Toyota Admits Inconvenient Truth About Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Time: Prius Prime, RAV4 Prime

Toyota says the world isn’t ready for pure electric vehicles.

That premise is behind its push of plug-in hybrid vehicles (aka plug-in electric vehicle or PHEV). Most notably, the Prius Prime and and RAV4 Prime.

Plug-in hybrids like the Toyota models and Chevy Volt (now discontinued) have a backup gas engine that powers the battery when you run out of juice (typically between 30 and 60 miles depending on the model).

This obviates the need to rely on the public charging network. This can be especially convenient when taking long trips since a gas-fueled engine can extend the range hundreds of miles.

Toyota: Fast chargers aren’t always fast

A Toyota document circulated to dealers, cited by Jalopnik, claims that even with fast charging, getting to an 80% charge can vary wildly.

According to the document entitled: “There are three major barriers to widespread electric vehicle adoption in the United States”…

—“Only 12% of public chargers are fast chargers, taking 20-60 minutes to get to 80%.” —

Toyota is on to something. Indeed, pure EV manufacturers have wordy asterisked disclaimers on their promotional pages about fast charging.

While some promotional pages say that it only “takes minutes” to charge your car with a fast charger, there’s invariably an asterisk, which often gets closer to the truth.

The reality is complex: some EVs, by design, don’t fast-charge as quickly as others. Also, users are often at the mercy of the vagaries of charging stations: inoperable fast chargers and broken software can extend wait times for a charger.

And conventional statements like this aren’t very helpful: “Depending on an electric vehicle’s charging source and battery capacity, some drivers can charge their cars to 80% in as little as 15 to 30 minutes using a Level 3 fast charger.”

That sounds hopeful if you’re a first-time buyer in the market for an EV. But, based* on my experience, it’s not realistic.

The vast majority of public chargers are slow

More importantly, the Toyota document says the vast majority of public chargers aren’t fast chargers.

— “Most public chargers can take anywhere from 8-30 hours to charge.” —

Toyota is referring to Level 1 and Level 2 chargers, the latter is what you typically find outside large retail and food stores in the U.S.

And getting the necessary number of public chargers installed by 2030 is unrealistic, according to Toyota:

“To meet the federal ZEV sales target, 1.2 public chargers are needed by 2030. That amounts to approximately 400 new chargers per day.”

Toyota’s Vision

Toyota is offering a mix of hybrid, plug-in hybrid, all-electric, and fuel cell electric cars.

It’s worth noting that with the Prius Prime and RAV4 Prime, Toyota is, in fact, offering what General Motors offered for many years with the Chevy Volt, which hit the market in 2010 and was discontinued in 2019.

“With a full charge, you can take advantage of a longer driving range in EV Mode and potentially drive using only electricity for short commutes. And don’t worry—if you can’t or forget to charge, you’ll still be able to run on an efficient gas engine as long as you have fuel,” Toyota says on its plug-in hybrid promotional page.

Is Toyota right?

There is a campaign against Toyota by organizations such as Public Citizen, claiming that Toyota isn’t doing enough to wean the world off fossil fuel cars.

For instance, Public Citizen made the following statement this past week:

“Toyota has not only dragged its feet on ditching fossil-fuel powered cars and replacing them with zero-emission vehicles, it has lobbied to slow the adoption of emissions-free vehicles across the globe—endangering our health and our planet,” said East Peterson-Trujillo, clean vehicles campaigner at Public Citizen.

The Prius Prime and RAV4 Prime use fossil fuel. But Toyota sees this — as GM did with Volt — as a stepping stone until a better charging infrastructure is in place. (I asked Toyota for comment but did not hear back.)

More importantly, what impacts Toyota the most isn’t advocacy from organizations like Public Citizen but competition from the likes of Tesla. The American EV manufacturer may someday be as big — or bigger — than Toyota by output. That could have serious consequences for Toyota’s profits and global presence and force changes that Public Citizen can’t even imagine today.

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NOTES:

*I’ve been actively charging at public chargers in Los Angeles and surrounding counties over the last three years. How fast you get a charge can vary widely at DC fast charging stations depending on (1) number of chargers available due to demand, (2) how many chargers are working, and (3) and the speed of the charge — some fast chargers are faster than others…among other reasons.