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https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/dude-wheres-my-car-toyota-buyers-face-long-waits-amid-hybrid-boom-2025-03-31/

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My first car was a 1966 VW MicroBus with a 1500 cc, air cooled engine and 6 V battery. Sad to say, the engine overheated when I was over seas and I got to rebuild it in a week. Nothing like taking a broken engine apart, fixing it, and putting it back together again to make you appreciate VW when they do the job right. That is what Munro found with the VW motor.

This VW motor is optimized for power in a small package with strong torque and low noise. It has a very efficient drive train and other than a few 'opps' (my MicroBus also had some,) clearly superior design where it counts. I don't know if they make them in Chattanooga but if not, I won't have to worry about getting one . . . unless some arrived before we taxed ourselves out of the VW market.

My recent 1,140 mi trip in a 2017 BMW i3-REx has demonstrated that absence of Full Self Driving is not a hard requirement. The cost mile of the 2017 BMW i3-REx compares equal to my 2019...

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Professor Kelly and Munro do similar things, take cars apart. Munto to calculate the cost of parts and labor to make a car. Kelly does it to teach mechanics how to take it apart and it back in working order.

This 2024 traction battery is much improved over the one in my former, 2017 Prius Prime. Given what I've learned from Munro, it could be designed better but there have been much worse.

• BEST
  • Direct thermal management instead of air flow
  • Conformal underbody part
  • Direct refrigerant for cell cooling
• COULD BE BETTER
  • Colocate all possible power electronics with the battery
  • Even number of modules so all power terminals on one end
  • Cooling from a single spot leads to thermal gradients inside the cells

The Toyota lead engineer needs to hold a 'conference' with everyone designing, making, and fixing the battery with this goal:

• Reduce parts count

Bob Wilson