Prius hybrid
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">420</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">see exxon knew and below:</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>...In autumn 1979, Toyota and Exxon signed a joint technology agreement. </b><span style="font-weight: inherit;">A small group of engineers from Toyota’s research facility in Susono, Japan, visited the Exxon Enterprises automotive group in New Jersey to see the Cordoba. Toyota decided to have Exxon outfit a Cressida sedan with the new technology. In early 1980, a white Cressida arrived in New Jersey where the Exxon automotive team installed, tested, and refined its hybrid technology over more than 18 months.</span></font></p><h3 style="font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.2; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 18px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Hybrid Goes To Japan</font></h3><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);">In September 1981, Corcoran and the team delivered the electric hybrid to the Toyota research facility in Susono, Japan.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> They spent two weeks installing and testing the Cressida’s hybrid system. Their Toyota counterparts seemed pleased. The project the two companies had embarked on nearly 3 years earlier produced the roomy, driveable hybrid that Toyota was looking for.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 15px; font-size: small; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Toyota began selling its Prius hybrid 16 years later. It was developed in part by a team in Susono and equipped with a gasoline engine and a 40 horsepower AC motor. “We shouldn’t overstate Exxon’s role in hybrid vehicles in the long term,” says Corcoran. “But if we planted any seed at all with anyone, it was that the electric motor in a hybrid could be an AC motor.”...</b></font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.transportpolicy.net/standard/california-zev/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.transportpolicy.net/standard/california-zev/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">OVERVIEW</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The California Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) program was designed to help the state achieve its emissions goals by requiring that a certain percentage of vehicle fleets use the cleanest available technologies (battery electric, fuel cell, and plug-in hybrid). While it has been amended several times, it has the long-term goal of 1.5 million ZEVs in California by 2025.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">HISTORY</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Program is designed to achieve the state’s long-term emission reduction goals by requiring manufacturers to offer for sale specific numbers of the cleanest car technologies available, which include: battery electric, fuel cell, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles<b>. ZEV regulation was first adopted in 1990 as part of LEV I standards, and has undergone significant periodic modifications since that time.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>At the time of adoption, CARB required that 2% of the vehicles that large manufacturers produced for sale in California in 1998 had to be ZEVs, increasing to 5% in 2001 and 10% in 2003</b>. The ZEV mandate was ultimately adjusted to eliminate the “ramp up” years but left in place the 10% ZEV requirement for 2003. The program was adjusted again in 1998 to allow partial ZEV (PZEV) credits for low emission vehicles that were not pure ZEVs to achieve partial credits toward the overall requirement.1 Further modifications to the program that were made in 2001 allowed large manufacturers to meet their 10% ZEV requirement with 2% pure ZEVs, 2% Advanced Technology PZEVS, and 6% PZEVs. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">However, a lawsuit resulted in an injunction that prohibited CARB from enforcing those 2001 ZEV for model years 2003 or 2004.</span> Parties to the lawsuit ended litigation once the Board adopted amendments to the ZEV regulation in 2003, which included greater alignment with developments in technology. CARB again approved modifications to ZEV regulations at the 2008 hearing, where the agency also directed staff to redesign the ZEV Program for 2015 and subsequent model years.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In January 2012, CARB formally adopted the Advanced Clean Cars program that reinstalled more substantial and more long-term requirements for the deployment of electric-drive vehicles at over 10% of new vehicle sales by 2025.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> To reinforce the ZEV program, Governor Brown issued Executive Order B-16-2012 in March of that year, which directed California to “encourage the development and success of zero-emission vehicles to protect the environment, stimulate economic growth and improve the quality of life in the State.” The Governor’s Executive Order sets a long-term target of reaching 1.5 million ZEVs on California’s roadways by 2025.2</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In February, 2013, an interagency working group led by the Governor’s Office released a ZEV Action Plan detailing steps that will be taken in order to reach the mark of 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles on California roadways by 2025. The report designates ZEVs as including hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) and plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), which include both pure battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs).</font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The film deals with the history of the electric car, its modern development, and commercialization. The film focuses primarily on the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1" title="General Motors EV1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">General Motors EV1</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, which was made available for</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lease" title="Lease" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">lease</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">mainly in</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_California" title="Southern California" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Southern California</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, after the</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Air_Resources_Board" title="California Air Resources Board" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">California Air Resources Board</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">(CARB) passed the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-emissions_vehicle" title="Zero-emissions vehicle" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">zero-emissions vehicle</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>(ZEV) mandate in 1990</b> which required the seven major automobile suppliers in the United States to offer electric vehicles in order to continue sales of their gasoline powered vehicles in California. Nearly 5000 electric cars were designed and manufactured by</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler" title="Chrysler" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Chrysler</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Motor_Company" title="Ford Motor Company" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Ford Motor Company</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors" title="General Motors" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">General Motors</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">(GM),</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda" title="Honda" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Honda</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan" title="Nissan" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Nissan</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, and</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota" title="Toyota" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Toyota</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">; and then later destroyed or donated to museums and educational institutions. Also discussed are the implications of the events depicted for</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution" title="Air pollution" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">air pollution</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_dependency" class="mw-redirect" title="Oil dependency" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">oil dependency</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East" title="Middle East" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Middle East</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">politics, and</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming" title="Global warming" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">global warming</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The film details the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Air_Resources_Board" title="California Air Resources Board" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">California Air Resources Board</a>'s reversal of the mandate after relentless pressure and suits from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_manufacturer" class="mw-redirect" title="Automobile manufacturer" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">automobile manufacturers</a>, continual pressure from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_industry" class="mw-redirect" title="Oil industry" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">oil industry</a>, orchestrated hype over a future <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle" title="Hydrogen vehicle" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">hydrogen car</a>, and finally the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_George_W.Bush" title="Presidency of George W. Bush" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">George W. Bush administration</a>.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A portion of the film details GM's efforts to demonstrate to California that there was no consumer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand" title="Demand" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">demand</a> for their product, and then to take back every EV1 and destroy them. A few were disabled and given to museums and universities, but almost all were found to have been crushed. GM never responded to the EV drivers' offer to pay the residual lease value; $1.9 million was offered for the remaining 78 cars in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burbank,California" title="Burbank, California" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Burbank, California</a> before they were crushed. Several activists, including actresses <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Paul" title="Alexandra Paul" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Alexandra Paul</a> and Colette Divine, were arrested in the protest that attempted to block the GM car carriers taking the remaining EV1s off to be crushed.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The film explores some of the motives that may have pushed the auto and oil industries to kill off the electric car. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wally_Rippel" title="Wally Rippel" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Wally Rippel</a> offers, for example, that the oil companies were afraid of losing their <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly" title="Monopoly" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">monopoly</a> on transportation fuel over the coming decades; while the auto companies feared short-term costs for EV development and long-term revenue loss because EVs require little maintenance and no tuneups. Others explained the killing differently. GM spokesman Dave Barthmuss argued it was lack of consumer interest due to the maximum range of 80–100 miles per charge, and the relatively high price.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The film also showed the failed attempts by electric car enthusiasts trying to combat auto industry moves, and save the surviving vehicles. Towards the end of the film, a deactivated EV1 car #99 is found in the garage of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petersen_Automotive_Museum" title="Petersen Automotive Museum" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Petersen Automotive Museum</a>, with former EV sales representative, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Sexton" title="Chelsea Sexton" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Chelsea Sexton</a>, invited for a visit.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The film also explores the future of automobile technologies including a deeply critical look at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle" title="Hydrogen vehicle" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">hydrogen vehicles</a>, an upbeat discussion of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_hybrid" title="Plug-in hybrid" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">plug-in hybrids</a>, and examples of other developing EV technologies such as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Roadster(2008)" title="Tesla Roadster (2008)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Tesla Roadster (2008)</a>, released on the market two years after the film.