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[quote=pimento;910971]Not completely accurate there.. [URL="http://www.autoblog.com/2009/09/04/toyota-prius-importation-under-threat-due-to-u-s-patent-trade-c/"]Toyota pay Paice LLC royalties[/URL] on hybrids sold, and [URL="http://www.autoblog.com/2009/07/05/editorial-attention-i-wall-street-journal-i-ford-does-b-n/"]Toyota and Ford have a cross licensing agreement[/URL] for their hybrids.[/quote]
Thanks for the info---very timely information. Whatever Toyota is paying Paice, is a very small and insignificant amount of money based on total Hybrid sales. Whatever patent that Paice holds, must be small and negligent in the overall design of hybrids. I also beleive their latest strategy to harrass Toyota will fail as well.
As for Ford, I can see how they could have licensing agreements with Toyota. Ford is already working on hydrogen technologies, and I think Toyota is doing the same as well. Again, we may see licensing agreements between the two companies in future auto designs as well.
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[quote=LeonOfTheDead;910921]I read Toyota itself didn't used Lithium batteries for the new Prius ust because it was cheaper to stick on old NiCad batteries. The new type was already workin fine, but perhaps they did so not only to save the additional improvement for the next gen but also not to raise a discussion on whether those would have been easier or more difficult to recycle.[/quote]
I don't actually know how mature lithium-ion/lithium-polymer technology is for the the scale they are dealing with. Yes there are a lot of Prius(and other) hybrid now being fitting with plug-in lithium pack(at something over $10-15k on top of the car price), but the quantity is still miniscule compare to the mass produced car(on the topic, what's the 3rd gen Prius using now?). Tesla uses Li. batt, but Tesla is actually using the massive pack of laptop cells, not exactly viable long term(they are also still selling $100k car). I think until Toyota themselves have found the performance(and reliability) satisfactory they won't do the risky move of switching....
On the Nickel mining, for household item Nickel is already use in large quantity, but the additional demand now with hybrid battery pack cannot be underestimated just on the quantity being used per vehicle and the size of the market, and the issue of contention for me is that the resource is gathered at your primary market(being N. America), but production is happening half a world away, and the only reason being Toyota as with most Japanese corporate culture, keeps their technology to themselves(not only IP wise, but geographically). All that incursion can be avoided, especially on the ground of being environmentally responsible.....pretty much any OEM can be accused of this now, but for someone who is banking on this green thing its a bit more hypocritical....(correct me if I am wrong actually, AFAIK all the "hybrid" model of the Toyota vehicles are made in Japan regardless of the other configuration, and I think the same is for Honda)
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I'd like to know how much Nickel is actually used in a battery pack, just to estimate how large these quantities flowing from a continent to the other are.
More precisely, I'd like to make a point that perhaps in the end it could come out that even if this transportation of raw materials is polluting, it may still be less than what the requirements for fuel, fuel transporting and production eventually are.
If I remember correctly a battery pack weight about 130 kg, correct?
Now even assuming that's all made of Nichel, a relatively large ship can easily transport 50.000 tons, so 380.000 battery packs.
That's like saying with three ships we can assume all the hybrid units of a certain model are fine.
The it would be nice to calculate how much less fuel we needed to transport because of the better mileage, and of course to compare the distances, or even comparing the emissions created producing and transporting a battery with those emitted while transporting the quantity of additional crude oil necessary to run a petrol version of the car, converting it into fuel, than transporting the fuel until the gas station.
Also, I don't think all standard cars are built out of locally sourced materials.
Even if the Prius could be the worst car on the market, what I'd like to point is that it raised, mostly thanks to the kind of owner it has, much more diatribes and critics than a lot of other cars. Precisely as RacingManiac said.
Yes, Toyota calls it a green car, and the marketing just tries to convince us more and more thats the way of the future, even if then the same company has just a minor part of its line-up made out of hybrid cars.
Still I think the worst part of the whole hybrid thing is the typical customer, who in half the cases doesn't know a thing about any kind of car but still thinks he is saving the world trough something bought just because of the marketing, while in the other cases they bought it just to look [I]green[/I] despite then having a pretty standard and not particularly environmental friendly way of life.
Surely Toyota, and Honda aren't feeling sad for this, but again their actual product line-ups demonstrate they know it isn't the right and definitive solution.
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It's quite interesting to see the differences in Asia and North America - to build a car, you either employ people who work ungodly hours and make f-k all or employ people who do nothing and make "f-k, you make how much?" salaries.
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This about sums it up for me...
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydvAQ6Y49vc"]YouTube - Toyota Prius vs BMW M3[/ame]
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Although Toyota is said to be the #1 Auto maker in the world, they should have the money and resources to actually get some decent parts for their cars. But unfortunatley, greed and selfishness overcomes these things and ruins a good reputation. Toyota has been around for years and they have dished out some of the best cars that you could ever buy. If you were to think about how they advertise compared to how they do their building (I'm not saying that they suck at it), its just like its almost propaganda. I could be wrong but thats the way I view it. Also, you never know what other auto manufacturers are doing to get vehicles from the assembly line to the garage, so to speak. Its sad to see these kinds of things...:(
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I find this completely ironic, considering that the average Prius buyer thinks that he is standing up for everything that is right by buying one.
I guess in that whole "Prius vs. Hummer" pissing contest you can stick one in the "Hummer" column: at least the Hummer H2 is built by union workers that are paid a comfortable wage.
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[quote=Runfromcheney;911764]
I guess in that whole "Prius vs. Hummer" pissing contest you can stick one in the "Hummer" column: at least the Hummer H2 is built by union workers that are paid a comfortable wage.[/quote]
hopefully not anymore,with their chinese take over..
also:
[quote=Runfromcheney;911764]
at least the Hummer H2 is built by union [B]workers[/B] that are paid a comfortable wage.[/quote]
[quote=Runfromcheney;911764]
built by union [B]workers[/B] [/quote]
[quote=Runfromcheney;911764]
union [B]workers[/B] [/quote]
UAW.. doing work? pics or it didn't happen
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You make a good point there, clutch-monkey. I didn't even consider the fact that the UAW spends more time playing cards and bitching about their exaggerated benefits being cut back down to a reasonable size than they do actually building cars.
However, as far as I know, GM will still build Hummers under contract to the Chinese until they make their own designs (or buy the existing ones). I think they will build them to 2012, or something like that. So the UAW will be (occasionally) building these pigs for a couple more years.
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i honestly want to see the reaction of the chinese owners the first time the UAW tries anything funny haha.