HybridToyota FT-HS

FT-HS Hybrid Sports Concept, a futuristic sports car that would be powered by a 400-horsepower hybrid powertrain. Of course, the Toyota FT-HS Hybrid
Sports Concept is just a concept, little more than a container for the overheated dreams of a bunch of designers at Calty Design Research, Toyota's
design studio in Newport Beach, California. In fact, what you see here is only a two-dimensional animation, a computer-generated image of the show car
that Toyota will roll out at the Detroit auto show on Sunday, January 7, 2007. Whatever, it's enough to get us thinking about the next Toyota Supra, which
the automaker feels it needs to compete with Nissan's one-two high-performance punch of the 350Z and the coming Skyline GT-R. Introducing a Prius on
steroids: "We feel there's a hole in our lineup," says Kevin Hunter, the vice president of Calty Design Research. "Toyota hasn't had a sports car since the
Supra was dropped in 1997. We need some emotional punch in our lineup, a halo product." Toyota envisions that punch to be a rear-wheel-drive Hybrid
Sports Concept (HSC) that develops 400 horsepower. "It's a new kind of sports car for the 21st century," adds Hunter. "Eco and emotion in a sports car
concept with a performance target of 0-60 mph in about 4 seconds and a price tag in the mid-$30,000 range." A 3.5-liter V6 engine would deliver most of
the thrust, and it doesn't require too much brainpower to connect the dots to the DOHC 3.5-liter V6 in the Lexus GS 450h, which already makes 292 hp
at 6,500 rpm. You wouldn't have to look too far to find an electric motor to deliver the rest, because the water-cooled, 650V electric motor used in the GS
450h makes 197 hp at peak output, though this is just for seconds at a time. The Calty designers, who have been working on the FT-HS for an entire
year, are even willing to suggest that once the future arrives, a hybrid powertrain will be necessary to achieve the feeling of ultrahigh-performance that you
want in a sports car. In a fuel-efficient future, a jolt of acceleration from an electric motor might become the equivalent of an injection of nitrous oxide into
your gas-powered engine. All this has overtones of ecological friendliness, of course, but as the buzz about global warming and greenhouse gases
becomes a part of daily life, Calty's designers remind us that a hybrid powertrain will have a certain quotient of respectability that you won't find in a
supercharged big-block V8. The FT-HS is even painted white because white is not only a pure motorsports color, but it's clean which, Hunter tell us,
supports the car's hybrid message. [Scott Oldham, Inside Line / Edmonds.com]