Toyota EV Lineup

[DouglasVB]

Didn't this thread start about the new Toyota EVs?

I wanna talk about the new Toyota EVs so I'm gonna...

I'm quite interested in the idea of the mini EV cruiser. If it has the range and I can throw big tires and armor on it, then yeah it would probably suit me very well. Small, cute, reasonable styling.

Those vans on the right side of the promotional photo pique my interest. Especially the smallest -- that style looks really cool. I wonder if I could put it on 40s and long travel...

These of course are all renders and very far from production but I'm not really mad with the looks. Sure they aren't classic 70s or 80s styling but in general they look like the future I was promised in the 80s and 90s so that's okay with me. The biggest styling thing I'm hoping for with all forthcoming EVs is really good visibility from the passenger cabin. There are so many vehicles that have been made in the last 20 years that make me feel like I'm in a coffin while driving them because their windows are so small and with such huge blind spots.

My $500 hot hatch daily is getting very long in the tooth so I'm starting to think about what I'll replace it with. I would be very sad to lose the manual transmission by switching to an EV but all the other benefits of an EV really are appealing for my daily driver. If there was a modern four door Hilux Surf or 70 series that was an EV with really good range (my benchmark use case is needing to drive 250 miles with 6000 feet of net elevation gain on highways that in some areas have a max speed of 75 mph where I really need to be doing 85 mph to not get run over. And in the winter I need heat and in the summer I need good AC) and not a crazy high price (yeah I know I'll save money over time but the up-front price impacts my ability to purchase it in the first place), I'd buy it today. Then I could go down to one vehicle with four wheels in my fleet.

Come on, Toyota! Make me want to buy an EV from you!

 

[J1000]

@DouglasVB to get 250 miles' range with those requirements in a pickup truck...you won't be able to fully charge it overnight. Just realize that. Every one in this thread has a house with maximum 220v 50amp service "dryer plug." That's 11kw maximum. That means over 10 hours you can only put in 110kwh to the battery. That's enough for a Tesla but the new models like Rivian, Hummer, Cybertruck etc that have 130, 150 or even 200kwh batteries....not going to cut it. Drive your Hummer down to 10% charge and it will take two days to charge it back up!

Of course you could use public chargers that are faster or upgrade your house service for thousands of dollars.

 

[DaveInDenver]

@DouglasVB to get 250 miles' range with those requirements in a pickup truck...you won't be able to fully charge it overnight. Just realize that. Every one in this thread has a house with maximum 220v 50amp service "dryer plug." That's 11kw maximum. That means over 10 hours you can only put in 110kwh to the battery. That's enough for a Tesla but the new models like Rivian, Hummer, Cybertruck etc that have 130, 150 or even 200kwh batteries....not going to cut it. Drive your Hummer down to 10% charge and it will take two days to charge it back up!

Of course you could use public chargers that are faster or upgrade your house service for thousands of dollars.

Damn immutable laws of physics and engineering.

 

[DouglasVB]

It's fine if it takes 10+ hours to charge at home for me. I want to be able to drive in one shot straight through from where we live to where my parents live. That's what I do now with my ICE car. There are some public L2 and L3 chargers being installed along the route but I really don't want to have to stop and wait where the chargers are located.

In the last two years I've done the drive about 30 times.

 

[mcgaskins]

@DouglasVB to get 250 miles' range with those requirements in a pickup truck...you won't be able to fully charge it overnight. Just realize that. Every one in this thread has a house with maximum 220v 50amp service "dryer plug." That's 11kw maximum. That means over 10 hours you can only put in 110kwh to the battery. That's enough for a Tesla but the new models like Rivian, Hummer, Cybertruck etc that have 130, 150 or even 200kwh batteries....not going to cut it. Drive your Hummer down to 10% charge and it will take two days to charge it back up!

Of course you could use public chargers that are faster or upgrade your house service for thousands of dollars.

That's partly true and partly misleading. For one, Tesla and Rivian sell wall connector that offer higher charging speeds, but they are $500-$700 plus the cost to wire them up which can be expensive if the panel doesn't have the capacity. But once added, the Tesla wall connector offers up to 44 miles of range per hour of charge, and the Rivian option offers 25 miles of range per hour - mostly due to the fact it's going into a bigger pack and heavier vehicle.

If one just uses 220v, the speeds drop to 16 miles of range per hour charged on the Rivian, but there's where the slightly misleading part comes in. Most people park their car for more than 12 hours a day at home, so if it was even on the lower charging speed, that's 192 miles of range added in 12 hours. How often do most people drive more than 192 miles in a day? How many people do that every day? It's exceptionally rare because that would translate to over 70k miles put on the car every year.

