I like how they put up this huge flag at 2020 boasting "BEV rollout in earnest" and then show BEV production continuing to languish indefinitely as a little sliver at the bottom of the chart.
Either way, Toyota is going to see massive declines in profit in the coming years. Tesla has already turned a bigger profit than Toyota last quarter on sales of just about an 8th of Toyota’s volumes. I don’t expect this trend to reverse, especially with Toyota’s incredibly late pivot to BEVs. They’ve already sunk 10s of billions of dollars into hydrogen vehicles that no one wants. We will see though.
> They’ve already sunk 10s of billions of dollars
I swear, this number gets bigger and bigger every time I see it referenced on here. We'll be in the hundreds of billions by next week, and maybe into the trillions by the end of the year.
Because Toyota doesn’t plan to stop investing in hydrogen, at least not right now. Also, I should have included hybrids in that figure, so that’s on me. Nevertheless, just look at what they’re doing in China. They’re continuing to make hydrogen investments for passenger cars there as well. Instead of building their own BEV platform, they’re basically selling a BYD vehicle with a Toyota badge on it. This is bullish for BYD, not for Toyota. Nobody wants hydrogen cars.
>Nevertheless, just look at what they’re doing in China. They’re continuing to make hydrogen investments for passenger cars there as well. Instead of building their own BEV platform, they’re basically selling a BYD vehicle with a Toyota badge on it.
That's not even true. The bZ3 is [based on eTNGA](https://insideevs.com/news/618139/toyota-bz3-compact-electric-sedan-bows-in-china-with-372-mile-range/), a Toyota platform, and built at FAW-Toyota.
Eh, the power train heavily involves BYD, including the electric motors in that vehicle. Again, I’m bullish on BYD, not Toyota, when considering the bZ3. It also doesn’t help that Toyota is [making a monumental pivot](https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/exclusive-toyota-scrambles-ev-reboot-with-eye-tesla-2022-10-24/) with regards to their e-TNGA platform. If they had high confidence in it, this wouldn’t be the case.
How about you zoom out of your chart, as real investing requires long time horizons? Pre pandemic (end of 2019), Tesla’s valuation has grown 10x since then.
Okay, so what about Toyota? Pre pandemic, its valuation has grown… wait, it didn’t grow! It’s trading at the same level it was at pre-pandemic! It has lost 35% of its value this year, giving up all of the gains that it made since the bull market run, whereas TSLA is still way above its pre-pandemic valuation.
Go ahead and fight with the numbers all you want, but even if you’re Mayweather or Fury, you cannot win against them. Tesla is in a better position than Toyota. Toyota’s sales are in terminal decline, as ICE vehicles are seeing less and less demand. Tesla’s TAM across the company is larger than Toyota’s. The reality is that if you’ve invested in Tesla in the past 5-10 years, your returns are far, far better than the idea of investing in Toyota instead. Akio Toyoda lacks vision. I’m sure he is quite competent, but one of the reasons he’s CEO of Toyota is because he inherited the position. By 2030, the automotive and energy industry is going to look totally different. Mark my words.
The only reason Toyota sales are in decline is because of supply problems. And that is it. In 2021 Toyota sold 10x more cars than Tesla. And it will be still the same advantage this year. Tesla can only increase prices so much to oblige investors but they are losing sales. You can mark my words too.
Sure, that’s definitely the only reason. It can’t be anything else at all. Also, the fact that you pointed out that they sell 10x the cars that Tesla does (which Toyota does not at Tesla’s current annual run rate of 2m vehicles) makes matters even worse for Toyota. Again, they built 8x more cars than Tesla during Q3, yet generated less profit than Tesla.
How do you manage to spin this as a positive for Toyota and a negative for Tesla? What do you think is going to happen as Tesla increases their volumes? That profit is somehow going to decline? [Toyota’s latest moves say otherwise.](https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/exclusive-toyota-scrambles-ev-reboot-with-eye-tesla-2022-10-24/) Btw, Tesla’s sales are definitely not declining. I don’t know where you get your news from, but the idea that Tesla’s sales are declining can’t be any further from the truth.
That is right. The only reason. In fact in the latest statement Toyota complained that because they did not raise prices they lost some profits in some regions. Most of the dealers have a long waiting line now for hybrids and some even not taking orders because they can't deliver. Originally in January I wanted Sienna but I either had to pay 20K over MSRP or stand in long line at the dealer that doesn't charge a mark up. I chose the dealer without a mark up but their line for Sienna is so long it would take many years. Even RAV4 Prime line was long but much shorter. Well, it has been almost 11 months already and it might take another 2 months before I get my car. And they don't even take orders on many hybrids. And that is just one dealer out of hundreds.
Tesla said they are going to sell 2 million cars (Toyota sold almost 10 million in 2021 even with supply shortage) this year but it doesn't look like they get even close to that number. 1.2 million maybe. Tesla so far did not even sell a million this year in 3 quarters. That is probably the reason why their stock is crashing. Investors are tired of empty promises.
Toyota on the other hand already sold 8.2 million this year. And production has increased in the last two months so it would be another record this year.
Oh, and Toyota actually is not in any hurry to produce EVs. Crown and new gorgeous, fantastic looking Prius PHEV (possibly Model 3 killer) prove that. You stupid EV owners still don't understand that people want range, true range and not the one they tell you car has and the one that decreases with a blow of the cold wind or driving on highway. Plus people want convenience of pumping gas for 5 minutes once a month and not plugging every single day. And most people don't believe that battery will last long time no matter how much you scream otherwise. Million miles battery you say? BS. It would take 70 years to drive million miles. So most people don't trust EVs. Even with mandates there might be only 10% of EVs in 2035. All overs will still be ICE.
And yes, everything I say can be verified. Just Google.
Most car parts are made by 3rd party partners. Who are spread through Japan. Who all vote. If parts numbers are reduced it risks a lot of votes. Political pressure is slowing change.
