Global market review of full and plug-in hybrid vehicles – forecasts to 2017

http://www.reportsandreports.com/market-reports/global-market-review-of-full-and-plug-in-hybrid-vehicles-foreca/

In the full hybrid arena, Toyota continues its utter dominance. Since 1997, it has made more than 2m vehicles using its Hybrid Synergy Drive system, and continues toward its goal of offering a hybrid variant of every model it builds.

Full hybrids, using a high-voltage battery pack of 1.0 to 5.0 kilowatt-hour (kWh), are distinguished from their mild-hybrid brethren by their ability to run on electric power alone, for short distances and usually at low speeds. The upcoming Porsche Cayenne system, by contrast, provides electric ‘gliding’ at autobahn speeds under light loads.

This report provides a global review of the full, and plug-in hybrids market. Data includes trends of full hybrid vehicle production from 2000 through to 2014, offering unit volumes by make and model. Separate data also provides volumes by vehicle manufacturer for plug-in hybrids from 2000 to 2017.

This report is an essential guide to understanding the sector by reviewing:

• where the market is right now

• every major vehicle manufacturer's latest activities, including coverage of: Toyota, BMW, BYD, Chrysler, Daimler (Mercedes-Benz), Ford, General Motors, Nissan, Changan, Chery, Faw, Geely, Honda, Hyundai, Jaguar Land Rover/Tata, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Subaru, Volkswagen Group (VW, Porsche, Audi), Volvo/Geely

• detailed estimates on market takeup by make/model

• technologies and definitions

• factors affecting the market (including oil prices, regulations, battery costs, electric utility capacity, 'wells to wheels' carbon balance, OEMs' control over technology, geopolitics of lithium
• regionality effects

Every major vehicle maker now acknowledges that it must have hybrid-electric vehicles in its powertrain portfolio. Their major market is in North America, along with Asian countries whose tax structures provide significant incentives for very fuel-efficient vehicles.

just-auto believes that the market prospects for full hybrids, those using parallel or power-split architectures that offer all-electric running (if only for short distances), are much rosier than those for mild hybrids of the sort popularised by Honda.

Use this report to:

• understand the size and scope of the market
• know what's driving the trends within the sector
• hear what the leading manufacturers' latest strategies are
• see where the future lies for the sector

Extract:

BMW has now launched its US-built sport-utility model with the Two-Mode Hybrid system, which was first offered by General Motors in 2008. In Munich’s case, the base vehicle is their X6 sports activity coupé, a tall fastback five-door vehicle that is built on the platform of the considerably more practical X5 sport utility vehicle, with which it shares production facilities in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

In line with its reputation for building sporting vehicles, BMW extensively reworked the control software of the shared Two-Mode system to eliminate any trace of ‘hybrid feel’. In between the transmission’s four fixed gears, its engineers simulated three additional ‘speeds’ using the electric motor and the various planetary gearsets running at fixed ratios. It is presently “the world’s fastest hybrid vehicle”, says BMW.

Why go to all this bother? Peter Tünnermann, who was project manager for what is officially labelled the 2010 BMW ActiveHybrid X6, told just-auto that the company’s goal was “to fundamentally change the view of hybrids” and create “a ‘non-hybrid’ hybrid”. And in that the engineers have succeeded. Aside from the barely perceptible engine shutoff when stopped, the hybrid X6 drives like any other fast BMW, with quick shifts from what appears to be a conventional seven-speed automatic. It is, in Tünnermann’s words: “the BMW of hybrids.”