Would it be crazy to think??(⚡️)

Will Toyota make an Electric Supra


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carm857

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Do you guys ever think they will make an electric version of this car one day? After all, they did make a 4 cylinder car. This is just a for fun thread, would love to hear your opinions!
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Octane

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Tbh, I don't think theres really a market for it. I'm guessing the demographic for Supra owners vs. electric car owners don't really cross paths.
 

AustinGRSupra

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I would expect an electric MR2; would love to see it personally. If Toyota does it, my wife gets one
 

Tsar

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Electric cars are soulless. Not much interest from me. Maybe it will change with time. :dunno:
 

XtremeMaC

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there are speculations for hybrid for sure. Tada I believe mentioned something along the similar lines if I recall correctly, dubbed A100...
Unless hydrogen becomes more available, battery powered golf carts will increase. I can't blame anyone for liking them as they're, unless you drive 300 miles everyday, is very efficient, quiet, instantaneous and lower cost of total ownership (insert battery life speculations here)...
Once it becomes mainstream, you'll be able to choose and I'm sure like your ringtone, be able to set whatever engine noise you like out of the speakers..

Having said that, A80 to A90 too rather too long. So, who knows if in 20 years a eV Supra exists. We'll probably see other eV's from Toyota first... But I also have some doubts about sporty eV's. I haven't watched enough Taycan videos to comment if there is still Porsche heritage in it or not. CoG is low, chassis is stiff, albeit heavier, but all eV's have common enemy of weight. Make everything CF or graphene or whatever next gen to lower weight, increase cost. Wouldn't be expected of Toyota.. unless you wait 50 years for LFA-eV :D

</random thoughts off>
 
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KahnBB6

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Before a Supra 100% EV Toyota will make an A100 Supra as a gasoline-electric hybrid first with an emphasis on extra boost from the electric motor(s). It will still have an engine. Hopefully a turbo engine. They will have to do this past 2026 anyway.

But in the future...? Yes. I think a full EV Supra will be made.

Why? Well... because as long as there are passionate people at Toyota who "get" customers who love to drive (themselves), like high performance, like feeling connected to the car as a machine that they operate *AND* like as much driving engagement as is possible no matter what the propulsion system is, the Supra model should continue to exist.

EV's do lack the noise and drama of character-filled engines. That isn't going to be a small issue. And while some EV's (performance oriented EV's anyway) *may* have 1-2 gears, most will not. And even if they do they won't be interacted with by the driver the way we do with manuals or even automatics. Some people don't care while others do. I love shifting gears personally. It seems that particular interactive aspect of a sports car is not going to apply any longer with even a sports EV.

Most people react to the lack of sound though and I agree with them. But not all EV's are actually silent. They do make noise, just often not very much. I've whimsically thought of straight cut gears being the answer. Steve Saleen did this with his own modifications to a Tesla Model S and the result is a lot better than the stock car.

Lithium-ion battery weight is a problem and that is probably the biggest hurdle. Toyota has been pouring money into lighter, more energy dense, faster to charge and safer solid-state battery technology and perhaps by 2025+ that will bear fruit. Maybe. Same with their investment in hydrogen EV tech and infrastructure.

It's NO Supra but I got a chance to drive a Toyota Mirai a couple of years back. Surprisingly despite being an EV it made more noise than I expected due to its powerful variable speed twin fans that turn on to blow air onto some part of the hydrogen reformer stack system. Any time you took the pedal to the floor it would intermittently do this. It was slow... but interesting solely due to this noise it made.

Anyway what I'm getting at is that while the eventual shift from all hybrid gas-electric Toyotas to full-EV Toyotas is inevitable, the Supra should continue to exist into the EV era. It would be incredibly boring without it and that lack of a Supra already happened once from 2003-2019.

BUT... it's going to need lighter weight batteries and it shouldn't be a $100k+++++ supercar. And it should be a very low sportscar platform. Not a crossover or SUV or bland bubble/egg shaped thing that only has an optional steering wheel.

It should remain very much like what the A70, A80 and A90 are: high performance driver's sports GT cars that are solely about driver involvement. And which allow for tuning (without Tesla, John Deere and BMW style ECU/code lockouts).

An electric Supra will never make inline-six turbo noise. I mean... the sound of it could be added artificially but that's stupid for any electric car. The sound should be from the actual AC motor, the gearbox or reduction gear or some aspect of a high powered cooling or battery heating system that is totally audible.

Most of all, other than keeping the Supra small and beautiful, a far future EV generation *should not* drive itself. At all. It should remain a beautiful sports machine that requires the owner/driver to focus, pay attention and experience a communicative chassis on the road and track. It should be an electric GT sports car that is always a bit raw... kind of like how the 2JZ-GTE, 1JZ-GTE and now B58 engines are all just a bit "violent".

Powerful EV's can be a bit "violent" as well. VERY different from gas engines and much quieter but they can be tuned that way.

Right now with 2020 technology it seems like the only way to do a high performance EV is with a large and very heavy chassis. Hopefully by the time an EV Supra is even a consideration that won't be the case. Hence what we are hearing about in rumors for the MR2... but even a 100% EV MR2 may still be a way off unless it really does go full supercar soon.

...

