If I understand correctly, Geely is a Chinese car company and the Icon is its new "hybrid" SUV. It boasts a " 48V mild hybrid technology" that is twice as powerful as an electric wheelchair! It also offers an "N95 certified Intelligent Air Purification System (IAPS) (that) isolate(s) and eliminates over 99.7% of dust and harmful particulates including bacteria and viruses from the cabin." So as long as you sit in the car you're all safe from COVID-19 and stuff. The entire site has kind of a Detroit 1950's feel in how it markets the product, very different from Toyota. ICON : Geely Global
Geely?!? LOL Geely is a Fraud?????? China's electric vehicle industry shaken by scandal The First Geely Was A Fake Mercedes-Benz E-Class Based On A Real Audi 100 | ChinaCarHistory Ten of the most blatant Chinese car copies Rolls-Royce considers legal action against £30,000 Chinese copycat - Telegraph iow .... king of fakes - fraud - any questions?
Geely owns VOLVO, PROTON and LOTUS cars. I'm not convinced about 48volt "mild hybrid" - the first reports I read of one being tested (in UK I think) were disappointing. We're getting the Forester Mild Hybrid released here any day now - I'll be interested to see it compared with the RAV4 Hybrid for l/100km. Not sure of the specification of the TOYOTA Cabin Filter - this is all I could find. There is no mention of filtering as small as a virus. https://www.toyota.com/toyota-owners-theme/pdf/air-filter-app-chart.pdf I found this - which measures some previously worrying viruses - but no mention of COVID-19.
Toyota's stance for not doing BEVs is because the battery supply would reduce carbon emissions more by building more hybrids. Continue that logic, and we can reduce even more by making even more mild hybrids. An actual study backs this up. A mild hybrid won't provide the same benefits as a full hybrid. It should mean an improvement over an ICE model.
Toyota could pull their heads out of their backside & start making more batteries? - so that they could start making Bev's? It's the logic that says if they were short on engine blocks, they'd have to rely on electric motors for propulsion. .
Given the supply of steel shouldn't they stop making so many pickup trucks? Mostly they carry only a max of 2 people; better to use the supply of steel to only build 4/5 seaters or more so more people can be moved with less CO2. Mike
Is there a shortage of steel? Many hybrid and EV models are supply constrained on the battery side. Tesla is using battery suppliers besides themselves and Panasonic for cars made for the Chinese market. Toyota has claimed they aren't doing BEVs because they feel the limited battery supply would be better used for hybrids. Toyota's Master Plan for a Low Carbon Future | PriusChat
It takes a lot of energy (and coal) to mine and mill the iron ore and/or recycle steel into new steel. But it was sort of a jab at Toyota for the lame excuse of batteries. If they wanted to they could easily increase the supply of batteries. They are the biggest car company in the world by some measures. And the 25th (?) biggest car company with much fewer resources than Toyota built more capacity than everyone else combined in just a few years. Is that the definition of embarrassing? Mike
A distant memory from 2005, I recall a Toyota chart that showed the different alternatives that results in the Prius. An excellent choice based on the 1990 technology, it gave us decades of Prius fun. But the battery economics changed and the Toyota chart might not have been updated. For example in 2010, Toyota continued to use the NiMH battery instead of LiON. Understand that I prefer NiMH chemistry over LiON because it does not form inert by-products. Loss of electrolyte is the primary failure mechanism as long as the electro-potential is maintained. LiON over time forms inert compounds that eventually kill the battery. Then the nickel, cobalt, and other metals are recovered using ordinary mining technology. Bob Wilson
by the samel logic, GM should still be building/selling the Chevy Volt - & not pushing the Chevy Bolt - which requires more battery modules. Yet - wise business practices obviously aren't their forte considering their bankruptcy. .