Toyota 1/X Concept Unveiled...It's a Lighter Prius

Its actually surprising for Toyota to opt for carbon fiber composite on a Hybrid concept with intentions to replace the Prius. Carbon Fiber is not viable in terms of high or even medium volume manufacturing. RTM methodologies is still far too inefficient and expensive to even implement in high volume production manufacturing. Porsche GT can afford it since its a sub 1 million dollar vehicle, limited production... but a Prius?

I think its an experiment primarily.... but a car with 1/3 the Prius's weight would be epitome of eco-car... atleast for the next 15 years.

As of two years ago maybe Carbon Fiber was still to expensive, but the prices are dropping fast. Word is that after a Doctorate Student at MIT found out that Carbon Fiber made for better heat transfer than copper in CPU Heatsinks, many big private funds and large corporations like Intel and Siemens AG have been spending time on finding either new ways to make carbon fiber or mass produce it. So far there is not a true mass production system in place to make carbon fiber, as soon as a plant gets up and running we can expect to see the costs fall dramatically.

And Toyota is in the perfect position to do such a thing.

NO NO NO NO NO.

One bump and this car will be totaled.

Seriously need to go back to body on frame. Cars today are too unsafe!

Interesting design study. While the cost of carbon fiber is prohibitely expensive for a vehicle in this price point, it does show that Toyota and other car companies are trying new approaches to reducing weight and improving economy. (without sacrificing safety)

"NO NO NO NO NO.

One bump and this car will be totaled.

Seriously need to go back to body on frame. Cars today are too unsafe!"

I hope that was sarcasm. I'm assuming you have no knowledge of car design. I'll use a reference that might be familiar to you, when you're watching Nascar, when a car crashes, you see parts flying off of it and flying everywhere. The car is designed to fly apart and be crumpled instead of the driver inside.

Today's cars are the safest yet. If you think driving in a huge SUV from the 80s is safer than driving a new mid-sized sedan (like a Camry, Accord, Fusion, Sonata etc with full assortment of airbags) than YOU'RE WRONG. The mid-sized sedan might be completely wrecked but you've got a greater chance of surviving the crash. If the older SUV, the vehicle could probably be used to drive your family to your funeral.

Cars now are designed to protect the passenger at all cost. I guess someone came up with the insane notion that the car is less important than its occupants.

Also carbon fiber can be designed, depending on its intended use, for either incredible flexibility or fore incredible strength. That's why carbon fiber is used in applications like F1 cars and new figher jets like the F-22 Raptor.

Just because the car crumples and shatters doesn't mean its unsafe. In most cases it means the opposite.

This is the easiest way to move forward with more efficient hybrids. It is a excellent concept which shows how much efficiency can be achieved by simply cutting the fat. Cars today are getting heavier and denser with every new model. They maybe faster but 300 lbs fatter.

If cars are too unsafe today go live in a bubble

The frame isn't made of carbon fiber only. It's made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic. There isn't as much carbon fiber used in the car as you'd see on the aforementioned Carrera GT. Think of it like rebar, it's helps structurally. It doesn't use the same principle as rebar, but is the same concept.

If any of you have ever held this material, you'd see it's fairly strong. I've held a piece about 0.6meters long, 2cm wide, and 1cm thick. It's very light, but not as feathery as something made of completely carbon fiber. The outer of the material was simply plastic, but the inside had a few strips of carbon fiber woven in. It didn't bend at all, we even had a chance to stand on it between two steps. It very rigid also, twisting was out of the question. The group who produced it said it costs less than a dollar to make the piece, the most expensive bit was of course the carbon fiber. It's still not as cheap as stamping steel, but the production costs are by far cheaper. The most expensive tool the group had for production was the freezer they used to store the carbon fiber. Molding plastic isn't as expensive as casting iron or forging steel.

I think it's a good concept to recreate a material that has the same properties as steel, yet weighs much less and costs less to tool a facility.

Anyone who doesn't think Toyota can execute their concepts does not know Toyota. Carbon Fiber is becoming more and more affordable for a wide range of uses. Mass production is what brings cost down, there are no barriers that I could see to this thing.

Oh, and it is at 1/3 the weight of a Prius, or 2/3's less weight.