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[gregd]

"Also, GM sold the Nimh battery patents to Chevron, which refused to license them for larger battery packs (ending the source of Panasonic batteries for the RAV4 EV). Toyota actually made an unusual move of selling the vehicles to the public, even though they could have stuck with a lease like everyone else. If GM didn't make the patent move, Toyota could have continued selling the RAV4 EV.
Toyota RAV4 EV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"

This argument doesn't make any sense to me. Toyota DID make and sell the RAV4 EV gen 2 with the Tesla Li-ion battery pack after the patent sale. There is no way Toyota could have/would have continued using NiMH which makes the patent excuse untenable. And insinuating that GM was behind Toyota's decision to stop making EVs is illogical. Toyota position is that EVs are not practical. They have even produced ads bashing EVs over hybrids.

I think the stronger conclusion is that the oil industry has GM, and probably the rest, in their pocket. Why else would Chevron end up with a patent that they have no apparent direct use for? ("Pssst... Hey, GM! if you want to give Toyota some trouble, sell me the NiMH patent and I can embargo it for you.") Much of the H2 production currently comes from natural gas, so Toyota is included in this bunch. So, getting upset at the car makers, in my opinion, is addressing only part of the part problem. The oil industry needs to be included, especially since they have even more at stake than the car industry does.

So now the question is how the oil industry is going to (on their own, or be forced to) transition to a non-oil based energy economy? They have a huge installed and inflexible capital investment in rigs, ships, pipes, and refineries, and it's an easy bet that they are not going to let them go quietly. They need to find or create a large volume of oil-based products that don't fundamentally result in the product being burned, otherwise they will continue to "find ways" to keep their current products flowing to market by undermining efforts to change that. Unfortunately, I don't know of such a product or market. The only solution I can think of is to heavily tax the production of fossil fuels, and then give them a tax write-off for the permanent decommissioning of the equipment used in its production. Of course, then the financial and political lobby machines will kick into gear, because that will still fundamentally result in them being forced out of business...

Anybody have an alternative?

 

[jcaspar]

Again, the oil industry is more in support of Toyota who is dead set against EVs and wants to do anything for them to fail. Toyota is solidly behind gas and hydrogen (which is mainly made from fossil fuels). The decision to stop production of the RAV 4 EV was clearly part of Toyota's anti-EV plan. You can't be selling an EV and simultaneously bash them in the media...

Lexus' Anti-EV Ad Lives On

I still don't get how you say not having the ability to use a specific NiMH battery caused Toyota to stop producing the Li-ion version???

 

[stopcrazypp]

"Also, GM sold the Nimh battery patents to Chevron, which refused to license them for larger battery packs (ending the source of Panasonic batteries for the RAV4 EV). Toyota actually made an unusual move of selling the vehicles to the public, even though they could have stuck with a lease like everyone else. If GM didn't make the patent move, Toyota could have continued selling the RAV4 EV.
Toyota RAV4 EV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia"

This argument doesn't make any sense to me. Toyota DID make and sell the RAV4 EV gen 2 with the Tesla Li-ion battery pack after the patent sale. There is no way Toyota could have/would have continued using NiMH which makes the patent excuse untenable. And insinuating that GM was behind Toyota's decision to stop making EVs is illogical. Toyota position is that EVs are not practical. They have even produced ads bashing EVs over hybrids.

It appears to you are trying to quote me.

I'm referring to the original RAV4 EV. The reason it was discontinued was because Toyota couldn't get any more batteries for it directly because Texaco/Chevron disallowed licensing of the patent for anything other than a hybrid. Panasonic, which was making the packs for Toyota at the time, even fought a lawsuit over it (Innovan and Mercedes also sued Cobasys for the same reason later on).
Patent encumbrance of large automotive NiMH batteries - Wikipedia

Apparently in the last days of the Gen 1, Toyota was using spare parts to make them. And Toyota made the bold move to sell the cars. They didn't use the same excuse GM used about spare parts availability for 10 years after sale as a reason not to sell (to this day, I have not found an local/state/federal actual law that requires this). @TEG would probably know more about the RAV4 EV Gen 1 history given he owned one.

As for RAV4 EV gen 2, look at the timeline: Gen 2 came out nearly a decade later in 2012! But back when gen 1 ended in 2003, NIMH was the top of the line in automotive battery tech. The first production lithium-ion EV didn't come out until 2008 with the Tesla Roadster using commodity cylindrical laptop cells which large automakers were skeptical of (Nissan did a prototype earlier in the Altra, but later abandoned such cells for prismatic). It wasn't until 2010, with the Leaf, did the first production EV come out with automotive batteries (the passive cooled prismatic type automakers prefer). Toyota didn't contract with Tesla until Tesla demonstrated using commodity cells were viable in the Roadster. Even when they did, the industry remained skeptical: commodity cells were more volatile and had poor cycle life (disadvantages Tesla overcame using extensive temperature control, lots of space between cells, and a large capacity pack to maximize miles per cycle).

 

[TEG]

Actually I owned a Ford Ranger EV that used the same type of NiMH batteries as the original RAV4EV.

Patent encumbrance of large automotive NiMH batteries - Wikipedia

Cobasys - Wikipedia
(See "Patent dispute with Panasonic EV Energy")

Chevron and EVs – GM, Chevron and CARB killed the sole NiMH EV once, will do so again

 

[jcaspar]

Yes, I was referring to Toyota cancelling the second generation RAV 4. I don't think it took Chevron to kill the NiMH RAV 4 EV. Selling/ leasing only 1400 vehicles over 6 years and using a soon to be obsolete battery technology it was sure to be replaced with a more modern model, which Toyota did. The real question is why Toyota scrapped the much better selling, better performing Gen 2 RAV 4 EV???

 

[stopcrazypp]

Yes, I was referring to Toyota cancelling the second generation RAV 4. I don't think it took Chevron to kill the NiMH RAV 4 EV. Selling/ leasing only 1400 vehicles over 6 years and using a soon to be obsolete battery technology it was sure to be replaced with a more modern model, which Toyota did. The real question is why Toyota scrapped the much better selling, better performing Gen 2 RAV 4 EV???

Well, we wouldn't know, because it was Chevron's patent moves that directly ended it. It took a decade later for a viable alternative to be developed. If GM didn't sell the patents to Chevron, we could have had at least a trickle of EVs in the decade in between. Chevron ensured that would not be possible (only that hybrids would be). If lithium-ion wasn't adapted to automotive use, then that patent move really would have killed EVs completely until the patents expired in 2014.