efficiency is if it jumped up to 30+.

The difference between a 19mpg taco and a 30 mpg taco is about the cost of my monthly internet bill....

The only thing I can think of to make the Taco more competitive is indeed HP and efficiency. With the Ecoboost engine toyota has a lot of ground to make up.

 

Because fuel economy standards moving forward will require better numbers to reduce GHG emissions

 

But thats not what people talk about nor is the end consumer concerned about it.

 

I'm pretty sure Toyota's hybrid tech is completely incompatible with a manual transmission...

 

He means choices between land or air. It's all a moot point though. Most people (not us minority enthusiasts) don't want to drive anymore. Regardless of who is in power in whatever country, the citizens of earth want to get in a vehicle, sleep, read their phones or whatever and through no effort, arrive at their destination.
We are now in a transition phase between fully manual driving (no sensors, etc) and fully self driving vehicles. Once vehicles become fully autonomous it won't matter what powers them. I give it 15 years or so.
The majority of people want this. Sure, there will be speciality vehicles like trucks produced for several years after that but the vast majority will be self driving.

 

its mining, so regardless they aren't clean, and uses a bunch of heavy machinery that pollutes.
No different from mining any element really, but all these green people seem to think its a clean process.
The lithium mining isn't as much the issue as the process for making lithium batteries, and the process for recycling is just as dirty with different toxic chemicals.

Its just a shell game. one pollutes with green house gasses, the other pollutes with toxic chemicals that need to be disposed of.

 

i get your point

 

that's the very thing I was trying to get at.

So many are against petrol cars because they pollute the air, yet the alternative pollutes the ground.

 

Toyota already has Diesel-electric application: http://www.hino.com/hino-trucks-hino-195h.html

 

well look at the TRD Pro, that's a 40k+ truck with bolt-on parts and they can't make enough to sell them. I think if it's an option I would seriously consider it pricing being the big determinant.

 

I hope not, whatever Hybrids Honda was selling offered some Manuals.

 

There's a lot of good reasons why diesels will see the sunset except for specialized applications not the least of which is human health as well as ghg. A plug in hybrid Tacoma would be pretty cool - my local driving would be pretty low cost.
As for mining and recycling emissions, those are totally manageable. This isn't the 1900's when it comes to mining practices - the industry is pretty responsible if they are forced to be environmentally conscious.
Hybrid toyotas bring em on!!

 

They offered it on a cr-z for a few years. But the MT version got like 10-15% worse gas mileage if I recall.

Toyota uses a single-gear planetary system where varying amounts of power from the different motors let the gas motor stay in the optimal RPM range at different speeds, sort of acting like a CVT. To be honest, Toyota probably has some engineering work to do w/r/t getting the that transmission functional for the much higher load ratings that a Tacoma or similar truck would demand.

 

I agree for the most part. He even mentioned the need to raise fleet wide fuel efficiency numbers, and seriously, the Tundra and Taco lag in that area compared to other manufacturers. However, with Nissan Putting the Cummins 5.0 in the Titan, and cheby putting the little diesel in the little trucks, It would make sense for them to bring the diesel in either the Taco or Tundra.
We can hope.

 

Basically thats how we are now. US never fully adopted diesel technology. The vast majority are already in those "special applications." Diesel however will reign for a long time overseas, especially in developing countries.

 

Diesels were never as dirty as the hippies wanted everyone to believe. Soot is heavier than air.

 

It would need to be adapted to fit in a longitudinal application. But the hardest parts of development are already done. It would make a good entry level engine or at least a nice optional power upgrade to the current 2.7.

235 hp doesn't set the world on fire....but it's nearly 260 lbs ft of torque at 1600 rpm is nice.