|
 By
any stretch of the imagination, particularly in the fast moving
automotive world, it is a rare development indeed that a flopped product
or technology is offered a second lease of life. But just such a second
lease of life, at least here in Europe, is now in prospect for cars
featuring Toyota-pioneered petrol-electric hybrid technology.
This petrol-electric technology, while hugely successful in Japan today,
remains only an also-ran business in the US where it presently accounts
for just 2.2 per cent of new car sales.
Worse still, in Europe, Prius-type hybrids never managed to rise above
wallflower status.
That’s chiefly because the fuel-sipper role was admirably served by
diesels.
So much so that every second car sold in Europe was diesel fuelled.
However, with diesels now well on the way out, what are the realistic
alternatives to meet the EU’s stiff 95g/km average fleet CO2
levels from 2021?
Arguably, in the half decade ahead - for mass market appeal - today’s
electric cars (BEVs)
and even
PHEVs can be dismissed by virtue of today’s high prices, inadequate
driving range and today’s deficient recharging network.
So how about Prius-type electric hybrids as an interim solution to
continue the cast-in-stone year-on-year reductions of fleet average CO2
levels from cars in Europe?
This technology was of course masterminded by Toyota and commercialised
first in its trailblazing Prius.
Chiefly, these petrol-electric hybrids were developed as an
affordable antidote to forever climbing oil prices that last peaked in
mid-2008.
Put simply, fuel sippers at a time when fuel prices were destined to
soar from one high to another.
As it turns out, since then oil prices have collapsed and Joe Public is
spoiled by a previously unexpected cheap-fuel era.
The way things are looking today, oil now seems destined to hover around
the $50 level for the foreseeable future at best.
All in all, after getting nowhere by way of halfway decent sales in
previously diesel-dominated Europe, the question urgently being asked is
this: Could simple petrol-electric hybrids fill the fuel-sipper vacuum
left by the diesels now dumped in droves by Europe’s increasingly
anxious diesel car owners?
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
That at least is the impression gained from Toyota’s current
cash-draining business model in Europe.
Some of its rivals, it seems, are watching its intensifying hybrid car
sales push in Europe, likely ready to pounce if Toyota’s increasingly
promising looking European hybrid car sales efforts are paying
dividends.
Skipping the ‘wait and see’ stage, in Europe Korea’s Hyundai-Kia have
already launched without customary fanfares their own plain Prius-type
hybrids.
This in a self-evident wager that these cars could potentially fill the
void suddenly left by Europe’s discredited and increasingly shunned
diesels.
Audi’s strategic thinkers, it seems, have also seen the future.
The all-new A8 luxury car, to be unveiled July 11th in Barcelona Spain,
will come as standard with a 48 Volt hybrid drive system
|