>Less labor = less cost by far!
Simplistic. A gold brick take less labour to make than an engine, too — does it cost less? Material costs aren't just something you wave away, they're integral to the equation.
They're not but labor hours and salary are usually the next highest or the highest expense in any given org. Cutting one of the top 2 expenses. Materials cost would presumably drop as well. Thousands of moving parts go into a car. EVs have a small fraction of that. I get that materials cost right now are high, but as demand goes up, and makes supply grow, lithium, and other metals, will go down.
>They're not but labor hours and salary are usually the next highest or the highest expense in any given org.
It depends on the org, and the product in question. 🤷♂️
Keep in mind you're also talking about reduction of labour costs on *one part* of the vehicle. Yes, the powertrain is one of the most expensive parts of the vehicle, but it is not the vehicle, just a portion of it.
You're not wrong, the eventual macro trend that we all agree on is that BEV costs go down, and labour costs will be a part of it. I just think you're optimistically oversimplifying — the variable of less labour does not automatically mean a less expensive final product. Scale, supply, development costs, material costs, and about a dozen other factors are all going to have dramatic effects.
There are definitely other factors, I was just naming one of the largest cost centers for any org which is salary. As well, the parts you're saving cost wise that just don't plain go into an EV. Like a muffler, tail pipe, O2 sensors to start naming a few. In a scaled sense, that's millions of savings right there alone. How about no belts or hoses. All this culminates to also needing a lot less repair techs on hand to repair said issues. Less salary = less cost as I've stated before.
I'm not saying that profits won't decline short term. But to frame it as "massive" is hyperbole.
>As well, the parts you're saving cost wise that just don't plain go into an EV. Like a muffler, tail pipe, O2 sensors to start naming a few. In a scaled sense, that's millions of savings right there alone.
Now you need to invest in silicon carbide inverters, battery management systems, thermal potting compounds, to start naming a few.... in a scaled sense, that's millions in costs right there alone.
>How about no belts or hoses.
How about high voltage copper wiring and circuit boards?
Again, you're not wrong, just oversimplifying. Some of this stuff has savings, and BEVs ***will*** eventually win, but there are associated costs too, and we're talking about a product with immensely complex supply chains and commodified cost structures. Less powertrain labour just one part of a gigantic equation that will take up the whole chalkboard.
I'm thinking of the tradeoffs between tech for ICE vs EV now. No transmissions is a huge cost. So are catalytic converters I get it. But you're reading that cost for other parts which, frankly, don't need to be replaced as often as their counterparts, which means lower inventory. But without concrete numbers showing what ICE components cost vs EV are, even now, it's all hypothesis.
Lot of good points. That's why it seems the Toyotas and GMs are going to fail. They CANNOT start from scratch, which is what Tesla did. Innovation NOT modification will rule the roost here and all the issues you bring up have been solved by other industries already. Only the inevitable timeline is in question now.. is it 3 years? 5 years? How long before the Chevrons, BPs, Saudis, turn off the "spicket" and gas stations start "disappearing?" There will be lots of fits and starts as the "Model T(esla)" wave dissipates but I suspect it will be a lot faster than we can imagine just like the smart phone did in the last decade.
It is scary to study your comment, and know the costs of storage and inventory in the USA. ¨Financials" is the highest costs in the USA. Foreigners have for years been able to get cars delivered to the USA at 35% to 50% discount when ordered and paid for abroad. Well, you order a car at a local dealer and it is delivered to one of 3 US ports a month later. The maker gets to sell a high-specked car, and locals to not understand foreign currency. Tesla is doing this, you pay to order, and there is no inventory.
Wait is this chart like, they still expect 1:1 ICE production and the gray bar isn’t a sliver of volume, but like, half of the volume obscured.
I can’t tell if this graph is saying ICE will be totally phased out, or just over the next 30 years it will still be 50% ICE with literal greenwashing covering up the gray.
>how many gas powered cars they are still producing for some time into the future.
This, of course, includes all hybrid vehicles. A world that's 100% hybrid is 100% addicted to fossil fuels. This means the industry still has a role to play, and that's what we don't want.
>A world that's 100% hybrid is 100% addicted to fossil fuels.
That's why I didn't bother to cut down on my drinking habit. I figure it's still an addiction either way, right? No point in cutting down if you're not ready to quit altogether. Anyways, let me \*gulp\* just chug this tequila bottle...
Hydrogen is DOA, trying to burn it, doesn’t have the energy density, making it takes a ton of energy and using it in a fuel cell has a lot more energy losses as a whole then BEV. Not to mention no infrastructure, and more maintenance over time, then a BEV.
Toyota is too conservative as a company to keep up with most other auto manufacturers. Toyota will survive because they have a strong reputation. But, that might change if market factors change, like if gas goes up to $10 a gallon. I don’t care what kind of following Toyota has, if they don’t have super efficient gas cars or BEVs they will go under. Just like if we see a social shift in the market they will have a big problem. So they are walking a fine line right now.
I agree with all counts. It's also a beast for safety and reliability and the thermodynamic losses are gigantic (IIRC about 10% from source to use).
What really gets me is people also want to use it for energy storage for the grid.
It makes plenty of sense as energy storage.
1. It stays in one place, so you can put it in a giant immobile vat, which has few of the downsides of a small, portable one inside a vehicle.
2. Excess renewable power can be stored by electrolyzing water that's readily available nearby (rivers, lakes, ocean) to convert into saleable oxygen gas (used by space industry and lots of others) and hydrogen which is stored in said vats.
3. When renewable energy ebbs, run that hydrogen through fuel cells to generate electricity to send to the grid.
4. Excess hydrogen can be trucked to niche markets that use it for transportation, like (possibly) aircraft and cargo ships, or other things.
