From Green To Black

AutoWeek reports: Toyota plans to profit from hybrids within two years. Let's assume they aren't fibbin'—wow, nice work, mates. Lots of automakers (Nissan, for one) have complained that hybrids aren't profitable and so to hell with them (Nissan has said as much, but they're going to make them anyway). The article goes into all sorts of detail as to what Toyota president Katsuaki Watanabe plans to do, but what we found most interesting was:

Toyota Motor Corp. wants to slash the electronic complexity of its cars by cutting a vehicle's electronic control units from about 60 to four.

Wow. What is that, like a 400 billion percentage reduction? Think of how less complex the systems will be (and how much simpler to service). We'd tend to think more reliable, too, because there are few pieces to break. Unless those 60 pieces never break to begin with. Anyway, we'll check back with Toyota in '08 to see if the hybrid stuff is profitable. Ford still claims to be on track for its massive hybrid rollout, you know, any day now.

Comments

[jeff]

More reliabe? Maybe, maybe not. Instead of having 60 different processors, boards, and chips, they'll consolidate many functions onto one. What if the controller for the window locks goes out and it's on the same board as the transmission controller? You'll be SOL!