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span class="mw-headline" id="The_suspects" style="">The suspects</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="font-weight: normal; user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span></span></font></h2><div class="thumb tright" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.3em 1.4em; width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); clear: right; float: right;"><div class="thumbinner" style="min-width: 100px; border: 1px solid rgb(200, 204, 209); padding: 3px; background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); text-align: center; overflow: hidden; width: 222px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div class="thumbcaption" style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 3px; text-align: left;"><div class="magnify" style="float: right; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 0px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EV1_funeral_DSCN8571.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none" /></div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EV1_funeral_DSCN8571.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The film features the symbolic EV1 funeral held at </font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Forever_Cemetery" title="Hollywood Forever Cemetery" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Hollywood Forever Cemetery</a> as a protest to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors" title="General Motors" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">General Motors</a>' decision to terminate all EV1 leases and crush the electric cars.</font></div></div></div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The later portion of the film is organized around the following hypothesized culprits in the downfall of the electric car:</font></p><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="American_consumers">American consumers</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span></span></font></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While few American consumers never heard of the electric cars in California, those who did were not necessarily critical mass for this new technology. Thanks to lower gas prices and infatuation with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_utility_vehicle" title="Sport utility vehicle" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">sport utility vehicles</a> (SUVs), few people sought out this new technology.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> While some were fans (as chronicled in the film), many more needed time to consider the advantages and disadvantages of these new cars; whether freedom from oil or with the perceived limitations of a city car with a 100-mile range. Although allegations are made about consumers by industry representatives in the film, perhaps explaining the film's "guilty" verdict, the actual consumers interviewed in the film were either unaware that an electric car was ever available to try, or dismayed that they could no longer obtain one.</span></font></p><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Batteries">Batteries</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span></span></font></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In a bit of an unexpected turn, the film's sole "not-guilty" suspect is batteries, one of the chief culprits if one were to ask the oil or auto industries. At the time GM's EV1 came to market, it came with a lead acid battery with a range of 60 miles. The film suggests that since the average driving distance of Americans in a day is 30 miles or less, for 90% of Americans, electric cars would work as a daily commute car or second car.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The second generation EV1 (and those released by Honda, Toyota, and others) from 1998 to the end of the program, featured nickel-metal-hydride or even lithium-ion (Nissan) batteries with a range of 100 or more miles.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The film documents that the company which had supplied batteries for EV1, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Conversion_Devices" title="Energy Conversion Devices" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Ovonics</a>, had been suppressed from announcing improved batteries, with double the range, lest CARB be convinced that batteries were improving. Later, General Motors sold the supplier's majority control share to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_Corporation" title="Chevron Corporation" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Chevron Corporation</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobasys" title="Cobasys" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Cobasys</a>.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As part of the not-guilty verdict, the famed engineer Alan Cocconi explains that with laptop computer lithium ion batteries, the EV1 could have been upgraded to a range of 300 miles per charge. He makes this point in front of his T-Zero prototype, the car that inspired the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Roadster(2008)" title="Tesla Roadster (2008)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Tesla Roadster (2008)</a>.</font></p><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Oil_companies">Oil companies</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span></span></font></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">The oil industry, through its major lobby group the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_States_Petroleum_Association" title="Western States Petroleum Association" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Western States Petroleum Association</a>, is brought to task for financing campaigns to kill utility efforts to build public car charging stations. Through <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing" title="Astroturfing" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">astroturfing</a> groups like "Californians Against Utility Abuse" they posed as consumers instead of the industry interests they actually represented.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobil" title="Mobil" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Mobil</a> and other oil companies are also shown to be advertising directly against electric cars in national publications, even when electric cars seem to have little to do with their core business</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At the end of the film, Chevron <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_encumbrance_of_large_automotive_NiMH_batteries" title="Patent encumbrance of large automotive NiMH batteries" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">bought patents</a> and controlling interest in Ovonics, the advanced battery company featured in the film, ostensibly to prevent modern NiMH batteries from being used in non-hybrid electric cars.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The documentary also refers to manipulation of oil prices by overseas suppliers in the 1980s as an example of the industry working to kill competition and keep customers from moving toward alternatives to oil.</font></p><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Car_companies">Car companies</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F&action=edit§ion=8" title="Edit section: Car companies" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h3><div class="thumb tright" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.3em 1.4em; width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); clear: right; float: right;"><div class="thumbinner" style="min-width: 100px; border: 1px solid rgb(200, 204, 209); padding: 3px; background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); text-align: center; overflow: hidden; width: 222px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div class="thumbcaption" style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 3px; text-align: left;"><div class="magnify" style="float: right; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 0px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EV1_dont_crush_protest_692.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none" /></div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EV1_dont_crush_protest_692.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The film features the "Don't Crush Campaign" protest</font></a></div></div></div><div class="thumb tright" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 1.3em 1.4em; width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); clear: right; float: right;"><div class="thumbinner" style="min-width: 100px; border: 1px solid rgb(200, 204, 209); padding: 3px; background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); text-align: center; overflow: hidden; width: 222px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EV1_dont_crush_protest_692.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none" /><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EV1_dont_crush_protest_692.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none" /><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EV1_dont_crush_protest_692.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; 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background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none" /><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EV1_dont_crush_protest_692.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none" /><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EV1_dont_crush_protest_692.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none" /><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ev1_crush5.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none" /></div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ev1_crush5.jpg" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Crushed </font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EV1" class="mw-redirect" title="EV1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">EV1s</a> in a junk yard are shown in the film</font></div></div></div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">With GM as its primary example, the film documents that car makers engaged in both positive and negative marketing of the electric car as its intentions toward the car and California legislation changed. In earlier days, GM ran <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_commercials" title="Super Bowl commercials" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Super Bowl commercials</a> produced by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Light%26_Magic" title="Industrial Light & Magic" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Industrial Light & Magic</a> (ILM) for the EV1. In later days it ran "award winning" doomsday-style advertising featuring the EV1 and ran customer surveys which emphasized drawbacks to electronic vehicle technology which were not actually present in the EV1.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a></sup> (As a side note, CARB officials were quoted claiming that they removed their zero emission vehicle quotas in part because they gave weight to such surveys purportedly showing no demand existing for the EV1s.) Other charges raised on GM included sabotaging their own product program, failing to produce cars to meet existing demand, and refusing to sell cars directly (it only leased them).</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The film also describes the history of automaker efforts to destroy competing technologies, such as their destruction through front companies of public transit systems in the United States in the early 20th century. In addition to EV1, the film also depicted how <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV" title="Toyota RAV4 EV" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Toyota RAV4 EV</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_EV_Plus" title="Honda EV Plus" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Honda EV Plus</a> were being cancelled by their respective car companies. The crushing of Honda EV Plus only gained attention after appearing quite by accident on an episode of PBS's <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California%27s_Gold" title="California's Gold" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">California's Gold</a></i> with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huell_Howser" title="Huell Howser" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Huell Howser</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an interview with retired GM board member Tom Everhart, the film points out that GM killed the EV1 to focus on more immediately profitable enterprises such as its <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummer" title="Hummer" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Hummer</a> and truck brands, instead of preparing for future challenges. Ralph Nader, in a brief appearance, points out that auto makers usually only respond to government regulation when it comes to important advances whether seat belts, airbags, catalytic converters, mileage requirements or, by implication, hybrid/electric cars. The film suggests Toyota supported the production of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius" title="Toyota Prius" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Toyota Prius</a> hybrid in part as a response to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton" title="Bill Clinton" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Bill Clinton</a>'s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership_for_a_New_Generation_of_Vehicles" title="Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles</a> and other U.S. Government pressure that was later dropped.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though GM cited cost as a deterrent to continuing with the EV1, the film interviewed critics contending that the cost of batteries and electric vehicles would have been reduced significantly if mass production began, due to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale" title="Economies of scale" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">economies of scale</a>. There is also discussion about electric cars threatening dealer profits since they have so few service requirements—no tuneups, no oil changes, and less frequent brake jobs because of regenerative braking.