Toyota's Bill Reinert lets loose on ethanol, li-ion batteries, plug-in vehicles
by Sebastian Blanco on Jul 18th 2009 at 5:35PM 
Toyota's Bill Reinert should be better known. With so many quotable statements coming from GM's Bob Lutz and Tesla Motors' Elon Musk, perhaps Reinert, Toyota Motor Sales' national manager for the advanced technology group, is just overshadowed in the OMG series. But, during a recent conference sponsored by Fortune in Orange County, Reinert made a play to get his dramatic words out there. How dramatic? Follow the jump to read on and see exactly what he said to Automobile Magazine.
That's the first law of Disney at work--wishing will make it so. Using ethanol for fuel is like electing the dumbest kid in school as class president. As for plug-in electrics, they're just not plausible right now. Lithium-ion batteries are too expensive by at least an order of magnitude. They're not energy-dense enough. And we generate a lot of our electricity from coal. I don't think Shai [Agassi, of Better Place] is being disingenuous. I think he really believes what he's saying. I see it all the time from those Palo Alto types. They think the whole world is like a computer company, and they're always trying to recreate the dot-com economy. You see exactly the same mind-set with Tesla. It's all going to work out. It worked out with eBay. It worked out with SAP. But transportation is a different world. I mean, Shai's bragging about driving an electric RAV4 with a seventy-mile range. How many of your friends are going to buy that car?That, friends, is just good stuff. Whaddya think? We also have audio of Reinert speaking at length on the state of the green car industry.
[Source: Automobile Magazine]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Nathan 5:53PM (7/18/2009)
The realest talk. One of the only smart people in the auto industry apparently.
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l.i.dave 7:49PM (7/18/2009)
Now we know why Toyota is in third place and falling in US sales.
tankd0g 7:05PM (7/20/2009)
Now we know why the US market is increasingly irrelevant.
itsaboutchoice 10:10PM (7/20/2009)
"Shai's bragging about driving an electric RAV4 with a seventy-mile range. How many of your friends are going to buy that car?"
Hmm.... 70 miles per charge. Seems that would work just fine as a commuter car, where I drive about 30 miles per day.
Stop burning gas and you:
Stop transferring wealth from this country to people that don't like us.
Remove the need for troops in Arab states to guard/defend/control nearby nations (save US troops lives).
Free yourself from crazy oil speculation
Free yourself from crazy oil companies manipulating gas prices
Are free to generate your own electricity from photovoltaics, no cartels there.
Can think clearly, the smog is gone.
etc... think for a bit... you'll come up with more benefits.
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Pudgie 10:58PM (7/21/2009)
His point is well-taken. Only the most ardent EV advocates are going to spend $30,000 - $40,000 to buy an electric car that gets less than 100 miles per charge (under normal driving conditions).
dwightB 6:05PM (7/18/2009)
Am I the only person that thought that was Steven Spielberg at first glance?
:-X
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Cartrash 8:16PM (7/18/2009)
Al Franken
gamedude420 11:58PM (7/18/2009)
i thought the same before i read the title. and no he wouldnt pass for al franklan
naggs 6:06PM (7/18/2009)
sounds like he is as sick of the unfounded optimism as i am
energy density, kWh/$, useful lifespan, ect. you bring these things up and people just respond "we are gonna change the world!"
if your not living in the real world, you ain't gonna change s*&t
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james 11:57PM (7/18/2009)
Typical "Ours is better than yours" exec talk.
Only problem is he is wrong, because his companies NiMH batteries are terrible for both the environment, energy performance and longevity. Li-Ion has it all over NiMH and there is nothing he can do about it. Why not let an actual engineer with a clue speak. Stupid PR people.
Also, it's not that hard to tune a modern engine for 100% ethanol and bingo, renewable fuel. Hardly the dumbest idea of the lot. Of course you still have the maintenance and oil lubrication requirements. Why not an E100 hybrid? Sure ethanol doesn't have the raw energy of petroleum but at least we don't have to refine oil to make it.
Seems to me Toyota is getting jealous about all the upcoming hybrids that feature better utilization of the technology than their Pious (sic).
jaguar879 4:17AM (7/19/2009)
"Also, it's not that hard to tune a modern engine for 100% ethanol and bingo, renewable fuel. Hardly the dumbest idea of the lot."
When you consider all that goes in to making ethanol in terms of resources... such as energy and water... and then look at the fact you only get a fraction of the mileage from a gallon of ethanol versus gasoline... then yes it quickly beceomes the dumbest idea of the lot.
PJ 4:45AM (7/19/2009)
"Also, it's not that hard to tune a modern engine for 100% ethanol and bingo, renewable fuel."