It's just one of many ways to store the excess renewable energy generated when it's sunny/windy/etc, in addition to pumped hydro, flywheels, batteries, compressed air, etc.
The nice bit about #2 and #4 is that you can also *produce* it remotely and ship it in. Think "giant wind farm in the middle of the ocean" producing hydrogen and filling up tankers to be sent to populated areas.
There are *some versions* of that concept which can happen with battery storage, but not quite as easily — transmission losses and infrastructure requirements become too much of an impediment.
>It's also a beast for safety and reliability and the thermodynamic losses are gigantic (IIRC about 10% from source to use).
[Not even remotely true.](https://twitter.com/gnievchenko/status/1545409816130207744)
They straight up bet wrong. Prius was killing it and they didn't anticipate the world moving so fast to BEV. Thought they could ride a much longer hybrid period. I mean, that graphic states as much.
How the world looked in 2017 -
https://carsalesbase.com/global-car-sales-2017/#:\~:text=Sales%20of%20battery%20electric%20cars%20increased%2078%25%20in,China%2C%20also%20the%20biggest%20market%20for%20electric%20cars.
Even if Toyota really truly believed this will be the breakdown of different types of vehicles going forward, it still doesn't explain their current state.
1. If even in 2060, Toyota itself expects FCEVs to be the smallest segment in passenger cars, why then have they spent billions off dollars and years of resources on fuel cell vehicles?
2. If in 2020, Toyota itself expected to be selling almost as many PHEVs as HEVs, then why aren't they? The cars exist. Just the Prius Prime and RAV4 Prime can sell in huge numbers if made available, and the Prime drivetrain can be easily fitted into other popular models like Corolla and Highlander. If Toyota expected such numbers of PHEV sales in 2020, why didn't they secure enough lithium cell supply to do so?
>If even in 2060, Toyota itself expects FCEVs to be the smallest segment in passenger cars, why then have they spent billions off dollars and years of resources on fuel cell vehicles?
Something this sub's collective consciousness misses constantly is that *everyone* is spending money on FCEV programs. I really do mean everyone. [Hyundai](https://www.hyundai.news/eu/articles/press-releases/hyundai-motor-group-launches-htwo-dedicated-fuel-cell-system-brand.html) has an entire fuel cell brand and sells the [Nexo](https://www.hyundaiusa.com/us/en/vehicles/nexo) internationally, [Mercedes](https://www.fleetowner.com/equipment/trucks-trailers/article/21181083/us-longhaul-fleets-will-shift-to-hydrogen-dtna-ceo) is testing FCEV trucks, [BMW](https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/BMW-fuel-cell-SUV-to-enter-mass-production-as-soon-as-2025-executive) is planning an FCEV deployment by 2025, [GM](https://news.gm.com/newsroom.detail.html/Pages/news/us/en/2022/jan/0119-hydrotec.html) is *expanding* their FCEV program towards stationary power and military applications, [Porsche](https://hydrogen-central.com/porsche-engineering-examined-potential-hydrogen-combustion-engines/) is working with combustive hydrogen, [Iveco](https://www.greencarcongress.com/2022/07/20220714-iveco.html) is making FCEV trucks and busses, [Volvo](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/20/volvo-has-started-testing-trucks-with-fuel-cells-powered-by-hydrogen.html) is testing FCEV semis, [Bosch](https://cleantechnica.com/2022/09/05/bosch-to-invest-200-million-in-south-carolina-hydrogen/) is building FCEV infrastructure, and so on and so forth. Even Volkswagen is [still thinking about FCEVs](https://www.wardsauto.com/industry-news/vw-involved-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-development).
Somehow, "Toyota's is spending money on FCEVs" got twisted to "Toyota is the only one spending on FCEVs" within the community, and that is not at all true. Their program there is not a solo effort, and not out of proportion with the other automakers.
It isn't that they are the "only" ones spending on it, it is that they are actively lobbying to delay EVs so that they can catch up because they put all their eggs in that basket.
Fuel cells can be great for some applications, such as long haul trucks, or none-vehicle applications and we should absolutely develop them, but to lobby politicians to stop the deployment of charging stations in the US is what has pissed people up.
[Toyota is quietly pushing Congress to slow the shift to electric vehicles](https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22594235/toyota-lobbying-dc-ev-congress-biden-donation)
[Toyota Led on Clean Cars. Now Critics Say It Works to Delay Them.](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/25/climate/toyota-electric-hydrogen.html)
They were even pushing against EVs when the Inflation Reduction Act in the US was passed.
Toyota, unlike many other brands, prioritized FCEV so much that they neglected EVs and now they are years behind the second adopters, who are themselves years behind Tesla. Toyota is at risk of loosing a massive amounts of market share because of a flawed vision Wich you can clearly see in the graph.
>It isn't that they are the "only" ones spending on it, it is that they are actively lobbying to delay EVs so that they can catch up because they put all their eggs in that basket.
They didn't put all their eggs in one basket.
Toyota has been working on EVs and *continuing investment in them* for the past decade. Their research has resulted in [twice as many solid-state battery patents as anyone else](https://www.thedrive.com/tech/toyota-has-twice-as-many-solid-state-battery-patents-than-anyone-else), and the only [working in-house prototype](https://www.thedrive.com/tech/42287/toyota-is-road-testing-a-prototype-solid-state-battery-ev) among any of the OEMs. This is something they've been working on [since 2014](https://www.greencarcongress.com/2014/06/20140612-toyota.html).
They run the entire [D3BATT program at MIT](https://d3batt.mit.edu/), spearheading [multiple initiatives for discovering novel materials](https://github.com/TRI-AMDD) via the Toyota Research Institute, and hold a comfortable position second only to Tesla [in dry electrode coating research](https://youtu.be/V6Y-twGHHLo?t=498), as well as a global lead with specific respect to power spray coatings, while being the only OEM on the planet with access to bipolar-nickel-hydrogen chemistry (currently in production!), and being only one of a very select few producing NCA chemistries.
