Toyota’s Plug-In Prius Heads for France

It looks like the Toyota’s new plug-in hybrid Priuses with lithium-ion batteries will be taking a spin in France. About 100 of the vehicles will be headed to the city of Strasbourg by late 2009 to be road-tested in a project with French utility EDF, the two companies said Wednesday.

Toyota and EDF have been working on plug-in hybrid trials since 2007, but those involved Priuses with standard nickel-metal hydride batteries. Those tests were expanded to the United Kingdom last year.

Toyota plans to launch its new plug-in Prius with lithium-ion batteries later this year, though that launch will involve only about 500 vehicles for testing with fleet customers. Besides those headed for France, about 150 will be headed to U.S. customers, Toyota said in January (see Toyota to Build All-Electric Car by 2012).

As part of the trials announced Wednesday, EDF and its subsidiary Electricité de Strasbourg will also set up several hundred charging points at homes, parking lots and along roadsides. The "innovative charging system" will link cars and charging stations to exchange information on vehicle identity, charging status and invoicing, the companies said.

It’s all part of EDF’s plan to build a nationwide electric transportation charging network (see Renault, EDF Go Electric in France). But beyond saying the two companies would work in a "technical and financial partnership with all stakeholders," it didn't name which partners it would be tapping for its charging system.

It might be Elektromotive. The Brighton, U.K.-based company has installed 40 of its Elektrobay charging stations, which use EDF technology, in London and another 40 in other cities. Those stations have been used in the EDF-Toyota plug-in trials. Earlier this month Elektromotive announced a partnership with the Renault-Nissan Alliance to work on accelerating electric vehicle charging station networks.

Other companies in the electric vehicle charging arena include Ecotality, Gridpoint, Coulomb Technologies and Better Place — the latter proposing a "battery-swapping" business plan in lieu of charging batteries that remain in vehicles (see Ecotality and Nissan Team on EV Charging Tech, Gridpoint Gets $120M, Buys V2Green, Coulomb Bags $3.75M For Electric-Car Charging and Better Place and Ontario Launch Project).

Whichever companies play a role, they'll have a challenge ahead. Utilities across the globe are testing systems to help them manage the power demands to come from an increasing number of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles expected to start hitting the streets in the next decade (see IBM Tests Smart Charging in Denmark and A V2G Test: Pool Electric Cars for Grid Needs).

They may also have financial support from the French government. French President Nicolas Sarkozy in October pledged €400 million ($549 million) to support the development of electric and hybrid cars. Last month, Sarkozy upped the ante by pledging €6 billion ($8.16 billion) to French automakers Renault and PSA Peugeot Citroen in bailout funding tied to pledges to develop low-emission vehicles.