No, it's not at all hard to tune an engine for 100% ethanol--it's dirt cheap, which I assume was why Chevy was (most embarrassingly) touting its 12 MPG "flex-fuel" E85 Tahoe alongside electric cars at an alt-fuel media drive at the LA Auto Show a couple of years ago.
What their PR troops at LAAS didn't know--or expected the "hippy-dippy" crowd that gave a sh!t about such things not to know--was that creating ethanol is a subtractive process. That is, once you factor in the water, the harvesting, the processing, etc., it takes more energy to create corn-based ethanol than it would to just refine a full barrel of gasoline--especially since ICEs get worse MPG on ethanol than on regular pump gas.
Ethanol was (and is) a scam, and unfortunately for those involved, nobody bought it. Bring on the plug-in hybrids, where at least the source of the juice can evolve to more sustainable methods over time, and the cars can continue to plug into that same grid.
Nozferat 5:04AM (7/19/2009)
James...
Which upcoming magical hybrids are those? Oh yea....all those ones ready to be sold...yeah that's right. Seriously...what the hell are you talking about?
And as far as the environment goes...what makes you think making Li-Ion batteries is any better than the Nickel stuff? And where you do get this delusional idea that nickel based batteries are suddenly far worse for the environment now that they are used in hybrids?
What batteries do YOU use in your car now? And your flashlight? And remote control? Etc...what? Those don't count? Oh Iforgot..CNW doesn't have a memory that goes back any further than the Prius does it now.
naggs 5:20AM (7/19/2009)
its a know fact that Li ion batteries are totally non toxic, that is not the case with any other battery chemistry that i know of
Rush 1:33PM (7/19/2009)
James:
a ten second search would have told you that the guy has a masters in energy engineering.
a ten minute skim of the automobile mag article would have told you that he has also sold ferraris, worked on a ford assy line, and spends his free time tinkering with his porsche.
you can disagree with him, but why falsly state credintials and position? think, then type.
Rush 1:43PM (7/19/2009)
falsely
jake 2:19PM (7/19/2009)
@Nozferat
For one, Nimh batteries are more toxic than li-ion batteries like naggs mentioned, and you can build totally non-toxic lithium batteries (there are a couple of non-toxic li-poly batteries already out there) while it's impossible to do so with nimh batteries since the nickel itself is toxic.
Another thing is since li-ion is lighter than nimh, you save fuel from shipping the batteries (remember the whole Prius battery shipping deal).
Sure, we use nimh still in our home phones and maybe remotes, but don't forget we use li-ion for basically all our cellphones, laptops and portable devices. It's mostly a cost issue that we are still using nimh and lead acid. But given similar cost I think most people would choose li-ion, since it's just better.
Reinert is just helping Toyota justify it's actions. Toyota is reluctant to go full bore in li-ion and into plug-ins, in contrast to GM. They need to reduce the chance of the Volt overshadowing the Prius.
Kevin 6:10PM (7/18/2009)
"Using ethanol for fuel is like electing the dumbest kid in school as class president." He seriously caught my attention there. I thought this article was going to be a bash of this guy, of whom I have never read about before now, but it turns out that he is one of the few guys out there willing to put it straight and say things bluntly.
I am sick of the name calling and finger pointing about this downfall that is affecting the auto industry. If we had people willing to speak in such general and plain terms, as this guy has, we would be better off. We wouldn't have to deal with buricratic zombies dancing around issues when being questioned by the public and/or politicians. Give it to me straight, don't think up some fancy term to try to make me think your right when you haven't even given me an answer. Just tell me what will and wont fly.
Anyways, I would love for someone to walk down Main St. in Uptightsville, USA speaking like he does. Just to wipe the "Hybrids-are-Greener" smile off of some of the peoples faces.
Where my algae and switchgrass based biodiesel. I wanna drop this fancy idea that ethanol is perfect and will cure car cancer. Give me something that will power my car once our oil is gone.
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Stephane Dumas 7:44AM (7/19/2009)
Kevin
The switchgrass produce also ethanol, cellulosic ethanol to be more precise. The main problem was the ethanol source these folks promoted came from corn. And another source of ethanol less harmless then corn is...hemp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6cKjdIej04 http://www.wallstreetsurvivor.com/CS/forums/t/31402.aspx
Ligor 8:20AM (7/20/2009)
'ethnol will cure cancer' is what they say
reality is that when burning ethanol you produce acetaldehye, a known carcinogen - go figure the EPA doesn not track acetaldehyde as a polutant coming out of car exhaust and they just keep ignoring all the chemists telling them this and if we were to switch to ethanol (by some miracle that would allow us to produce it in large quantities) then we'd all start to see an increase in lung cancer and such due to that.
go figure, the meadia doesn't want to speak up on everything, only what they think will make then some $$