The reality is the vast majority of use cases are well covered by people simply plugging in every night when they get home, and in the not distant future, many people will be able to charge their cars while they're at work or shopping or eating - often for free.

 

[DaveInDenver]

That's partly true and partly misleading. For one, Tesla and Rivian sell wall connector that offer higher charging speeds, but they are $500-$700 plus the cost to wire them up which can be expensive if the panel doesn't have the capacity. But once added, the Tesla wall connector offers up to 44 miles of range per hour of charge, and the Rivian option offers 25 miles of range per hour - mostly due to the fact it's going into a bigger pack and heavier vehicle.

If one just uses 220v, the speeds drop to 16 miles of range per hour charged on the Rivian, but there's where the slightly misleading part comes in.

The Tesla charger you show is the $550 11.5 kW/48A (e.g. their "Wall Connector"). There's no NEMA outlets larger than 60 amps defined if you want a plug-in style.

You can install larger breakers in many service panels but you'd need to make sure. The largest my ancient (circa 1970s) Square D panel can take is 50A.

To do more than 50A you will be supplying a hardwired charger. The largest level 2 charger is if memory serves 22kW, which would require a 100A, two-pole breaker and a 2 AWG branch or 3-phase available to drop from the pole or 400A service where you could make it on site. Beyond 22kW will very likely require 3-phase.

So the point Jimmy is making (if I may presume) that if you intend to go beyond 11kW make sure you have planned the distribution circuit to handle it. It's not gonna be using a dryer outlet as an after thought.

 

[DouglasVB]

My parents place has a 50 amp outlet that was installed in the garage specifically for electric vehicle charging in the future. Their panel on a circa 2018 constructed house is hilariously undersized with a 100 amp main breaker. I told them to put in at least a 200 amp panel but they didn't listen to me... And now the panel is already out of room and they probably are going to need to install AC next year.

 

[DaveInDenver]

Did they not get a permit or have an electrician or engineer look at it?

You might be fine with 100A if the stove, dryer, furnace (give it 1500 VA for blower) and water heater are all gas. You can come in with as low as ~12kVA/50A demand in that case for a 2000 sq-ft house.

But a 10kVA EV charger would put a 2,000 sq-ft house right at the absolute limit even if you literally had the minimal NEC load and nothing else (like dishwasher or disposal) besides baseline lights and general purpose (e.g. intermittent use) outlets, 2 small appliance branches and one laundry. If you apply the 125% rule (when loads are continuous longer than 3 hours) to this it becomes overloaded.

Since you say their panel is out of slots I suspect they don't have the minimal NEC loads, either.

 

[3rdGen4R]

I didn’t even think of the reality of charging taking days. While it may be true that most people won’t notice, I think the reality is that electrics still aren’t anything but a status symbol.

 

[DouglasVB]

Did they not get a permit or have an electrician or engineer look at it?

It is 100% permitted, inspected, etc. Everything was done by the book.

 

[DanS]

Every one in this thread has a house with maximum 220v 50amp service "dryer plug." That's 11kw maximum.

Not so fast there. I don't.

I've got an 8kw Inverter, and I could double that and go up to 16kw pretty easily, but I'm interested in EV trucks because I can leave them plugged in for a long time, not necessarily charge them up overnight.

Dan

 

[DaveInDenver]

Not so fast there. I don't.

I've got an 8kw Inverter, and I could double that and go up to 16kw pretty easily, but I'm interested in EV trucks because I can leave them plugged in for a long time, not necessarily charge them up overnight.

Dan

Jimmy is right, 240V/50A is the biggest plug most houses will have (it's the biggest 2-pole NEMA outlet). How many people will opt for >11kW hardwired to a 100A subpanel? A few of course but I think it's reasonable to assume the *majority* of people aren't going to want to do that and will instead opt to hang a charging station on the wall themselves and plug it rather than hiring a contractor to put in something they can't really take with them. You gotta remember you are an outlier in knowledge and competency.

 

[3rdGen4R]

Jimmy is right, 240V/50A is the biggest plug most houses will have (it's the biggest 2-pole NEMA outlet). How many people will opt for >11kW hardwired to a 100A subpanel? A few of course but I think it's reasonable to assume the *majority* of people aren't going to want to do that and will instead opt to hang a charging station on the wall themselves and plug it rather than hiring a contractor to put in something they can't really take with them. You gotta remember you are an outlier in knowledge and competency.

With battery storage in a lot of homes with solar, how long will it take to move power from a battery pack from you house, DC to DC in your vehicle? Is that possible?

