Engineers at Toyota say they have tamed volatile lithium-ion battery technology, and can now safely pack more power at no significant extra cost, giving the Japanese automaker the option to enter the growing all-electric car market.
While rivals including Tesla Motors and Nissan began adopting lithium-ion battery technology nearly a decade ago, Toyota has largely held back due to concerns over cost, size and safety.
Lithium-ion batteries can be unstable and have been blamed for incendiary Samsung smartphones and smoking Dreamliner airplanes.
Having Toyota endorse lithium-ion will be a fillip for the developing technology, and gives the automaker the option to produce for an all-electric passenger car market which it has avoided, preferring to put its heft behind hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (FCVs).
Toyota says its Prius Prime, a soon-to-be-launched plug-in electric version of the world's top-selling petrol hybrid, will use lithium-ion batteries, with enough energy to make the car go around 60 kms when fully charged before the petrol engine kicks in.
