Toyota bows to Tesla for EV development

The product news is simple: Toyota has revealed an EV based on its RAV4. The real news lies in who the world's biggest car maker looked to for speed-to-market innovation.

Making its public debut at the LA motor show, the all-electric version of Toyota's RAV4 junior SUV is the result of extensive collaboration with Californian EV startup Tesla.

Toyota is claiming the ready-to-drive vehicle on display at the LA press conference was engineered with a range benchmark of 160 km in mind, in real-world driving and climatic conditions.

The company has begun work on a 35-car trial program through 2011 with the aim of bringing it to market in 2012 -- the result of a new 'fast and flexible' development model borrowing extensively from EV specialist Tesla.

To pare back development time without compromising product quality, Toyota's technical centre in Michigan treated the project as "a typical mid-cycle 'major-minor' product change", essentially adding a powertrain option and a few equipment and cosmetic changes to a stock current-generation RAV4.

While the power pack and other drivetrain and power management parts came from Tesla, Toyota conducted the integration work in house. The LA show car uses a lithium metal oxide battery "with useable output rated in the mid-30kwh range". But such is the speed of battery development at the moment that Toyota hasn't finalised anything about the product to go to market beyond continued supply from Tesla's plant in Palo Alto.

The company has stressed that speed to market was only one half of the challenge, the other being to deliver a vehicle that minimises the requirement for compromise on the part of owners and drivers. "From the beginning, the customer experience has been the focus," Jim Lentz, the company's president and chief operating officer, said in a statement. "In other words, how do we deliver an unconventional product to mainstream customers that is compelling and affordable and that offers an acceptable level of daily convenience?"

In large part, that meant keeping the EV's driving behaviour as close to the conventional RAV4's as possible. Weight was all important -- the EV weighs just 100kg more than the normal RAV4 V6 and almost matches it for 0-100 km/h acceleration.

Important, too, given the grumbles about the impact of battery packs on Prius and hybrid Lexus bootspace, the EV conversion has had no impact on cargo space.

The EV has undergone extensive suspension and steering modifications, with a number of components shifted around to balance out the added bulk of the power pack.

Cosmetic changes include a new front bumper, grille and lights, badging and exclusive paint colours. Indoors are overhauls to the seat trim, multimedia dash displays and instrument binnacle, with the normal stick shift replaced by a push-button affair.

2012 is shaping up like one of Toyota's busiest years ever. The RAV4 EV will launch alongside a plug-in version of the Prius, a small electric city car and seven all new hybrid models. The company has also announced plans to have its first commercially available hydrogen fuel cell vehicle on the road in key markets in 2015.

Toyota Australia spokesman Mike Breen told Carsales Network the company has no concrete plans for any of these to reach Australian showrooms at this point.

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