</font></p><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="U.S.government">U.S. government</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span></span></font></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While not overtly political, the film documents that the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_government_of_the_United_States" title="Federal government of the United States" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">federal government of the United States</a> under the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_George_W.Bush" title="Presidency of George W. Bush" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Presidency of George W. Bush</a> joined the auto-industry suit against California in 2002. This pushed California to abandon its ZEV mandate regulation. The film notes tha<b>t Bush's chief of staff <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Card" title="Andrew Card" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Andrew Card</a> had recently been head of the American Automobile Manufacturers Alliance in California </b>and then joined the White House with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Cheney" title="Dick Cheney" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Dick Cheney</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condoleezza_Rice" title="Condoleezza Rice" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Condoleezza Rice</a>, and other federal officials who were former executives or board members of oil and auto companies. By failing to increase mileage standards in a meaningful way since the 1970s and now interfering in California, the federal government had again served short-term industry interests at the expense of long-range leadership on issues of oil dependency and cleaner cars.</font></p><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="California_Air_Resources_Board">California Air Resources Board</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span></span></font></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">In 2003, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Air_Resources_Board" title="California Air Resources Board" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">California Air Resources Board</a> (CARB), headed by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party(United_States)" title="Democratic Party (United States)" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Democrat</a> Alan Lloyd, finally caved to industry pressure and drastically scaled back the ZEV mandate. CARB had previously defended the regulation for more than 12 years.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>While championing CARB's efforts on behalf of California's with its 1990 mandate (and other regulations over the years), the film suggests Lloyd may have had a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest" title="Conflict of interest" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">conflict of interest</a>, as the director of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Fuel_Cell_Partnership" title="California Fuel Cell Partnership" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">California Fuel Cell Partnership</a>. </b>The ZEV change allowed a marginal amount of hydrogen fuel cell cars to be produced in the future, versus the immediate continued growth of its electric car requirement. Footage shot in the meetings showed Lloyd shutting down battery electric car proponents while giving the car makers all the time they wanted to make their points.</font></p><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Hydrogen_fuel_cell">Hydrogen fuel cell</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span></span></font></h3><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell" title="Fuel cell" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">hydrogen fuel cell</a> was presented by the film as an alternative that distracts attention from the real and immediate potential of electric vehicles to an unlikely future possibility embraced by auto makers, oil companies and a pro-business administration in order to buy time and profits for the status quo</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The film corroborates the claim that hydrogen vehicles are a mere distraction by stating that "A fuel cell car powered by hydrogen made with electricity uses three to four times more energy than a car powered by batteries" and by interviewing </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_J.Romm" class="mw-redirect" title="Joseph J. Romm" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Joseph J. Romm</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, the author of </span><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hype_about_Hydrogen" class="mw-redirect" title="The Hype about Hydrogen" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Hype about Hydrogen</a></i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, who lists five problems he sees with hydrogen vehicles: High cost, limits on driving range due to current materials, high costs of hydrogen fuel, the need for entirely new fueling compounds, and competition from other technologies in the marketplace, such as hybrids.</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The price of hydrogen has since come down to $4–6/kg (without carbon sequestering) due to reduction in the price of natural gas as a feedstock for steam reforming owing to the proliferation of hydraulic fracturing of shales.<sup id="cite_ref-designnews.com_5-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F#cite_note-designnews.com-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a></sup> A kilo of hydrogen has the same energy yield as a gallon of gasoline although production currently creates 12.5 kg CO2, 39% more than the 8.91 kg CO2 from a gasoline gallon.<sup id="cite_ref-designnews.com_5-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F#cite_note-designnews.com-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a></sup></font></p><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span class="mw-headline" id="Response_from_General_Motors" style="">Response from General Motors</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="font-weight: normal; user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span></span></font></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors" title="General Motors" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">General Motors</a> (GM) responded in a 2006 blog post titled "Who Ignored the Facts About the Electric Car?"<sup id="cite_ref-pdfcopy_6-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F#cite_note-pdfcopy-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a></sup> written by Dave Barthmuss of GM's communications department. In his June 15, 2006 post—published 13 days before the film was released in the U.S.—Barthmuss claims not to have seen the film, but believes "there may be some information that the movie did not tell its viewers." He repeats GM's claims that, "despite the substantial investment of money and the enthusiastic fervor of a relatively small number of EV1 drivers — including the filmmaker — the EV1 proved far from a viable commercial success."</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He submits it is "good news for electric car enthusiasts" that electric vehicle technology since the EV1 was still being used. It was used in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Hybrid_Cooperation" title="Global Hybrid Cooperation" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">two-mode hybrid</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_hybrid" title="Plug-in hybrid" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">plug-in hybrid</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell_vehicle" title="Fuel cell vehicle" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">fuel cell vehicle</a> programs.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Barthmuss also cites "GM's leadership" in flex-fuel vehicles development, hydrogen fuel cell technology, and their new "active fuel management" system which improve fuel economy, as reasons they feel they are "doing more than any other automaker to address the issues of oil dependence, fuel economy and emissions from vehicles."</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Responding to the film's harsh criticisms for discontinuing the EV1, Barthmuss outlines GM's reasons for doing so, implying that GM did so due to inadequate support from parts suppliers, as well as poor consumer demand despite "significant sums (spent) on marketing and incentives to develop a mass market for it." Barthmuss claimed he personally regretted the way the decision not to sell the EV1s was handled, but stated it was because GM would no longer be able to repair it or "guarantee it could be operated safely over the long term," with lack of available parts making "future repair and safety of the vehicles difficult to nearly impossible." He also claimed that "no other major automotive manufacturer is producing a pure electric vehicle for use on public roads and highways."</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In March 2009, however, outgoing CEO of GM <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Wagoner" title="Rick Wagoner" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Rick Wagoner</a> said the biggest mistake he ever made as chief executive was killing the EV1 car and failing to direct more resources to electrics and hybrids after such an early lead in this technology.<sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a></sup> GM has since championed its electric-car expertise as a key factor in development of its 2010 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Volt" title="Chevrolet Volt" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Chevrolet Volt</a>, Chevy Spark EV, and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Bolt" title="Chevrolet Bolt" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Chevrolet Bolt</a>.</font></p><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><span class="mw-headline" id="Reception"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reception...</font></span></h2><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/what-zev"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/what-zev</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">REPORTS & MULTIMEDIA / EXPLAINER</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What is ZEV?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Published Aug 7, 2012 Updated Sep 12, 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) program is a California state regulation that requires automakers to sell electric cars and trucks in California and 10 other states. The exact number of vehicles is linked to the automaker’s overall gasoline and diesel sales within the state.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The program’s objective is to ensure that automakers research, develop, and market electric vehicles (EVs), which generate fewer global warming emissions than gas-powered cars, and which don’t produce tailpipe pollution (hence the term: “zero emission vehicle”).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The California Air Resources Board (CARB) manages the ZEV program, although it has also been adopted by ten other states (Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont). By directly requiring that automakers invest in clean technology, <b>the ZEV program is considered one of the nation’s most forward-looking climate policies, and a driving force behind an expanding market with over 40 zero emission models available to the U.S. public in 2019.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">What is a zero emission vehicle?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Under the ZEV regulation, three distinct vehicle designs are considered "zero emission," though to varying degrees.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Plug-in hybrid vehicles combine a conventional gasoline-powered engine with a battery that can be recharged from the electrical grid.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Battery electric vehicles run entirely on electricity and can be recharged from the electricity grid.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles run on electricity produced from a fuel cell using hydrogen gas.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How the ZEV regulation works</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The ZEV program assigns each automaker “ZEV credits.” Automakers are required to maintain ZEV credits equal to a set percentage of non-electric sales. Each car sold earns a number of credits based on the type of ZEV and its battery range. The credit requirement is 7 percent in 2019, which will require about 3 percent of sales to be ZEVs. The credit requirement rises to 22 percent in 2025, which will likely require less than 8 percent of sales to be ZEVs.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There are also restrictions on the amount of credits that can come from ‘transitional’ ZEVs that still have an engine. In 2019, plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) can only account for 43 percent of credits, meaning at least 57 percent must originate from battery electric vehicles (BEVs) or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCEVs).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For example, an automaker selling 100,000 cars in California in 2018 will need at least 7,000 ZEV credits, with at least 4,000 coming from battery-electric or fuel cell vehicle sales. However, this does not mean they’ll need to sell 7,000 electric cars and trucks to comply, as most ZEVs generate more than one credit per vehicle (see below).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vehicle credit formula</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Automakers earn credits by selling zero emission cars and trucks. The credit per vehicle varies with drivetrain type and electric range. From 2018 onwards, plug-in hybrids—which only partially drive on electricity—receive between 0.4 and 1.3 credits per vehicle sold. Battery electric and fuel cell vehicles receive between 1 and 4 credits, based on range.