Toyota household plug-in approved for Japanese road tests
Toyota announced Wednesday that a hybrid car you can recharge from household outlets has been approved for public road testing in Japan.
The Toyota Plug-in HV was formally approved by Japan's transportation, and infrastructure agency and the company said that it also plans to conduct public-road tests (video) in the United States and Europe.
Toyota Plug-in HV
(Credit: Toyota)The Plug-in HV has a gas-powered engine with an electric motor similar to the Prius and has a maximum speed of about 62 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour) while in electric vehicle mode. But unlike the Prius, which recharges its battery from an electric generator powered by its gasoline engine, the HV's battery would charge via any household electrical outlet.
According to Toyota specs, the Plug-in HV nickel-metal hydride battery takes approximately 3 to 4 hours to fully charge from a 100V electric source, the Japanese household standard, and about 1 to 1.5 hours to charge from a 200 V source, which falls just shy of the European standard range. No specifics were given on what the charging time might be for North Americans who use 120V.
The announcement puts Toyota in competition with General Motors and Ford, which are both developing electric vehicles. Ford announced in early July that it's starting a program to test hybrid plug-in vehicles with Southern California Edison in California. General Motors, one of the original manufacturers of an electric car, announced at the International Motor Show in Geneva in March that it planned to release the Chevrolet Volt, an electric powered car, by 2010.
In a software-driven world, it's easy to forget about the nuts and bolts. Whether it's cars, robots, personal gadgetry or industrial machines, Candace Lombardi examines the moving parts that keep our world rotating. A journalist who divides her time between the United States and the United Kingdom, Lombardi has written about technology for the sites of The New York Times, CNET, USA Today, MSN, ZDNet, Silicon.com, and GameSpot. E-mail her at candacelombardi@gmail.com. She is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET. 
pair it with a solar home. The batteries may be expensive, but it's
worth it for the environment. With other electric cars like the Tesla
pushing the envelope, we are one step closer to ending our
dependency on oil.
- 115volts...
- by Astinsan July 25, 2007 10:39 AM PDT
- I doubt it would make a difference to charge it off of a 100-130 volt circuit. Most houses in the USA have 200 amp service (at least they do in the north west). I have 220v outlets in my garage and laundry room. Before I would ever buy one... I would need to see what the cost for a replacement battery would be. I drive electric fork lifts at work and those batteries are 36volts with a cost of 2000-6000$. They would probably be a cheaper battery too.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(3 Comments)All of us have used rechargeable NiMH batteries by now. They have a life of about 6 months with me.