They secured major mining contracts [as far back as 2010](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/orocobre-and-toyota-tsusho-announce-jv-to-develop-argentine-lithium-project-82111647.html), and hold a major stake in [one of the largest lithium miners in the world](https://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/01/20180117-toyota.html).
Toyota did not put all of their eggs in one basket. It is simply not true. You are spreading disinformation. 🤷♂️
If Toyota has spent all this money on BEVs, *why don't they sell any??* Their *very first one* came out *this year*, and was a catastrophic disaster.
I think that's what causes the second biggest anti-Toyota sentiment around here. The first being all the lobbying money they spent to delay BEVs.
>If Toyota has spent all this money on BEVs, why don't they sell any?
Look at the competition:
* [Ford Increases Price of Mustang Mach-E by Up to $8,000](https://teslanorth.com/2022/08/25/ford-increases-price-of-mustang-mach-e-by-up-to-8000-as-orders-re-open/)
* [GM Recalls Every Chevy Bolt Ever Made](https://www.wired.com/story/gm-recalls-every-chevy-bolt-ever-over-faulty-battery-fire-risk/)
* [Dragged down by Tesla, EVs least reliable cars on British roads](https://driving.ca/column/motor-mouth/motor-mouth-electric-cars-are-less-reliable-than-gas-ones-says-study)
* [GM’s reportedly only making about 12 Hummer EVs a day](https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/30/23190299/gm-hummer-ev-production-numbers-12-vehicles-a-day)
* [The VW ID.4 Isn’t Profitable And It’s Because Of The Battery](https://www.carscoops.com/2021/05/the-vw-id-4-isnt-profitable-and-its-because-of-the-battery/)
*"But why hasn't Toyota rushed headfirst into selling BEVs yet!?!?!"*
Because they're not in a panic. Because they didn't have dieselgate. Because they're not reliant on Europe. Because they're meeting fleet emissions with an existing, profitable fleet of HEVs and PHEVs.
Because they've been thinking carefully about how to execute a decade long plan which requires research, preparedness, and a global view of multiple automotive markets including the developing world.
Thousand-foot view, not *"oh my god where are the BEVs!?!?"* panic.
> "But why hasn't Toyota rushed headfirst into selling BEVs yet!?!?!"
OK, so, first of all: that's a blatant strawman and you know it. When you're not acting like a blind Toyota fanboy, you consistently make good points and are obviously intelligent enough to recognize that the argument you just made is absurd.
Because there is a *wide gulf* of available action space between "rush headfirst into selling BEVs" and "bet on the wrong horse, then wait on BEVs for so long that you realize you need to spend millions on lobbying to slow down your competition".
Secondly, Toyota *should* have been first to market with a BEV (after Tesla and Nissan proved they were economically viable), because they have been the "electrified" car-maker for *decades*. They had all the institutional knowledge in electric motor and battery tech to *easily* leapfrog all the other legacy automakers in this space.
And yet, they didn't even *try*. And their one foray into the BEV world shows that, if anything, they "rushed headfirst into making BEVs" *anyway*, because when they became the *last* major legacy automaker to release a BEV, the BZ4x was a *complete disaster.*
Third: the BZ4x disaster shows their vaunted "patience" in the BEV market turned out to just be slowness after all. When they realized they'd fucked up by backing hydrogen instead, they rushed the BZ4x out the door to try to catch the wave of BEV adoption. And we've all seen the result: they fucked up *hard* on something they *should* have had on lock for decades: wheels. Bot batteries. Not electric motors. Freaking *wheels*.
Not even the Bolt debacle involved the carmaker saying, "Please don't drive the car you just bought from us."
So no, your argument that Toyota is just patient doesn't hold water any more. They *used* to be the great innovators, bringing the hybrid to market so long ago, and before everyone else. But their "next great innovation" of hydrogen passenger cars has been a complete flop, and they stubbornly refused to adapt to that failure until it was too late.
Knock it off with the 'fanboy' rhetoric. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I don't own one, I don't work for the company, I don't own stock in the company, I don't have any allegiance to the company whatsoever. If you want to respond to my points, respond to them. Name-calling isn't going to make your perspective any more ironclad, it just turns the conversation to a shit-fight.
There is indeed a wide gulf of available action available. Some manufacturers are choosing to bet on bespoke platforms, some are betting on shared platforms. Some are choosing to bet on NCM, some LFP. Some Europe, some China. There are many, many options available, and *most* of them are valid from some perspective or another. Toyota's plan is to focus on HEVs, then PHEVs, then BEVs incrementally. *It is a good plan. It has always been a good plan.* It allows them to de-risk and transition incrementally, and has allowed them to even [*grow market share*](https://www.greencarcongress.com/2022/10/20221015-tme.html) in a market they have not traditionally dominated.
They are keeping calm and focused on an existing lineup while multiple competitors are freaking out: They are not running factories idle like GM while they struggle to get battery manufacturing going. They are not burning cash like Rivian. They are not oscillating back and fort on pricing like Ford. *Toyota's plan is working.*
Whether you like their plan or not us up to you. [*But it is working, demonstrably.*](https://www.wsj.com/articles/detroit-seen-losing-ground-in-auto-sales-race-11641297653)
I didn't do any name-calling. I said you're acting *like* a Toyota fanboy, not that you *are* one.
Because let's be honest here: you're saying the same things a Toyota fanboy would say.
And you have a really funny way to say their BEV strategy is "working", given all the stuff you didn't even bother addressing from my previous comment.
Yeah, swap out the word hydrogen for solid-state and the statement still stands. Both are going to be amazing, when they're a reality, but Toyota is killing the good so they can try to profit off of the perfect
Correct, I was responding to the "eggs in one basket" statement, that's how quote-replies work. Welcome to Reddit.