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2017 ZEV Credits [graF?]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For example: the Tesla Model S, which boasts a range of more than 200 miles, is eligible for 3.3 credits, while the 84-mile range Nissan Leaf is credited at 1.8 ZEV credits per car sold.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Because not all vehicles receive a flat 1 credit per sale, the ZEV credit percentage does not directly reflect the EV sales percentage. CARB’s most recent assessment of the ZEV program estimates automakers will need to reach less than 8 percent ZEV sales by 2025 to meet the 22 percent ZEV credit requirement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Banking and trading</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Manufacturers are allowed to carry over excess credits from one year to the next. Called “banking,” the practice has grown since 2012, thanks to extra credits and ZEV sales in California that outpaced the relatively low regulatory starting requirements.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition, automakers can purchase or trade ZEV credits from other manufacturers. Because it only sells EVs and has no compliance obligation of its own, Tesla has produced and sold significant numbers of ZEV credits to other traditional carmakers.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As of October 2018, manufacturers had banked over 816,000 BEV/FCEV credits and 251,000 PHEV credits, enough to comply through with the regulation through 2022 with no new ZEV sales.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For the ten other states that adopted the ZEV regulation, the credit structure for electric vehicle sales remains essentially the same as in California. However, sales requirements in these other states are affected by two provisions in the ZEV regulation that don't apply to California: "travel" and "pooling."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The travel provision, which largely phased out after 2017, allowed automakers to receive credits in all other ZEV states for vehicles sold in California, proportional to the vehicles sales in the states. For example: if a car company sold a ZEV earning two credits in California, they received two credits in a ZEV state that had the same sales as California and one credit in a state with ½ the sales of California. They received the proportional credits in all states that had ZEV programs, despite only selling one vehicle (in California).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As a result of the travel provision, auto companies accumulated sizeable credit banks in states where they hadn’t sold many electric cars or trucks. The provision also created an incentive to concentrate sales of battery electric and fuel cell vehicles in California. As of 2019 the travel provision has phased out, except for fuel cell vehicles. This should increase model availability and sales numbers outside California.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The pooling provision allows automakers to over-comply in one eastern ZEV state and transfer the extra credits to another eastern ZEV state. Unlike the travel provision, pooling avoids the double-counting issue, and still requires that an actual vehicle is produced and sold before credit is rewarded and transferred.</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Toyota Prius</b> (<span class="rt-commentedText nowrap" style="white-space: nowrap;"><span class="IPA nopopups noexcerpt"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/English" title="Help:IPA/English" style="background: none; text-decoration-line: none !important;">/<span style="border-bottom: 1px dotted;"><span title="/ˈ/: primary stress follows">ˈ</span><span title="'p' in 'pie'">p</span><span title="'r' in 'rye'">r</span><span title="/iː/: 'ee' in 'fleece'">iː</span><span title="/ə/: 'a' in 'about'">ə</span><span title="'s' in 'sigh'">s</span></span>/</a></span></span>; Japanese:トヨタ プリウス <i>Toyota Puriusu</i>) is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_hybrid" class="mw-redirect" title="Full hybrid" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">full</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_electric_vehicle" title="Hybrid electric vehicle" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">hybrid electric</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile" class="mw-redirect" title="Automobile" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">automobile</a> developed and manufactured by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota" title="Toyota" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Toyota</a> since 1997. Initially offered as a 4-door <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedan(automobile)" title="Sedan (automobile)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">sedan</a>, it has been produced only as a 4-door <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liftback" class="mw-redirect" title="Liftback" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">liftback</a> since 2003.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In 2007, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_Protection_Agency" title="United States Environmental Protection Agency" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">United States Environmental Protection Agency</a> (EPA) and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Air_Resources_Board" title="California Air Resources Board" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">California Air Resources Board</a> (CARB) rated the Prius as among the cleanest vehicles sold in the United States, based on smog-forming emissions.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a></sup> The 2018 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_year" title="Model year" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">model year</a> Prius Eco ranks as the second most fuel efficient gasoline-powered car available in the US without <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicle" title="Plug-in electric vehicle" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">plug-in capability</a>, following the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_Ioniq" title="Hyundai Ioniq" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Hyundai Ioniq</a> "Blue".<sup id="cite_ref-2016PriusEcoTop_2-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-2016PriusEcoTop-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-EPAtop10_for_2018_3-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-EPAtop10_for_2018-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Prius first went on sale in Japan and other countries in 1997, and was available at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota#Japan" title="Toyota" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">all four Toyota Japan dealership chains</a>, making it the first mass-produced hybrid vehicle.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a></sup> It was subsequently introduced worldwide in 2000.<sup id="cite_ref-TMC4mi_5-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-TMC4mi-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a></sup> The Prius is sold in over 90 markets, with Japan and the United States being its largest markets.<sup id="cite_ref-TMC9miHEVs_6-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-TMC9miHEVs-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a></sup> Global cumulative Prius <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liftback" class="mw-redirect" title="Liftback" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">liftback</a> sales reached the milestone 1 million vehicle mark in May 2008,<sup id="cite_ref-Toyota0909_7-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-Toyota0909-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a></sup> 2 million in September 2010,<sup id="cite_ref-GCC100710_8-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-GCC100710-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[8]</a></sup> and passed the 3 million mark in June 2013.<sup id="cite_ref-Prius3mi_9-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-Prius3mi-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a></sup> Cumulative sales of one million were achieved in the U.S. by early April 2011,<sup id="cite_ref-US1million_10-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-US1million-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a></sup> and Japan reached the 1 million mark in August 2011.<sup id="cite_ref-JP1million_11-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-JP1million-11" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[11]</a></sup> As of January 2017, the Prius liftback was the world's top selling hybrid car with almost 4 million units sold.<sup id="cite_ref-TMC10miHEVs_12-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-TMC10miHEVs-12" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[12]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In 2011, Toyota expanded the Prius family to include the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius_V" title="Toyota Prius V" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Prius v</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, an extended hatchback, and the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius_C" title="Toyota Prius C" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Prius c</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, a subcompact hatchback. The production version of the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius_Plug-in_Hybrid" title="Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Prius plug-in hybrid</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> was released in 2012. The second generation of the plug-in variant, the Prius Prime, was released in the U.S. in November 2016.</span><sup id="cite_ref-1stPriusPrime_13-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-1stPriusPrime-13" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[13]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The Prime achieved the highest </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_per_gallon_equivalent" class="mw-redirect" title="Miles per gallon equivalent" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">miles per gallon equivalent</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> (MPGe) rating in </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-electric_mode" class="mw-redirect" title="All-electric mode" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">all-electric mode</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> of any vehicle rated by EPA with an </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine" title="Internal combustion engine" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">internal combustion engine</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-EPAmostMPGe_14-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-EPAmostMPGe-14" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[14]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-EPAMost2017_15-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-EPAMost2017-15" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[15]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Global sales of the Prius c variant passed the </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">one million mark during the first half of 2015</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><sup id="cite_ref-TMC8miHEVs_16-0" class="reference" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-TMC8miHEVs-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[16]</a></sup><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Prius family totaled global cumulative sales of 6.1 million units in January 2017, representing 61% of the 10 million hybrids sold worldwide by Toyota since 1997.<sup id="cite_ref-TMC10miHEVs_12-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-TMC10miHEVs-12" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">[12]</a></sup></span></font></p><div id="toc" class="toc" role="navigation" aria-labelledby="mw-toc-heading" style="border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); padding: 7px; display: table;"><div class="toctitle" lang="en" dir="ltr" style="text-align: center; direction: ltr;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><ul style="list-style-image: none; margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Etymology_and_terminology" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Etymology and terminology</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#First_generation(XW10;1997%E2%80%932003)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">First generation (XW10; 1997–2003)</span></font></a><ul style="list-style-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#NHW10(1997%E2%80%932000)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">NHW10 (1997–2000)</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#NHW11(2000%E2%80%932003)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">NHW11 (2000–2003)</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Second_generation(XW20;2003%E2%80%932009)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Second generation (XW20; 2003–2009)</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Third_generation(XW30;2009%E2%80%932015)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">4</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Third generation (XW30; 2009–2015)</span></font></a><ul style="list-style-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Awards" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">4.