In an automotive landscape increasingly filled with boring crossovers, SUVs (Wrangler, Bronco, FJ70, G-Wagen, etc. excepted), cars like the Supra, Nissan Z, Mustang, Camaro, Challenger, Miata, S2000 (dead), Veloster N, VW Golf GTI/R, Civic Type R, NSX, Nissan GT-R, Porsche 911, Corvette, etc. *should* continue to exist well into the EV era. All would be different due to the lack of engines in favor of electricity but if any of those cars are designed as true as possible to their heritage in styling, size, weight (close?), and overall CHARACTER as driver-centric enthusiast cars, they *should* continue to exist.

Personally any time Tesla announces yet another ever faster version of their Model S or 3 that blows away A90 acceleration times I am impressed with the actual running gear... but I am bored out of my mind. And it's not because the Tesla is electric. It's because the Tesla is a Tesla: It's a boring very non-driver-centric non-enthusiast car. It goes fast in a straight line but it's not a car you can have fun with going sideways at a track.

Their acceleration is great... but I don't care because everything else about them makes for a very DISconnected driving experience. They do not have to be designed like that but they are.

EV's are a challenging shift for sure but despite the loss of engine note and the technical challenges of packaging and weight and overall cost for horsepower and range, the main differentiating factor I see for car enthusiasts is the way in which an electric car is designed as an *experience* of the the human driving the machine itself and its character and abilities as a fun car.

The motivation to make a car communicative and *fun* to drive seems to be a narrow one in the 2020 EV landscape.

An actually fun to drive enthusiast car > insanely fast straight-line acceleration times.

The Porsche Taycan is a very impressive sports machine. I would love to drive one to have a firsthand impression. It's also REALLY heavy and REALLY expensive. The heavy part may become less of a problem in years to come but that's some ways off.

I'm not ready for the 911 to lose its flat-6 turbo engines but when Porsche finally makes a 911-EV that is as engaging and fun as possible and that is still squarely driver-focused without compromising the shape and character of what a 911 is... then that will be something eyebrow-raising.

Coming full circle to the Supra as a potential future full-EV generation... the same would have to apply for it to work. It has to be a true *Supra*... just with the best and most effective electric technology that fits the bill.

And for the time being that's why I'm of the belief that after the A90 finally ends production the A110 will still have a gas-electric drivetrain for the foreseeable future. Because unless we're talking $150k-$2M+ supercars the current technology limitations make it hard to conceive of a fully electric Toyota Supra getting it "right" with what we've got in 2020.

Years from now as A100 or A110 production draws to a close I think the technology will have made a lot more progress. To allow an all electric Supra to remain a true "Supra".

Just so long as self-driving is kept totally out of it.
 
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puzzled

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I would imagine they might change the name of the car, but a 2 seater EV sports car probably will continue the tradition of the Supra.
 

AustinGRSupra

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California’s new ban on gas cars will change the landscape in terms of what EV we will be seeing.
 

joshthorsc

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California’s new ban on gas cars will change the landscape in terms of what EV we will be seeing.
That's what I'm thinking and it's only a matter of time before other states adopt this idea. I think the this will probably be the last gen of gas powered Supra and most cars in general.
 

KahnBB6

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That's what I'm thinking and it's only a matter of time before other states adopt this idea. I think the this will probably be the last gen of gas powered Supra and most cars in general.
This is the last generation of pure gasoline-only cars in general, absolutely. But there is still another generation ahead at least that will be nearly all hybrid gas-electric before everything is fully electric on a mass scale.

The A100 generation Supra is more than likely to be a gas-electric hybrid turned for performance output (and of course some commuter/city eco mode and limited electric-only mode).

For a Supra to be a full EV Toyota will need to get their solid state battery technology sorted out with negligible degradation from recharging. Or they'd need to engineer it around their hydrogen fuel cell technology. But since the infrastructure for hydrogen refueling is far more suited to heavy trucking routes and other industrial applications at this time I'm betting on an electric Supra using next generation battery tech (ie: solid state) which is quite a few years away from being ready to use in any car let alone in a sports car.

To do it with current reliable lithium-ion technology would add so much weight and overall mass to a clean-sheet design that it would probably be impossible to preserve the dimensions and handling characteristics of a Supra the size of an A70 or A80 let alone an A90.

It's the generation after an A100 generation that is far more likely to be full electric once battery technology has matured into being far cheaper, far more energy dense and power dense, lighter, faster to charge and having become totally incapable of thermal runaway from dendrites forming from the anodes and cathodes.

However... maybe you're right. California mandating only EV's as new cars from 2035 onward means:

Supra A70 generation: 1986-1992 = 7 year lifespan
Supra A80 generation: 1992(Japan)-2002(Japan) = 10 year lifespan... but kept on sale until Japanese emissions cutoff.
Supra A90 generation: 2020-2026 = 7 year lifespan
Supra A100 generation: 2027?-2033? = 7 year lifespan... but who knows when an A100 will be released.
Supra A110 generation: 2034?-2040? = 7 year lifespan... same as above

Since this is not just a normal model redesign but a total shift in technology, energy infrastructure, government regulation and not to mention a far smaller market for sportscars in general anything could happen and maybe Toyota will decide not to make a hybrid A100 Supra. But I think they still have a window within which to do so. I think they may not want the Supra model to languish out of production for another long number of years again and they also will not want a gas-electric performance model to not have a chance at a full generation run if they make it go on sale any later than model year 2028.
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