 

[DouglasVB]

I'll have to check some of the new construction around us out here on the central California coast to see what provisions they're putting in the garages for EVs. A lot of these places are coming pre-equipped with panels and wiring for solar already. Not sure if they're also provisioning for future battery packs.

 

[DanS]

I'll have to check some of the new construction around us out here on the central California coast to see what provisions they're putting in the garages for EVs. A lot of these places are coming pre-equipped with panels and wiring for solar already. Not sure if they're also provisioning for future battery packs.

I'm a big believer that one of the best ways to spur EV usage would be to develop a simple standard for the charging infrastructure and wiring. I've had a dilly of a time trying to find a "standard" for charging as I build my house.

You gotta remember you are an outlier in knowledge and competency.

Oh I definitely do. I'm always an outlier, that's nothing new for me.

Dan

 

[DaveInDenver]

With battery storage in a lot of homes with solar, how long will it take to move power from a battery pack from you house, DC to DC in your vehicle? Is that possible?

That depends. The common thread in the house is 120/240VAC so installations sometimes are built around that. So the storage is 240VAC and sits on your main panel kind of like a big UPS ready to power the house.

Actually this type of storage doesn't need solar even, it would charge itself when power is on and just discharge during a blackout. You could scale this or add capacity later. There'd be a transfer switch between the main panel and meter to prevent back feeding like you'd need for a generator or solar anyway.

Other storage could sit on the DC side of the solar with its own dedicated charge controller that then feed into the main inverter for the house. The downside here is it restricts your panel bus voltage to whatever you decide during design and your inverter might limit later capacity. But run time could be increased later by adding batteries, as long as the charge controller can handle it.

The vehicle charger is usually powered from AC so it's universal and whether it's 120V or 240V depends on how big. Powering an EV charger from DC isn't ideal from a market standpoint because there's different ways to configure panels and battery banks so you'd end up with a DC-to-DC conversion most likely anyway.

DC-to-DC is possible technically although there's a practical limit. You have potentially very high intermediate AC voltages inside and so at some point you might as well just stick with standards and not do the extra conversion back to DC, which eliminates one set of loses.

So assuming everyone will have 120/240 regardless of solar, inverter or storage situation (and EV owners may have none, just on the grid) it makes most sense to design for that.

 

[nakman]

this is the truck that I want in EV form: https://denver.craigslist.org/ctd/d/sacramento-1995-honda-acty-truck-jdm/7422958188.html

That's it. Doesn't have to look cool, come with a kitchen, or have any feature whatsoever that requires a subscription. Give me FWD, about 100 mile range, and a swappable battery pack. When I need to tow something, wheel something, go camping etc. I've got other vehicles for that stuff already and I'd frankly rather drive anyway. But I'd love a little beater EV pickup to tackle my more mundane tasks, which is easily 80-90% of my annual usage.

I'd love to see a dozen or so of these all queued up outside Home Depot some morning, instead of the current monster truck show there now...

 

[3rdGen4R]

Anyone know what a new battery on a Rivian will cost?

The fact that there will eventually be battery replacements not made by the EV companies, I can’t wait for people to figure out they won’t be allowed to do so because I pretty much guarantee they will say it’s a safety issue so therefore pay $20,000 or buy a new vehicle. I can’t wait to not have the right to work on something you paid for. Yay! Technology and innovation is so cool!

Tesla owner blows up his Model S with dynamite over $22,000 battery replacement

A Tesla Model S owner in Finland decided to blow up his electric car with dynamite after it needed a...

electrek.co

 

[3rdGen4R]

Curious how you feel about Toyota surprising owners that if they want to keep using the remote start feature they bought on their car they will now have to start paying $8 a month to keep using it. How does the ownership concept play out in this scenario?

Toyota owners have to pay $8/mo to keep using their key fob for remote start

Feature requires subscription even though it doesn’t use connected services.

arstechnica.com

Toyota 'Reviewing' Key Fob Remote Start Subscription Plan After Massive Blowback

A spokesperson told The Drive that making the key fob remote start part of a subscription plan was an "unintentional" move.

www.thedrive.com

WOW! Look like Toyota actually cares about it’s customers and how they feel.

 

[DouglasVB]

I thought you could already get 3rd party remanufactured battery packs for Teslas? You can at least buy individual modules all over the place online.

An acquaintance with an older Nissan Leaf put in an upgraded rebuilt pack which took his range from something small to being significantly more than the vehicle came with off the factory floor. He also upgraded the charger and I think changed the plug type. It wasn't this company who he bought everything from but similar idea: https://www.muxsan.com/English/products.html