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Awards</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Fourth_generation(XW50;2015-present)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">5</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Fourth generation (XW50; 2015-present)</span></font></a><ul style="list-style-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-9" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#2018_facelift" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">5.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">2018 facelift</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-10" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Prius_family" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">6</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Prius family</span></font></a><ul style="list-style-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-11" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Prius_Plug-in_Hybrid" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">6.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Prius Plug-in Hybrid</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-12" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Prius_Prime" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">6.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Prius Prime</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-13" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Prius_v" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">6.3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Prius v</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-14" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Prius_c" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">6.4</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Prius c</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-15" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Sales" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">7</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Sales</span></font></a><ul style="list-style-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-16" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Overview" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">7.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Overview</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-17" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Liftback_sales" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">7.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Liftback sales</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-18" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Sales_of_non-liftback" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">7.3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Sales of non-liftback</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-19" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Design_and_technology" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">8</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Design and technology</span></font></a><ul style="list-style-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-20" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#EV_mode" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">8.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">EV mode</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-21" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Batteries" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">8.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Batteries</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-22" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Battery_life_cycle" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">8.3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Battery life cycle</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-23" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Air_conditioning(HVAC)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">8.4</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Air conditioning (HVAC)</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-24" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Environmental_impact" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">9</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Environmental impact</span></font></a><ul style="list-style-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-25" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Fuel_economy_and_emissions" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">9.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Fuel economy and emissions</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-26" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Lifetime_energy_usage" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">9.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Lifetime energy usage</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-27" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Electromagnetic_field_levels" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">9.3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Electromagnetic field levels</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-28" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Quietness" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">9.4</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Quietness</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-29" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Marketing_and_culture" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">10</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Marketing and culture</span></font></a><ul style="list-style-image: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-30" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#CO2_advertising" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">10.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">CO2 advertising</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-31" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Political_symbolism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">10.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Political symbolism</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-32" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#DARPA_driverless_edition" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">10.3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">DARPA driverless edition</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-33" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Motorsports" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">11</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Motorsports</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-34" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#Government_and_corporate_incentives" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">12</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Government and corporate incentives</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-35" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#See_also" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">13</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">See also</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-36" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">14</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">References</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-37" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#External_links" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">15</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">External links</span></font></a></li></ul></div><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Etymology_and_terminology">Etymology and terminology</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span></span></font></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/prius" class="extiw" title="wikt:prius" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Prius</a> is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin" title="Latin" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Latin</a> word meaning "first", "original", "superior" or "to go before".<sup id="cite_ref-17" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-17" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[17]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span id="English_plural_vote">In February 2011, Toyota USA asked the US public to decide on what the most proper <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_plural" class="mw-redirect" title="English plural" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">plural</a> form of Prius should be, with choices including Prien, Prii, Prium, Prius, or Priuses.<sup id="cite_ref-18" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-18" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[18]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-19" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-19" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[19]</a></sup> The company announced on 20 February that "Prii" was the most popular choice, and the new official plural designation in the US.<sup id="cite_ref-plural-usatoday_20-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-plural-usatoday-20" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[20]</a></sup></span></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">In Latin <i>prius</i> is the neuter singular of the comparative form (<i>prior, prior, prius</i>) of an adjective with only comparative and superlative (the superlative being <i>primus, prima, primum</i>). As with all neuter words, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_declension#Comparative_and_superlative_forms_of_adjectives" title="Latin declension" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Latin plural</a> is <i>priora</i>, but that brand name was used by the <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lada_Priora" title="Lada Priora" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Lada Priora</a></i> in 2007. Despite the "official" plural form used by Toyota USA, "Priuses" is widely used in English.<sup id="cite_ref-21" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-21" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[21]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></p><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Fuel_economy_and_emissions">Fuel economy and emissions</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Toyota_Prius&action=edit§ion=25" title="Edit section: Fuel economy and emissions" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h3><dl style="margin-top: 0.2em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><dt style="font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">United States</font></dt></dl><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Since its introduction, the Toyota Prius has been among the best fuel economy vehicles available in the United States, and for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_year" title="Model year" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">model year</a> 2012, the Prius family has three models among the 10 most fuel-efficient cars sold in the country as rated by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_Protection_Agency" title="United States Environmental Protection Agency" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">US Environmental Protection Agency</a> (EPA).<sup id="cite_ref-EPAtop10_176-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-EPAtop10-176" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[176]</a></sup> After the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Insight#First_generation(1999%E2%80%932006)" title="Honda Insight" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Honda Insight first generation</a> was discontinued in September 2006, the Prius liftback became the most fuel-efficient car sold in the American market,<sup id="cite_ref-EPAtop10_176-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-EPAtop10-176" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[176]</a></sup> <sup id="cite_ref-177" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-177" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[177]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-178" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-178" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[178]</a></sup> until it was topped by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Volt" title="Chevrolet Volt" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Chevrolet Volt</a> in December 2010, as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_hybrid" title="Plug-in hybrid" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">plug-in hybrid</a> was rated by EPA with an overall combined city/highway gasoline-electricity fuel economy of 60 mpg<sub style="line-height: 1;">‑US</sub> (3.9 L/100 km; 72 mpg<sub style="line-height: 1;">‑imp</sub>) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_per_gallon_gasoline_equivalent" title="Miles per gallon gasoline equivalent" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">equivalent</a> (MPG-e).<sup id="cite_ref-179" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-179" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[179]</a></sup> According to the EPA, for the model year 2012, and when only gasoline-powered vehicles are considered (excluding <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-electric_car" class="mw-redirect" title="All-electric car" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">all-electric cars</a>), the Prius c ranks as the most fuel-efficient <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_car" title="Compact car" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">compact car</a>, the Prius liftback as the most fuel-efficient <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midsize_car" class="mw-redirect" title="Midsize car" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">midsize car</a>, and the Prius v as the most fuel-efficient midsize <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Station_wagon" title="Station wagon" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">station wagon</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-EPABestClass_180-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-EPABestClass-180" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[180]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">More fossil fuel is needed to build hybrid vehicles than conventional cars but reduced emissions when running the vehicle more than outweigh this.<sup id="cite_ref-181" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius#cite_note-181" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[181]</a>...</sup></font></p><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/11/07/toyota-gm-side-trump-clean-car-rollbacks">https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/11/07/toyota-gm-side-trump-clean-car-rollbacks</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://ecowatch.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=214ab5fbb3f6015d74ffab4ec&id=bb349bcf7c&e=c2e8fdabfa" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">GM, Chrysler, Toyota, Fiat Side With Trump in Fuel Efficiency War Against California</a>
