2022 Toyota Tundra Hybrid
 

It is official. The new Toyota Tundra will have a hybrid engine

A twin turbo V6 + 1 electric motor = 437 hp at 5,200 rpm and 583 lb-ft of torque 2,400 rpm. I'm a bit surprised they decided to use Ni-MH batteries but that is tried and true technology .

Fuel economy unknown at this time.


https://www.thedrive.com/news/42430/...urbo-hybrid-v6

Curious if you had prior knowledge of this development, or rely on public information?

Also curious of the battery capacity, and why NiMh? As far as I know, that chemistry doesn't have a higher C rating for charging/discharging than lithium ion chemistries. I'd think ability to quickly charge/discharge would be among the primary characteristics of a small hybrid battery in a heavy truck.

I have no prior knowledge on Toyota and everything I post is based on public knowledge. I’m not going to get fired for sharing inside information even though my position gives me a lot of knowledge about my company’s future plans. (I know our product plans and GHG credit strategy for the next decade.)

My guess as to why Toyota is using Ni-MH.

1. It is cheap and they have decades of prior experience. Japanese companies tend to be conservative and go with what they know

2. Toyota has a joint venture with Panasonic that has multiple plants building Ni-MH batteries for hybrids. Production Capacity isn’t an issue.

3. It works. They’re don’t need real high discharge rates and with a truck space and weight isn’t an issue. This is a relatively mild hybrid with a single motor that generally is there to boost performance

Quite surprising once we consider Toyota has been mostly into full-hybrids.

Yeah, I'd like to see a Prius-like hybrid in the trucks. My assumption is that their eCVT hybrid tech could scale to larger vehicles. Perhaps buyers just wouldn't be happy with a truck that sounds and feels like the transmission is slipping.

IIRC the Hino 300 had the HSD backed by an AMT in the hybrid versions.

The Hino 195H has a drivetrain very similar to this Tundra.

https://www.greencarreports.com/news...ino-195h-truck

https://www.hino.com/hino-trucks-hin...html#driveline

I'm surprised as well.
Not only does NiMh lack behind LiIon in energy density, it is also far less efficient than LiIon as it has significant charging losses.
Meanwhile with LiIon we're talking about almost exclusively ohms losses, wich can be ridiculously small in normal use-cases, aka not switching between supercharger and dragstrip all the time ;)

From the description it looks like Honda's IMA.
Strange choice, as Honda nowdays uses something similar to HSD, while IMAs does not prove significant economy.
(According to this community, Insight becomes more efficient when you remove IMA:D:D)

Nimh is more friendly to extreme temperature conditions, both hot and cold. This makes this truck usable outside of California ;)