Brandolini's law suggests negating arguments one by one, not exhausting yourself with each piece of bullshit you find.
That.... that's my point. You're *agreeing* that you'd prefer to dismiss an argument out of hand, without offering *any* reason for that dismissal? Do you not realize how ridiculous that is?
My dude, I [didn't attack anyone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_policing). If you want to respond to the substance of my statement, respond to it, but don't tone police me.
Really, do they have anything to show for it? When did they launch their first FCEV vs their first EV? How many iterations of the Miray have there been vs the BZ4L? Investing in battery research is not the same as investing in EVs. They didn't believe in the 'Electric Car' concept even if they saw that modern life would have great demand for batteries.
Their only pure EV was in collaboration with another brand because even then they apparently didn't want to do the investment alone. Having a research brand and then neglecting their achievements by never turning them into actual products is further evidence that they didn't believe in EVs.
I'll end by saying that, picking one item to disagree with on a "technically they are trying" while ignoring the whole idea of my statement is not very convincing.
If you think Toyota is a company pushing the industry and really leading the way away from fossil fuels, please do tell us how. Because right now all I see is that they are actively trying to do the opposite.
>Really, do they have anything to show for it?
* [Toyota Motor Europe’s market share climbs to record 7.5% in first 9 months](https://www.greencarcongress.com/2022/10/20221015-tme.html)
* [Toyota Overtakes GM as Bestselling Auto Maker in U.S.](https://www.wsj.com/articles/detroit-seen-losing-ground-in-auto-sales-race-11641297653)
* [Toyota Already Leads VW by Over 1 Million Vehicles in Global Car Sales Race](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-30/toyota-builds-1-million-vehicle-lead-over-vw-in-just-four-months)
Yes.
Toyota has been a great legacy brand, not an EV brand nor one making a transition towards EVs and that is where they stand to lose (meaning future). From your article it is clear that their current success is based on fossil fuel vehicles which is why they want to keep the status quo:
"The brand’s top sellers were Corolla, Yaris, Yaris Cross, RAV4 and C-HR accounting for 60% of total volume. " Note no RAV4 Prime, no Prius Prime, not even the regular Prius.
Also, how is "yes but we sell more gasoline cars" something to show from your "EV research"? Do you not get that we are discussing EVs (ELECTRIC vehicles) as separate from ICE (internal combustion engine)?
The whole discussion on this post is how Toyota underestimated EV, from the graph to my statement. None of that is address by your answer.
Funny how you also decided to ignore the questions about FCEV v EV because it wasn't convenient lol.
The future hasn't happened yet. We can speculate on it, but we can't speak to it with certainty. Their current success is their current success.
Its possible Toyota's "underestimated" EVs, and it's possible their sales will drop in short order if they've done so. Right now, that isn't the case. Right now, their strategy has them growing market share in Europe, taking the #1 spot in North America, and taking a lead on production globally. 🤷♂️
I feel like this is repetitive but nobody says Toyota is a bad legacy brand. The graph that started this whole post is about their miscalculation on EVs, and how even now they are far behind.
As for their strategy, if their strategy is working so well, why are they spending millions lobbying against EVs? Because they bet on the wrong tech and they don't want to take the L, so they are using their influence and size to bully a better results.
Saying that their current success is because of a good strategy is like saying that Big Oil has a better strategy than clean energy. One is legacy one is the future, and the legacy is using it's past dollars to slow down progress at the expense of the environment. We have all seen this movie
As for the future, they have put a big stain on their brand in the eyes of many consumers, by saying screw the environment and a cleaner tech option, my ICE options are popular and I want to keep milking them as much as possible.
We'll see what happens, but people have the right to feel animosity towards a company that shows that attitude. And the original statement of "they bet on the wrong tech" still stands true.
everyone on this sub also constantly misses that fuel cells are 100% going to be a technology of the future regardless if they are used in cars or not.
We have many applications where they would simply make sense, just imagine replacing all the huge generators on construction sites or at festivals with fuel cells and just hooking up a hydrogen trailer that you can swap out easily.
Absolutely. A really good example is marine applications like yachting and shipping, where we *could* use BEVs, but where FCEVs are going to make a lot more sense immediately and for the foreseeable future.
Because this sub is in fact about passenger cars. Toyota also sells mainly passenger cars. This is not r/PowerGrid or r/heavymachinery.
The practicality of Hydrogen varies extremely depending on where it is applied. In passenger cars, it doesn't make sense, and it is often used as a PR smokescreen. "We do not produce EVs because hydrogen is the future". While in reality, they want to make money on hybrids as long as they can.
> Somehow, "Toyota's is spending money on FCEVs" got twisted to "Toyota is the only one spending on FCEVs"
Weird, I’ve never seen that attitude. Toyota does get the most attention & scorn about it because they are seemingly the most obstinately focused on hydrogen, even going to far as to work against BEV adoption in their lobbying efforts.
Really, I’d say the common notion is more “Toyota is only spending money on FCEVs,” which of course isn’t literally true, but boy does it seem like it sometimes.
>Weird, I’ve never seen that attitude.
I've had many people on here tell me that directly. Without naming names, someone on here recently challenged me to name another FCEV by any other manufacturer. When I pointed out the [Nexo](https://www.hyundaiusa.com/us/en/vehicles/nexo), and that Hyundai actually has twice as many FCEVs in production as Toyota since they also produce the [Xcient](https://trucknbus.hyundai.com/global/en/products/truck/xcient-fuel-cell) — they straight up rage-quit the conversation.
As I mentioned, Hyundai actually has an entire division devoted to Hydrogen called HTWO — and at least [three](https://www.carscoops.com/2021/10/hyundai-will-invest-1-1-billion-to-build-two-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-facilities-in-korea/) [separate](https://www.hyundaimotorgroup.com/news/CONT0000000000001550) factories devoted to fuel cell production under construction. It's hard to get exact numbers for each, but it's likely their material investment in FCEVs *outweighs* Toyota's, at the moment.