</font><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/toyota-mirai-electric-car-2640583126.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.ecowatch.com/toyota-mirai-electric-car-2640583126.html</font></a></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...Hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles, or FCEVs, <a href="https://www.toyotasantamonica.com/fuel-cell-vehicle-history-and-developments/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none; line-height: 1.5;">have been in development for decades</a> but only commercially available since 2016. Toyota, Honda and Hyundai are the only car companies that sell them in the U.S.</font></p><div class="rebellt-item col1" data-id="2" data-is-image="False" data-reload-ads="false" id="rebelltitem2" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Approximately 1,100 have been sold so far in California,</b> according to the Department of Motor Vehicles.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If the very notion of a hydrogen car conjures images of the Hindenburg exploding into flames, that fear is largely unjustified. Yes, hydrogen is flammable. But so is gasoline. The two fuels are roughly comparable in terms of safety.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One advantage of a hydrogen car over a plug-in is that it only takes about five minutes to fill up. However, <a href="https://cafcp.org/stationmap" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none; line-height: 1.5;">there are only 40 places</a> to do it in California — at least right now.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And then there's the cost.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><a href="https://www.kbb.com/toyota/mirai/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none; line-height: 1.5;">Buying one is about $60,000</a>, which is roughly the same as a plug-in electric, but <a href="https://mediaroom.kbb.com/2019-06-03-Average-New-Car-Prices-Up-Nearly-4-Percent-Year-Over-Year-for-May-2019-According-to-Kelley-Blue-Book" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none; line-height: 1.5;">almost double the average price</a> Americans are currently paying for a new vehicle.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Riverside startup <a href="http://www.stratosshare.com/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration-color: rgb(82, 149, 70); font-weight: bold; outline: none; line-height: 1.5;">StratosShare</a> has a plan to make them more accessible and affordable. You can rent them by the hour, day or week, starting at $10 for 60 minutes — fuel and insurance included. Drivers can use an app to locate, reserve, pay for and unlock a zero-emissions Toyota Mirai....</font></p></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">who killed electric car CA zero emission led to prius?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">but?!</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://gas2.org/2016/10/08/exxon-father-toyota-prius-hybrid/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://gas2.org/2016/10/08/exxon-father-toyota-prius-hybrid/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><header class="entry-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h1 class="entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.2; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 5px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Was Exxon The Father Of The Toyota Prius Hybrid?</font></h1><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div></header><div class="below-entry-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 20px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="posted-on" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 10px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://gas2.org/2016/10/08/exxon-father-toyota-prius-hybrid/" title="8:05 AM" rel="bookmark" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"><span class="fa fa-calendar-o" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1; display: inline-block; text-rendering: auto; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transform: translate(0px, 0px); padding-right: 3px;"> <time class="entry-date published" datetime="2016-10-08T08:05:44-05:00" style="box-sizing: border-box;">October 8, 2016</time></span></a></span> <span class="byline" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 10px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="fa fa-user" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1; display: inline-block; text-rendering: auto; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transform: translate(0px, 0px); padding-right: 5px;"><a class="url fn n" href="https://gas2.org/author/stephenhanley/" title="Steve Hanley" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Steve Hanley</a></span></span> </span></font></div><div class="below-entry-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 20px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> <span class="tag-links" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 10px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="fa fa-tags" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1; display: inline-block; text-rendering: auto; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transform: translate(0px, 0px); padding-right: 5px;"><a href="https://gas2.org/tag/ac-electric-motor/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">AC electric motor</a>, <a href="https://gas2.org/tag/chrysler-cordoba-hybrid/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Chrysler Cordoba Hybrid</a>, <a href="https://gas2.org/tag/exxon/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">exxon</a>, <a href="https://gas2.org/tag/first-hybrid-car/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">first hybrid car</a>, <a href="https://gas2.org/tag/inverter/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">inverter</a>,<a href="https://gas2.org/tag/lithiim-ion-battery/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">lithiim ion battery</a>, <a href="https://gas2.org/tag/toyota-cressida-hybrid/" rel="tag" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Toyota Cressida Hybrid</a></span></span></font></div><div class="entry-content clearfix" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">It started with the first Arab oil embargo in 1973</b><span style="font-weight: inherit;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Suddenly, America didn’t have access to cheap gasoline any more and the term “gas guzzler” first began appearing in news reports</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. Signs that said “NO GAS” became a regular part of the landscape as drivers fought to get a few precious drops of gasoline. The federal government imposed the first ever fuel economy standards on automakers. From then on, ads for new cars would focus on miles per gallon instead of cubic inches.</span></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">After that first oil embargo, Exxon created a research division under the umbrella of its venture capital group known as Exxon Enterprises, Inc, or EEI. The goal was to find an alternative to the gasoline engine</b><span style="font-weight: inherit;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> For a brief moment in time, Exxon — soon to become the largest oil company in history — was at the forefront of automotive research. Its goal was to create the world’s first hybrid car, a vehicle that would couple an electric motor with a small gasoline engine to get fuel economy unheard of until that time.</span></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The goal was to enable a large American car like the Chrysler Cordoba (older readers will remember it as the car that featured “fine Corinthian leather”) to get 27 miles per gallon — approximately double what the regular production car was capable of.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-align: justify;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span id="more-50783" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /></font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.2; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 18px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">New Technology Needed</font></h3><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But before a hybrid could become a reality, it needed a battery and a newfangled gizmo called an inverter. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Exxon became a leader in lithium-ion battery research.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That quest formed the foundation for the batteries that powered the first portable digital devices like the iPhone</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: inherit;">.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Today, lithium-ion battery cells are the basis for almost every hybrid and electric car in the world, including the Tesla Model S. Breakthroughs in chemistry and manufacturing techniques have made today’s lithium-ion batteries possible, but the basic research that started it all can largely be traced back to the pioneering work done at Exxon.</font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.2; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 18px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The AC Motor Idea</font></h3><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The automotive team at Exxon, called ELVECS, soon decided to concentrate on AC motors for their proposed hybrid powertrain because they are smaller and lighter than DC motors.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> They are also significantly less expensive to manufacture. The biggest issue was that inverter thing. A battery stores electricity as direct current. The motors the team wanted to use required alternating current. The inverter is the device that converts DC to AC.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-weight: inherit;">In November </span><b>1976,</b><span style="font-weight: inherit;"> ELVECS hired Richard Baker, a former MIT electronics researcher, as a full-time consultant. Baker had developed an alternating current synthesizer, or ACS, that could converted DC to AC. Equally important, it could vary the frequency and voltage of electricity to change the speed of the electric motor. Baker had invented the electronic equivalent of the accelerator pedal.</span></font></p><figure id="attachment_50785" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-50785" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px auto 1.5rem; text-align: center; clear: both; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); max-width: 100%; width: 924px;"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-50785" class="wp-caption-text" style="text-align: left; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0.8075rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Exxon automotive team (L-R John Corcoran, David McCalvin, Luciano Forte and Bernard Dennison) stands in front of the Toyota Cressida that was delivered to Japan. (Courtesy: Keith Dennison)</font></figcaption></figure><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other labs had built similar devices, called variable speed drives, but they were too large, inefficient and expensive to be practical. Baker’s inverter was small enough to fit in a car’s trunk. Today, inverters are the size of a glove box, but in the 70s, anything small enough to fit in the trunk was thought of as “compact.”</font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.2; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 18px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Building The First Hybrid</font></h3><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-weight: inherit;">The team realized that the research on lithium-ion batteries was going to take years to bear fruit. They wanted to get their prototype on the road as soon as possible so they could pitch it to various car companies. That’s when they outfitted a Chrysler Cordoba with their rudimentary hybrid powertrain plus </span><b>10 conventional lead-acid batteries</b><span style="font-weight: inherit;">and</span><b> Baker’s inverter. The car averaged 27 miles a gallon, </b><span style="font-weight: inherit;">which just happened to be the target the EPA had set for 1985 model year cars.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">The powertrain the team came up with included a 50 horsepower diesel engine from Volkswagen and a 100 horsepower AC electric motor normally used in aircraft. It was one of the earliest uses of an AC motor in an automotive application.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> “We were young and naïve for the most part. We sort of didn’t know what we didn’t know,” say Kevin White, a member of the team.