Toyota Needs Higher Mileage and High Octane Thinking

When it comes to energy our future will look very different because it must. Our power for all of our needs from homes to vehicles will likely come from multiple sources with a common thread of cleaner, greener, more efficient and renewable where possible.

This transition away from petroleum will be gradual and evolutionary once again because it must proceed this way unless we want to drop kick an economy that is already bruised and dazed. I think any reasonable person understands our post petroleum days will open the door to opportunity for everything from solar and electric to clean coal and nuclear, to biomass and wind.

So it is more than a little curious that Bill Reinert, Toyota Motor Sales manager of the Advanced Technology Group, recently trashed most of the alternative solutions under development as wanton wishful thinking.

According to him, lithium-ion batteries are too expensive and not energy dense enough. And he also said “using ethanol fuel is like electing the dumbest kid in school as class president.”

Some of the most marvelous inventions in the history of man came from progressive, if not wishful, thinking that took time to evolve and reach and level of development that made the idea a real substantive contributor to society’s wants or needs.

Because a potential solution does not immediately emerge as a full-fledged contender that doesn’t check all the boxes doesn’t mean we should walk away. All ideas and technology improve with time, innovation, and dedication to reaching a clear goal. History clearly proves this theory.

Electric vehicles that used to be lucky to have enough power to go around the block now provide a relatively descent commuter type vehicle. Battery costs are dropping and energy efficiency is up 25%. And that dumb class president will probably look like a genius in another decade when ethanol production efficiency is twice as good. Ethanol already provides a 60% net energy gain and the amount of ethanol we are squeezing out of a single bushel of corn has grown about a third since it emerged in the late 1970’s.

Let’s keep moving forward, keeping our eye on the ball and make the incremental changes that have always gotten human kind to the next mile marker. Toyota can just keep driving in a circle while the rest of us move on.