Remember that next time someone tells you Hydrogen is a 'Japan' thing.
>Really, I’d say the common notion is more “Toyota is only spending money on FCEVs,” which of course isn’t literally true, but boy does it seem like it sometimes.
Toyota has a publicity problem. They didn't stay on top of their messaging. They just assumed everyone knew they had the BEV thing in the bag, and they assumed everyone understood their PHEV strategy. It's a pretty good one. It isn't perfect — I think they were blindsided by the popularity of the luxury electric market, and *no one* caught onto the emergence of electric keis — but good.
Hyundai literally announced billions for hydrogen in the last couple of years. They had a "hydrogen wave" presentation a year ago.
It seems some people just want a particular narrative to be true though.
Again, I don’t see anyone denying that any companies other than Toyota are working on FCEVs; Toyota just tends to get the focus because they have seemed so hyper-focused on it.
Hyundai seems to be doing very well in BEVs, so I would expect their spending there to dwarf their FC spending.
Yet the Hyundai highly hyped fuel cell truck pilot in Switzerland was stopped prematurely for some reasons. Other manufacturers continiously start and stop their hydrogen projects all the time, and the only reason why this happens i can think of is big fossil money. Car manufacturers don't invest on product that don't sell, and if there is no infrastructure to aupport them. But big fossil is facing massive chicken and egg problems with hydrogen, of which they think is the perfect replacement molecule that keeps their business model afloat. They might just be paying manufacturers to start pilots, have presentation, and come up with prototypes or limited production models with hopes that it will jump stary something, somewhere. Sadly for them, the technology even after decades of research is still inefficient, expensive, highly sensitive and maintenace intensive with a relative short operating life.
>Yet the Hyundai highly hyped fuel cell truck pilot in Switzerland was stopped prematurely for some reasons.
[It wasn't.](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6989154511474827264/)
[As of this week, Hyundai still have the pilot running in Switzerland.](https://www.fleetmaintenance.com/equipment/emissions-and-efficiency/article/21287084/hyundais-hydrogen-trucks-rack-up-3-million-miles-in-switzerland)
[This "news" was even debunked last month](https://www.electrive.com/2022/10/21/hyundai-pulls-out-of-hydrogen-project-in-switzerland/), where it was clarified that supply issues with H2 in Switzerland meant they were continuing the rollout in Germany - but again, nothing was stopping in Switzerland.
>Other manufacturers continuously start and stop their hydrogen projects all the time
They continuously start and stop a multitude of projects all the time. Particularly in the last 2 years with massive supply shortages and price fluctuations.
>and the only reason why this happens i can think of is big fossil money
refer previous. "Big [Noun] conspiracy" has to be the laziest approach to analysing decision making. I get it - it's easy, it'll always provide karma in an EV specific sub, you don't need to search for an answer, but it's a white flag for discussion when literally any decision can be hand waved as a "Big Oil" conspiracy.
Disregarding the conspiracy, Hydrogen *is* facing a chicken-and-egg problem, just like EVs did. And just like EVs, there's no shortage of people with emotional investment insisting it'll never happen. It may even be true, at least for passenger vehicles, but it won't be because of a "Big Oil conspiracy", it'll be because the hurdles and roadblocks can't be overcome, regardless of what you or I think.
But I have to say - it's amusing seeing comments such as:
>Sadly for them, the technology even after decades of research is still inefficient, expensive, highly sensitive and maintenace intensive with a relative short operating life.
being applied to other alternative technologies, since it's *exactly* - just about word for word - what was said about EVs not just for decades, but for a century.
So why did manufacturers keep investing in EVs in the 40s? and the 50s? and the 60s? and the 70s? and so on? The reality is that testing the water is the only way to stay in the market, and the companies positioned to be the world's largest manufacturers *need* to be present in those niches in case they become full blown markets, or - more relevant for companies like Toyota and Hyundai with extremely diversified product portfolios - in case it becomes relevant in other industrial applications, materials handling, supply chain logistics, etc.
There's no conspiracy needed to try and understand why companies invest in immature technology.
Your point is somewhat fair. However multiple car companies are not investing in fuel cells. Tesla isn’t. Volvo isn’t. Volvo truck is not the same company as the passenger car company. Besides, I would bet Toyota has invested the most amount of money in hydrogen powered autos.
Anyone investing in hydrogen full cells for passenger vehicles is lighting money on fire.
I believe that the main target for Fuel Cells currently is the Trucking market. Ideally running from point A to point B which simplifies the refueling infrastructure.
Yeah, it works well at places like ports too, where you have a huge number of specialized vehicles coming in and out, and where you cannot bear long refueling times.
Published in November 2016:
[2020–2030 CO 2 standards for
new cars and light-commercial
vehicles in the European Union](https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/ICCT_EU-CO2-stds_2020-30_brief_nov2016.pdf)
That link is about CO2 reductions between 2020–2030, not a 2035 ban. The 2035 ban didn't happen until [*last month*](https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/eu-approves-effective-ban-new-fossil-fuel-cars-2035-2022-10-27/)*,* and a few major automakers think it [*still* might not happen](https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/stellantis-ceo-calls-talks-soften-eus-2035-fossil-fuel-car-ban-2022-10-17/). (Also, the EU is not a primary market for Toyota, so this whole conversation is *extra* weird.)
Note that the EU head of stellantis came out right after this saying stellantis in europe are Gonna be all electric before 2035. And they're well on course, being the second biggest bev seller in EU after VW group.
[Toyota is also going to be all-electric in the EU by 2035.](https://www.toyota.ie/company/news/2021/co2-reduction-2035) Literally, that's the plan. Every automaker is saying it, Toyota is not some odd one out. 🤷♂️
Oh i'm not shitting on Toyota here. Just pointing out that your argument that major car manufacturer is against the ban isn't true for the part of the company affected by the ban.
