In a report by Japan's Mainichi newspaper on Tuesday, it was said that Toyota is considering to develop an electric vehicle with its affiliated company Fuji Heavy Industries (FHI), which owns the quirky Japanese car maker Subaru. The EV is targetted to be launched in 2012.
Toyota has a 16% stake in Subaru. Both company have establish a capital tie-up to develop new technologies and models. The first result of the collaboration is the FT-86 Concept compact sports car that is being previewed for the Tokyo Motor Show. Subaru supplies the boxer engine as well as manufacture the series production version of the FT-86 Concept.
While Mitsubishi has been going on a strong publicity drive hailing its i-MiEV as the world's first production EV from a mainstream car maker, truth is that although the i-MiEV have gone into series production in Japan, you still can't buy the car off the showroom. That is because the i-MiEV is currently only sold as fleet units to the Japanese government. Consumers can only purchase the i-MiEV from April 2010 onwards. Subaru on the other hand, have already launched the Plug-In Stella since June 2009, and yes you can buy it from any Subaru showroom in Japan for a pricey sum of JPY 4.725 million. The price however is excluding a JPY 1.38 million green car subsidy from the government. The Plug-in Stella runs on lithium-ion batteries supplied by Automotive Energy Supply Corp, a joint venture between Nissan Motor Co and NEC Corp. The car has a rated driving range 90km on a single charge (based on Japan's 10-15 mode driving cycle test methodology).
Plug-in Stella Concept shown.
The Plug-in Stella however is not Subaru's first EV. Prior to this, the company was already operating a fleet of electric drive Subaru R1, called R1e for use by the Japanese government.
Image by Subaru of North America, via Edmunds.
Toyota is said to be studying technical data from Subaru's Plug-in Stella. The paper also reported that FHI will eventually shift all battery procurement from Automotive Energy Supply Corp to Panasonic EV Energy, a joint-venture between Toyota Motor Co. and Panasonic. The car is expected to be based on the FT-EV II that is currently being previewed ahead of this month's Tokyo Motor Show.
The EV is expected to eventually be sold in Europe and USA as well by 2012.
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