</span></font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.2; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 18px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pitching The Hybrid To Detroit</font></h3><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At that time, the Big Three in Detroit were focused on meeting fuel economy targets by building smaller cars. Ford had its Falcon, Chevrolet had the Chevette, and Chrysler had the forgettable Alpine. The Exxon team put together a <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/sites/default/files/documents/CordobaBrochureExxonHybridCarTechnology.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">brochure</a> for the car companies with the bold title, “Detroit, your future can be both as big and as small as America wants it to be” and set off in search of customers.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Interest from the car companies was tepid at best. Detroit suffered from what was known as “Not Invented Here” syndrome. Each of the Big 3 had nothing but disdain for any ideas that didn’t come from within their hermetically sealed fiefdoms. The Exxon team found little interest from the American car industry.</font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.2; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 18px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Enter Toyota</font></h3><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But they did from Toyota. “We discussed back and forth with Toyota what they wanted to do,” says team member John Corcoran. Toyota wasn’t that interested in gas mileage at the time, he says. Their focus was on driveability. “We kept talking about fuel economy but Toyota wasn’t interested in that yet. They felt that problem would get resolved. They were more interested in whether it would drive the same as a regular car.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In autumn 1979, Toyota and Exxon signed a joint technology agreement. </b><span style="font-weight: inherit;">A small group of engineers from Toyota’s research facility in Susono, Japan, visited the Exxon Enterprises automotive group in New Jersey to see the Cordoba. Toyota decided to have Exxon outfit a Cressida sedan with the new technology. In early 1980, a white Cressida arrived in New Jersey where the Exxon automotive team installed, tested, and refined its hybrid technology over more than 18 months.</span></font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.2; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 18px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Hybrid Goes To Japan</font></h3><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In September 1981, Corcoran and the team delivered the electric hybrid to the Toyota research facility in Susono, Japan. They spent two weeks installing and testing the Cressida’s hybrid system. Their Toyota counterparts seemed pleased. The project the two companies had embarked on nearly 3 years earlier produced the roomy, driveable hybrid that Toyota was looking for.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Toyota began selling its Prius hybrid 16 years later. It was developed in part by a team in Susono and equipped with a gasoline engine and a 40 horsepower AC motor. “We shouldn’t overstate Exxon’s role in hybrid vehicles in the long term,” says Corcoran. “But if we planted any seed at all with anyone, it was that the electric motor in a hybrid could be an AC motor.”</b></font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.2; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 400; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 18px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Exxon As Innovator</font></h3><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">For a while, Exxon was one of the leading technology innovators in the world. But as time went along, oil prices declined and the senior management of the company elected to shut down any activities that did not have to do with pumping and selling oil. Today, the company is <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/did-exxonmobil-lie-to-investors-about-climate-change/" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">accused of deliberately lying</a> about what it knew about carbon emissions and climate change 40 years ago.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>But for those decisions in the boardroom, Exxon could have been then what Tesla Motors is today — a vibrant, exciting place to work and a company at the cutting edge of change in the world of transportation. Exxon chose to put profits ahead of people, a decision that could come back to haunt it as it faces civil and criminal legal actions in the courts.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Today, John Corcoran drives a Toyota Prius, a car he may have helped create 40 years ago. “The gates of history turn on tiny hinges,” they say. Corcoran’s team may have been one of those hinges.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.6; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Source: <a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/04102016/exxon-climate-change-hybrid-cars-technology-another-road-not-taken-electric-vehicle-toyota-prius" style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Inside Climate News</a> | Photo credit: National Archives</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05102016/exxon-climate-change-hybrid-cars-technology-another-road-not-taken-electric-vehicle-toyota-prius/">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05102016/exxon-climate-change-hybrid-cars-technology-another-road-not-taken-electric-vehicle-toyota-prius/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">many pix lnx</font></font></font></font></div><div>
</div><div>Politics & Policy</div><div><b>For Exxon, Hybrid Car Technology Was Another Road Not Taken</b></div><div>Exxon’s ambitious work on powering clean vehicles 40 years ago parallels its cutting-edge research on climate change during the same era.</div><div>
</div><div>October 5, 2016</div><div>
</div><div><b>Reeling from oil crises of the 1970s, the American auto industry grappled with tough new mileage standards they feared could make their gas guzzlers obsolete. In 1978, Exxon presented manufacturers with a novel solution from its own labs: a device to help power the electric motors of hybrid vehicles.</b></div><div>
</div><div>“The future of the full-sized car was questionable—until now,” according to a glossy brochure Exxon printed for the pitch. Exxon said its technology “is not in developmental stages; it is ready now. The prototype has been engineered, tested, driven, proven.”</div><div>
</div><div>Exxon by then was at least four years into pioneering research to find alternatives to gasoline-powered cars, driven by worries that petroleum would soon run out. The company had already unveiled the first rechargeable lithium-ion battery, which it thought could be a precursor of batteries for electric vehicles. Now, Exxon hoped its new electric drive technology could make mass production of hybrids feasible.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Exxon’s ambitious work on powering clean vehicles 40 years ago parallels its early, cutting-edge research on climate change, chronicled by InsideClimate News in its series Exxon: The Road Not Taken. </b>As with the emerging carbon dioxide problem, the possibility of devising alternative power sources for hybrid and electric cars spurred research at a handful of oil companies. <b>But none committed the same resources and manpower to these efforts as Exxon, the world’s largest oil company.</b></div><div>
</div><div>The American carmakers were not interested in Exxon’s technology, but Toyota entered into a collaboration. In 1981 Exxon’s engineers delivered a hybrid gas-electric Toyota Cressida to Japan. It was outfitted with Exxon’s technology that enabled use of an AC (alternating current) motor in a hybrid—cheaper, smaller and more reliable than DC (direct current) motors.</div><div>
</div><div>Exxon delivers hybrid car to Toyota</div><div>The Exxon automotive team (L-R John Corcoran, David McCalvin, Luciano Forte and Bernard Dennison) stands in front of the Toyota Cressida that was delivered to Japan. (Courtesy: Keith Dennison)]</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Despite that triumph, Exxon soon scaled back its investments in alternative energy, largely held by its venture capital unit, Exxon Enterprises Inc. (EEI</b>). A drop in oil prices cut into budgets that financed EEI. And a rising generation of top management wanted Exxon to return to its core oil and gas business, rather than fashion itself into a comprehensive energy company. Exxon sold its licenses for the battery division’s work and dismantled the electric drive team that built the hybrid Cressida.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Sixteen years later, when Toyota launched the world’s first mass-produced hybrid car, the Prius, it was equipped with an advanced AC motor.</div><div>
</div><div>The CO2 and alternative energy research efforts were independent of one another, but they’re artifacts of an era from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s, when Exxon considered evolving beyond oil and gas. Based on interviews with former Exxon researchers, internal documents and legal depositions, the story of Exxon’s work on low-emissions vehicles points to another road not taken.</div><div>
</div><div>“If I’d been smarter, I would have understood that Exxon was an oil business and probably was always going to stay in the oil business,” said Robert Hamlen, former general manager of Exxon Enterprises’ <b>battery division. “It was a company made of oil people.”</b></div><div>
</div><div>Exxon did not respond to requests for comment. But after ICN contacted the company about this story, it published an article on its own website entitled, “Pioneers of innovation: The battery that changed the world.” <b>In it, Exxon says it hired its chief battery researcher “in the early ‘70s as part of an initiative to expand the energy company’s reach.</b>”</div><div>
</div><div>Since Exxon curtailed its in-house clean vehicles research, greenhouse gases from cars and trucks have turned into an urgent problem. Auto emissions account for nearly a quarter of heat-trapping gases. For the world to rein in emissions so that average global temperatures do not rise beyond 2 degrees Celsius, at least 20 percent of vehicles worldwide, or 100 million cars, need to be electric by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency. There are only about 1 million on the roads today.</div><div>
</div><div>Exxon had grown skeptical of fully electric vehicles, or EVs, over the course of its 10-year research. Its position has not changed in 40 years. In its 2016 energy outlook, Exxon estimated that 40 percent of new car sales by 2040 would be hybrids, while EVs would account for only 10 percent.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“While a lot of improvements have been made, the fundamental challenges of how you do have a battery with performance that the consumer will require has not been [overcome],” said ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson in a 2015 speech, </span>according to Bloomberg News. “We look at the science and we think it’s a very, very daunting challenge.”</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Exxon Greenlights Idea That ‘Could Revolutionize Batteries’</div><div>
</div><div>EVs were not a new idea in the 1970s. Popular at the turn of the 20th century, they began to fall from favor in the 1910s, because they lacked the range to drive longer distances on the nation’s networks of new roads. They all but vanished in the 1930s with the discovery of large oil reserves around the world and advances in internal combustion engine technology.</div><div>
</div><div>In the 1960s, rising air pollution from tailpipes renewed government and corporate interest in clean energy vehicles. By 1970, the oil industry saw opportunities in innovating beyond oil. U.S. petroleum production had peaked and oil-producing countries of the Middle East dominated global markets. That year, Victor Wouk, an independent scientist who would go on to make an early hybrid car, presented a paper at an oil industry conference about the challenges and rewards of electric vehicles.</div><div>
</div><div>The electric car could be “a treat that can be introduced via the bridge of the heat engine/battery hybrid vehicle over the next several decades. Everyone should be encouraged to promote the development of electric vehicles,” he concluded.</div><div>
</div><div><b>It was around that time that Exxon was taking steps to become a broader energy company. Interested in EVs, the company ended up tackling two main barriers: rechargeable batteries and efficient electric motors.</b></div><div>
</div><div>“Exxon was supposed to sell oil and gas, and here we were developing something that would be using less oil and gas,” said David BenDaniel, a vice president at Exxon Enterprises and now a professor of management at Cornell University. “We recognized the amusing aspect of it.”</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">EEI, the company’s venture capital arm in New Jersey, invested in solar and nuclear power projects, among about three dozen non-oil ventures, from fax machines to lasers. Exxon hired the stars from other corporate labs and academia to work on them. </span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Among those was M. Stanley Whittingham, a chemist the company wooed from Stanford University. Hired in 1972, Whittingham said he was given free rein “to work on anything energy-related, provided it was not petroleum or chemicals.” His new boss worked on superconductivity, the property of materials to conduct electricity with zero resistance.</span></div><div>
</div><div>A breakthrough came quickly. Six months after Exxon hired him, Whittingham showed for the first time that <b>lithium ions </b>could be inserted between atomic layers of the compound titanium disulfide (TiS2), and then removed without changing the nature of the compound. The process, known as intercalation, created chemical bonds that held a tremendous amount of energy. And it led Whittingham to make a prototype rechargeable battery. </div><div>