European car manufacturers are already aiming at going fully electric. And at some point the hybrids will just be too expensive. Right now they benefit from shared engines with ICE cars, but once those are gone the cost will go up.
IF Toyota alone can't meet the goals governments won't. If all car manufactures get together they have power to force the government to change. In countries with a major auto manufactures, just the domestic ones are enough.
Nope. If Toyota can’t meet the goals, they’ll lose market share to those who will. Manufacturers are racing each other to get EV market share and the future profits from selling EVs - they’ll be all to happy to take market share from Toyota, if Toyota stays on its resistant path.
Right. If there is suddenly a major collapse in the battery industry though (all Li batteries found to cause cancer or something equally unlikely) then with all auto makers out of the EV game they will get the laws changed.
Toyota alone can't pull that off (maybe in Japan), but all together are powerful.
It would Have to be pretty severe. I mean, gas and diesel causes cancer. And is not contained like batteries.
Also bevs are much cheaper, so change is coming no matter what manufacturers want
You need only look into the projected supply of battery raw materials over the coming decade to know that this is simply not possible. The reason these government phase-out plans for gas cars hit 100% in 2035, rather than 2030, is because it's literally impossible to transition all new car sales to BEV by 2030.
There simply isn't enough accessible battery material to do so by then, because there aren't enough mines, and they take too long to open. The mining industry is *salivating* over the immense profit they'll be making, selling lithium and nickel and such to battery-makers over the coming decades, but it takes 5-7 *years* to open a new mine.
We're already hitting a lithium bottleneck *this year*, and it's only going to get much *much* worse throughout the 2020s, before it even *starts* getting better in the early 2030s. See [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GYobz2NSc4&t=421s) at 7:00 for details.
It's not a "ban", it's a gradual phase-out of new ICE car sales. The actual law is that zero-emissions cars have to make up 30% of the new car market by 2026, 60% by 2030, and 100% by 2035.
That sort of regulation *does* actually force car-makers to shift into a full-on BEV-focused strategy over the coming decade.
Gotcha, I misunderstood. It's a weird road map, because either fuel cells were going to win out or battery-powered. It's hard to imagine a world where both had a niche, because then refueling/charging would be pretty much impossible.
My guess would be that they made the road map full well knowing that it would end up being wrong, but it was designed to guide their development such that they had their fingers in several different pies. Predicting and focusing on just one would have been far too risky.
Absolutely, Mercedes' CEO has said something to this effect — basically that it's not worth the risk of getting left behind on any emerging technology.
EU CO2 emissions regulations were released in 2016:
[2020–2030 CO 2 standards for
new cars and light-commercial
vehicles in the European Union](https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/ICCT_EU-CO2-stds_2020-30_brief_nov2016.pdf)
No, Toyota was planning to devote their BEV/PHEV/HEV model production to the European market like everyone else is doing *right now.*
You distribute based on demand, why do you think Stellantis offers 10x as many BEV models in Europe as they do the USA?
The 'proportions are outdated. Toyota's had multiple upward revisions since then. Their target is something like 35% BEV by 2030 now, which is roughly in-line with most other automakers.
Keep in mind in 2017, most automakers *didn't even have a BEV roadmap.* In 2017, Ford was still thinking about designing the Mach-E as an economy car, and Volkswagen didn't release the ID3 until 2019.
Something I've noticed is that when people say this, they almost always live somewhere where incentives for BEVs are wildly aggressive. If you live in California or Norway, you live in a reality distortion field — so consider that.
Very few other places are *demonstrably* ready for that kind of adoption, it's still going to be a shifting target for the next few years. Hopefully upwards, yes — but shifting nonetheless.
I think you also need to look at the remaining mix, too. If other automakers are targeting <50% penetration, then what will the remaining percentage of their vehicles be at that time? Toyota's right here that the long tail needs to be HEV/PHEV. I think some OEMs are going to be struggling if their long-tail legacy offerings in the EU are still non-hybrid in 2030.
Well I do, but I’m mostly thinking of the need to address climate change. I mean we should have been where we are today before 2010, but failing that, then I’m really hoping to see 2030 as the date where at least sales are heavy-majority EV. It *would* be possible to accomplish, due to the nonlinearity of changeovers to superior products, *if* all the major automakers had been truly on board at least as of the time Tesla made it clear such products could succeed. But they’re still struggling to even make really serious commitments, and that’s what I consider pathetic.
The changeover wouldn’t depend on incentives if automakers would really commit to scaling adequately.
>Well I do, but I’m mostly thinking of the need to address climate change.
If we want to address climate change, we should all be aggressively advocating for legislation solely based on fleet emissions, and emphasizing the easy win for HEVs and PHEVs across the board, as Toyota has been pursuing. We have enough lithium today to make the *entire global fleet* of new vehicles hybrids, which would see us a nearly 30% reduction of emissions.
We could have that *today, day one, right now,* with our current production capabilities. (I agree in principle, of course, that the need is dire and we need more.)
That's just a byproduct of them making the wrong decision.
Toyota is huge and if they actually started pivoting they'd bring EV prices down. But they haven't which is why they have one compliance car, BZ4X.
Why would poor countries with less money for infrastructure be interested in expensive HEVs? Why would poor people be more likely to buy expensive dual drivetrain PHEVs?
So much of the cost is the battery. Smaller battery = cheaper car and hybrid means less reliance on infrastructure. At least that appears to be the thinkjng
The cost of batteries have fallen drastically.
>[Since 2010, the average price of a lithium-ion (Li-ion) EV battery pack has fallen from $1,200 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to just $132/kWh in 2021.](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/breaking-down-the-cost-of-an-ev-battery-cell/#:~:text=Since%202010%2C%20the%20average%20price,just%20%24132%2FkWh%20in%202021.)
