Toyota: Electric cars 'too expensive' for mainstream

Electric vehicles are the clear favored technology for concept cars at the Frankfurt Motor Show this week. But Toyota, the leader in hybrid cars, thinks that the high cost of the lithium ion batteries will keep electric cars from penetrating the mass market for another decade.

Over the past three years, Toyota secretly tested lithium ion batteries as a potential replacement for the nickel metal hydride batteries now used in the Prius, according to a Bloomberg report

In its tests, Toyota concluded that lithium-ion batteries were safe and reliable, but the higher cost doesn’t justify a complete shift over for Toyota’s hybrids, executives said. As a result, the company will remain with nickel-based batteries for most of its hybrid cars, according to the report.

“Electric vehicles of today are less costly than in 1990s, but if you compare them with the other vehicles out there they are still too expensive,” executive vice president Takeshi Uchiyamada was quoted saying at a news conference at the Frankfurt show. “Unless there is a very big breakthrough in battery costs I don’t think electric vehicles can take a large market share.”

CNet