</div><div>Exxon's Rechargeable Battery</div><div>Whittingham’s rechargeable battery. (Courtesy: Kevin White)]</div><div>
</div><div>Further, his battery functioned at room temperature. For years, corporate and government labs had researched ways to make rechargeable batteries, but the compounds they used could only generate electricity at high heat. That made them potentially explosive. </div><div>
</div><div><b>Around 1973, Whittingham pitched the idea of rechargeable battery research to members of Exxon’s board of directors.</b></div><div>
</div><div>“I told them we have an idea here that basically could revolutionize batteries,” said Whittingham, now distinguished professor of chemistry, materials science and engineering at the State University of New York at Binghamton. “Within a week, they said, ‘Let’s invest money there.’ In those days, they were extremely enlightened, I would say.”</div><div>
</div><div>Whittingham led the research team, called the Advanced Battery Project, at Exxon Research & Engineering labs in Linden, N.J. Hamlen, the lead manager of electrochemistry at General Electric and a battery expert, was hired to head the engineering group that would make and test the battery.</div><div>
</div><div><b>In 1976, Whittingham published a groundbreaking paper in Science that announced the “electrochemical reaction of layered titanium disulfide with lithium…is the basis of a new battery system.”</b></div><div>
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</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">About a year later, Exxon entered into discussions with Swiss watchmaker Ebauches to use Exxon’s rechargeable battery, the first viable product based on Whittingham’s research. The watch battery could be fully discharged up to 10 times. (Today’s electric car batteries must be able to charge and discharge 500 to 1,000 times.) To recharge, the watch had a tiny solar panel.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Ebauches, later part of the Swatch group, </b>tested the battery by placing it in a hot oven daily for six months, Hamlen said. Exxon prepared to commercialize its new rechargeable batteries, which the EEI team thought could grow into a multi-million dollar business.</div><div>
</div><div>“The work by Stan Whittingham, who had been a postdoc in my lab before joining Exxon, was very important,” said Robert A. Huggins, professor emeritus of materials science at Stanford. “A number of changes have occurred in the development of batteries in the 40 or so years since that time, and lithium-ion batteries are now critical components in many important technologies.”</div><div>
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</div><div>Exxon Delivers a Hybrid Car to Toyota, Years Before the Prius</div><div>
</div><div>About a year after the Exxon board of directors greenlighted Whittingham’s battery project, a young engineer named <b>Ron Ricci was tasked with pulling together a team to improve the performance of electric motors</b>. Other scientists and engineers had built prototype hybrid vehicles by then. That included Wouk, whose 1974 hybrid Buick Skylark got 30 miles per gallon—double its regular mileage—and emitted 9 percent of the emissions a typical model did.</div><div>
</div><div>Ricci plucked a promising engineer, Kevin White, from a recently failed startup that Exxon was invested in, called Electromotion, which made electric vans.</div><div>
</div><div>Ricci, White and a secretary launched Electric Vehicle Control Systems (ELVECS), housed in a maintenance building on the edge of Exxon Research & Engineering’s large Florham Park, N.J. campus. ELVECS had the heady, experimental feel of a start-up, with the vast resources of Exxon behind it. “It was the best job of my career,” White said. “We were young and naïve for the most part. We sort of didn’t know what we didn’t know.” </div><div>
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</div><div>Kevin White (right), Ron Ricci (center) and John Corcoran (left). (Courtesy: Kevin White)]</div><div>
</div><div><b>In November 1976, ELVECS hired a full-time consultant, Richard H. Baker, a former MIT electronics researcher who had developed an alternating current synthesizer, or ACS, which converted direct current (DC) power to alternating current (AC).</b> Baker’s synthesizer was also able to vary the frequency and voltage of electricity to change the speed of the electric motor, crucial to controlling the speed of the vehicle. Other labs had built similar devices, called variable speed drives. But they were too large, inefficient and expensive to be practical, Baker, who is deceased, said in a 1980 document. Baker’s was small—compact enough to fit in a car’s trunk.</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At first, Ricci’s group explored the possibility of a pure electric vehicle. Jeep had made 375 electric postal vans as part of a pilot program, but the batteries’ high cost was prohibitive,</span> Ricci said. The Exxon team bought one “just to get electric vehicle experience,” he said. For experimentation, it also bought a low-riding sports car chassis that could be assembled from a kit. The team outfitted it with lead-acid car batteries, Exxon’s electric drive technology and a DC motor.</div><div>
</div><div>By the late 1970s, Exxon Enterprises understood that despite the advances of Exxon’s battery group, the type of rechargeable battery needed to power a commercially viable electric vehicle was many years away. So Exxon focused instead on deploying its ACS technology in a hybrid vehicle with lead-acid batteries.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The EEI automotive team created a brochure that showed off to automakers the hybrid prototype Exxon had built: a Chrysler Cordoba, which got 27 miles per gallon. That was the mileage target that the Environmental Protection Agency required of vehicles by 1985. </span> </div><div>
</div><div>“Detroit, your future can be both as big and as small as America wants it to be,” the brochure’s cover read.</div><div>
</div><div>Exxon's Cordoba</div><div>From the Cordoba brochure]</div><div>
</div><div>Exxon engineers drove the Cordoba around Florham Park and elsewhere while running errands to test its performance. Bystanders never guessed it was anything other than a regular Cordoba, they said.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Exxon approached major automakers with its ACS technology, including General Motors, Chrysler, Ford and Peugeot, said John Corcoran, a mechanical engineer Exxon had hired from Ford. The company most interested turned out to be Toyota.</span></div><div>
</div><div>“We discussed back and forth with Toyota what they wanted to do,” Corcoran said. Toyota was after driveability, he said. “We kept talking about fuel economy but Toyota wasn’t interested in that yet. They felt that problem would get resolved. They were more interested in whether it would drive the same as a regular car.”</div><div>
</div><div>In autumn 1979, Toyota and Exxon signed a joint technology agreement. A small group of engineers from Toyota’s research facility in Susono, Japan visited the Exxon Enterprises automotive group in New Jersey to see the Cordoba. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It had 10 Sears Die-Hard car batteries to provide electricity, and Baker’s ACS device in the trunk. The four-cylinder, 50 horsepower diesel engine came from a Volkswagen and the 100 horsepower AC motor was the type normally used in a small aircraft. Their hybrid was among the earliest to use an AC motor.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Toyota decided it wanted Exxon to outfit its largest sedan with the new technology. In early 1980, it sent a white Cressida to New Jersey where the Exxon automotive team installed, tested and refined its hybrid technology over more than 18 months.</div><div>
</div><div>Around September 1981, Corcoran and his colleagues delivered the gas-electric hybrid to the Toyota research facility in Susono, near Mt. Fuji. The Exxon team spent two weeks installing and testing the Cressida’s gas-electric hybrid drive system, and their Toyota counterparts seemed pleased, the Exxon team recalled.</div><div>
</div><div>Exxon delivers a car to Toyota in Japan</div><div>Exxon engineer John Corcoran in Japan with engineers from Toyota. (Courtesy: Kevin White)]</div><div>
</div><div>The project the two companies had embarked on nearly three years earlier produced the roomy, driveable hybrid that Toyota had sought.</div><div>
</div><div>Toyota would begin selling its Prius hybrid 16 years later, in 1997. It was developed in part by a team in Susono and equipped with a gasoline engine and a 40 horsepower AC motor.</div><div>
</div><div><b>“We shouldn’t overstate Exxon’s role in hybrid vehicles in the long term,” said Corcoran, himself a Prius owner. “But if we planted any seed at all with anyone, it was that the electric motor in a hybrid could be an AC motor.”</b></div><div>
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</div><div>Why Exxon’s Hybrid Car Technology Program Was Dismantled</div><div>
</div><div>Soon after Exxon’s automotive team successfully delivered the Cressida to Japan, Exxon informed the team its work on hybrid vehicles would end.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The reasons were several. Exxon by then was demanding a bigger, more immediate pay-off from its alternative energy projects. As part of that effort, the company bought Reliance Electric in 1979 to commercialize its ACS technology.</span></div><div>
</div><div>The acquisition quickly became a fiasco. The Federal Trade Commission sued Exxon to stop the purchase, arguing the merger would make the electric drive market anti-competitive. The agency dropped the case after Exxon agreed to restructure its electric drive work and hand the auto team to Reliance. But the managers at Reliance had little faith in the cost-saving promise of Baker’s ACS device and in Exxon’s team, according to former Exxon staff. They limited their interaction with Exxon Enterprises and ER&E, complicating the auto work and restricting progress.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>The price of oil had also peaked in 1980 and began to fall throughout much of the decade, leading to cost-cutting at Exxon. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">In 1981, Lee Raymond became executive vice president of Exxon Enterprises. He was part of a group of managers who rose in the 1980s that curtailed work unrelated to oil and gas, including alternative energy. Raymond recommended closing many of EEI’s ventures and selling others, eventually shuttering the subsidiary by the mid-1980s. At the same time, Exxon scaled back nearly a decade of leading-edge climate research, which had shown that combustion of fossil fuels had increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, threatening a warming of the planet and potentially “catastrophic” results. </span></div><div>
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</div><div>Traffic in New York City, 1980. (Photo: Getty Images/Keystone/Stringer)]</div><div>
</div><div>Exxon delivered its ACS materials and the hybrid Cordoba to Reliance Electric. It remains unclear what happened to the car. Exxon sold Reliance to an investment group in 1986.</div><div>
</div><div>The Exxon auto team members interviewed for this story don’t know whether the work with Susono seeped into the vast project that Toyota launched in 1993 that ultimately yielded the Prius.</div><div>
</div><div>A Toyota spokeswoman said the company could not locate any employees who could “provide any additional information on this program.”</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Likewise, the watches with Exxon’s batteries were never made.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“They said to us with some rationality, ‘We’re a multi-billion dollar company. Why do we need this?’” Hamlen said. “If I were to characterize Exxon’s new ventures in two words, it would be ‘unrealistic expectations.’ They thought that because they were good at oil, they could handle these new ventures in other areas, too.”</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The new web article by Exxon touts Whittingham’s battery as the technology that today “powers laptops, tablets, cellphones and most electric cars.” It doesn’t explain why it shuttered the program.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Hamlen and Whittingham kept a few of the button-sized watch batteries they made at Exxon. Recently, they tested them for a peer-reviewed paper to see if they would work after 35 years. They found that the batteries had retained more than 50 percent of their original capacity.</span></div><div>
</div><div>“If you make the battery right,” Whittingham said, “it will last for a very long time.”</div><div>
</div><div>ICN reporter David Hasemyer contributed reporting to this story.</div><div>
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</div><div>Neela Banerjee</div><div>Senior Correspondent, Washington, D.C.</div><div>Neela Banerjee is a Washington-based reporter for InsideClimate News. She led the investigation into Exxon’s early climate research, which was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service reporting and the recipient of nearly a dozen other journalism awards. Before joining ICN, she spent four years as the energy and environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times’ Washington bureau. Banerjee covered global energy, the Iraq War and other issues with The New York Times. She also served as a Moscow correspondent with The Wall Street Journal. Banerjee grew up in southeast Louisiana and graduated from Yale University.</div><div>You can reach her by email at neela.banerjee@insideclimatenews.org. For encrypted communication, use neela_banerjee@protonmail.com.</div><div>Follow @neelaeast</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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