At the official ‘plug-in’ to the future event was the Province of Ontario (Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Transportation), Ontario Power Generation, the City of Toronto and the AUTO21 Network of Centres of Excellence. The delivery took place at Toyota Canada’s head office in Scarborough on August 24.

“The McGuinty government is pleased to be a partner in this pilot project, which will help provide us with data needed to build province-wide charging infrastructure for electric vehicles - a core element of our Smart Grid vision,” said Brad Duguid, Minister of Energy. “The Smart Grid will not only play an important role in achieving our goal of having one electric car for every 20 vehicles on the road by 2020, it will also make it easier to bring smaller renewable energy projects on-line under our Green Energy Act.”

According to the event, the OPG will supply most of the electrons for plug-in electric vehicles and cars should be recharged at night when the demand and price are low. The City of Toronto’s Green Fleet Plan and Sustainable Energy Plan actions also directly relate to the initiatives of electrical vehicles and fit the partnership.

AUTO21 - a research and development program that trains nearly 450 graduate students - is also a partner stating “We’re excited to partner with Toyota on this initiative and provide an opportunity for some of the students to learn about the near-market technologies that are poised to play a role within the Canadian automotive sector.”

Toyota’s Ontario partners will share their Prius PHV, which will be fitted with telematics equipment to record vehicle and hybrid system performance.  “Toyota Canada is pleased to deliver the first Prius PHV to our partners in Ontario, a province that has shown great leadership in planning for a more sustainable transportation future,” said Yoichi Tomihara, president of Toyota Canada Inc. “We believe the Prius PHV will help Canadian drivers minimize their impact on the environment, and Toyota is grateful to have such important partners join us in gathering critical real-world feedback.”

The Toyota Prius PHV is designed to deliver a range of more than 20 km and top speed of almost 100 KPH on battery alone, said Toyota. It also has an onboard Atkinson-cycle gasoline engine to revert to hybrid mode. It achieves a fuel consumption of 1.75L/100km and CO2 emissions of 41 g/km “under specified driving conditions.”

“Canada has been selected as one of the participating countries for Toyota’s global test of the Prius PHV,” according to Toyota. “Five Prius PHV vehicles hit the roads this summer with 15 trial partners in 4 provinces in the first phase of a nationwide trial, including Ontario. This enables Toyota Canada to conduct technical and market acceptance tests unique to Canada’s driving experiences and climatic conditions. The real world trials will continue through the coming winter to assess Prius PHV performance under a range of driving and climate conditions.”

TOYOTA CANADA
www.toyota.ca

 
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