Arab News Japan

TOKYO: At a recent Toyota Technical Workshop, Japan’s No. 1 car company revealed products that will change the automobile world, including a battery that has a 1,000-km range.

Executive Vice President Hiroki Nakajima outlined some of the innovations Toyota has come up with: “Toyota has overcome what were thought to be difficult challenges with its technological capabilities, including the Prius, now synonymous with hybrid vehicles, and the Mirai fuel cell vehicle, paving the way for the future.”

Toyota unveiled two next-generation lithium-ion batteries that the company plans to use in its next-generation Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs): a performance version, and a popularization version.

The performance version will double the cruising range of conventional batteries to 1,000 km by increasing energy density and improving vehicle efficiency through aerodynamics and other factors. At the same time, Toyota also aims to reduce costs by 20 percent and offer rapid charge times of 20 minutes or less.

Battery development alone does not dictate the performance of BEVs. Vehicle design considerations such as minimizing drag, improving energy regeneration and overall energy and heat management must also be addressed at the same time.

One such aspect of vehicle design introduced by Toyota isaerodynamic technology. Toyota is working jointly with the Space Systems Division of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to apply hypersonic rocketry technology to cars. Toyota hopes to reduce the drag coefficient to around a tenth of that for existing car bodies (0.20) as well as making its cars lighter.

While Toyota has received offers for 100,000 vehicles’ worth of hydrogen fuel cells by 2030, the company recognizes that hydrogen fuel cell units, and hydrogen itself, remain expensive. It does, however, anticipate improving existing generating capacity by 30 percent.

Toyota also reported on a project making hydrogen from poultry-derived biogas in Thailand, where the company has set up a demonstration unit jointly developed with Mitsubishi Kakoki.

This technology will unlock even greater range than Toyota’s next-gen. batteries, along with sub-10-minute recharging.