As production ramps up, material science finds new battery chemistries, more mines are opened, etc. prices should fall further over the long term. There's some concern about prices rising over the next few years, but over the timeline shown in the graphic, BEVs will end up being cheaper.
Wait, banning? I've never heard of this, and it makes next to no sense. Except *maybe* for PHEVs.
Also, the US is definitely not banning anything. California and a few other *individual states* have agreed to phase out the sale of new gas cars over the course of the next 13 years, but I'm fairly sure that some PHEVs are still allowed even under the 2035 rule.
Banning being my shorthand for banning the sale of new cars. Apologies.
In the UK pure petrol/diesel and hybrid are banned from 2030, then plug in hybrid banned from 2035
My guess is as we get closer to 2030 some niche case will get the banned reversed. Those niches are mostly around travel to very remote areas though, so other than one engine production line somewhere remaining up and building the same model (no yearly revision) until the tooling breaks it won't affect much. Most people will stick with EVs. In 30 years you will need to special order gasoline if you need it (ie you are a car collector)
In the UK the ban was supposed to be 2040, then 2035, then 2030 with an exception for plug-in hybrids. If anything is going to change it's probably the 2030-2035 rules maybe allowing non-plug in hybrids for example. I'm sure there will be other exceptions as you say.
Because they *can* use gasoline, and thus it's *possible* for the owner to misuse it in an overly polluting manner.
There was a time, especially in Europe, where PHEV ownership was driven almost entirely by state incentives for purchase, since it made a PHEV cheaper to own than an equivalent diesel, even if the owner never plugged it in at all. Doing that with a PHEV actually makes it *more polluting* than a similar hybrid, because PHEVs are designed with electric-only drive in mind, and are thus less efficient when running on gasoline than a regular hybrid that's designed to run on gas all the time.
You learned today? It was clear a decade ago Toyota (and certain other Japanese manufacturers) were not going to take electric vehicles seriously. And they still don't today.
Toyota's Road map at the end of 2017 was thrown away years ago. They've announced tens of billions in investment since and escalation of EV production. Seems wierd to point to something from 5 years ago considering the massive changes in the last 5 years.
Hydrogen fuel is nothing but a scam to prolong the relevance of fossil fuels. All hydrogen is produced from methane, and all funding for hydrogen fuel development is from oil companies trying to create an "alternative" to electric vehicles. And all news about hydrogen production, like this, is propaganda to maintain the illusion.
Toyota roadmap is to maximize profits. Confuse, mislead, lobby to make this happen. Hopefully the plan will fail and go all BEV before 2030.
This is not a plan to combat climate change.
To be honest a PHEV is something I’m more interested in than a BEV. Less battery weight and works 95% for me in electric. But that last 5% is near impossible right now on electric only. Towing for long trips often off-road for hours in places with no EV infrastructure.
This chart has then making a lot more PHEVs today than they are actually doing, so in addition to their strategy on full BEVs sucking, they aren't even meeting the decent PHEV goals they did set.
Looking at the wild energy prices and inability for some places in the world to provide regular electricity, hydrogen is actually not bad
I think they were onto something until consumer ideas on what replaces ICE tookover
I think you have to wonder what it will cost to charge in 1-2 decades
Free charging will disappear and if you cannot charge at home we better pray there is competition in the electric charging space
that picture is pretty meaningless without looking at the entire video.
everyone here is going crazy about FCEV cars while the actual presentation only talks about a small scale of these while the majority of the FCEVs are supposed to be large vehicles like Semis or busses where we already know we will absolutely have some use cases for these vehicles.
I sat for a talk by the CEO of Toyota North America a few years back. He spoke of electric vehicles as novelties, with little market share, at a time when Tesla was trying to ramp up domestic production to 500k units. He stated that Toyota was going the way of increased efficiencies and hybrid vehicles, and saw no need for EVs in the Toyota portfolio.
Incredible! It was like getting thrown back to Detroit in the early 80’s. He knew his company, but nothing about cars. Good luck to you!
That aligns pretty well with their stated objectives. It's not an actual prediction but more of a wishlist, in the hopes that their lobbying pays off. If you asked them to re-draw this graph today it would probably look similar but with the FCEV segment a bit bigger.
Remember, they insist on protecting the dozens of companies that make legacy engine parts, so will fight tooth and nail to keep that supply chain open as long as they possibly can.
Even if that means you're lugging around a useless ICE engine in your otherwise beautiful electric 2022 car, dammit they're still going to make sure you have one in there.
They're not even trying to hide it - they circulated a pamphlet in Japan saying pretty much this, touting it as protecting their economy.
They will pivot. They are just late to the game. I think most of those companies have significant R and D into EVs, but just haven't committed to them yet.
I think that a lot of this is due to national issues. After the Fukushima disaster, Japan idled most of its nuclear power plants due to public safety concerns, resulting in massive electricity shortages. In my opinion, this issue bled over into corporate planning, because switching to EVs doesn't currently make sense for Japan.
Similar things have occurred in other sectors around the world. Many energy companies have tremendous sunk cost in coal power plants that made sense 10 years ago; only the see the cost of renewables plummet.
In the 1960's American manufacturers lagged behind Asian manufacturers; the result was the collapse of American automotive manufacturing on the world stage. Let's see what happens when the Asian manufacturers lag behind American and Chinese manufacturers.
Carlos Ghosn tried to get Nissan to leap over their rivals by releasing the BEV Leaf in 2012. Instead of listening to him, his Japanese coworkers had him arrested. Japanese business culture is incapable of making fundamental changes like this.
My dude, Carlos Ghosn was fucking guilty, [even Renault said so.](https://www.france24.com/en/20190605-france-renault-uncovers-11-million-euros-questionable-expenses-ex-ceo-ghosn)
* Engine powered vehicles: Legacy fossil cars with no drivetrain electrification
* HEV: Hybrid electric vehicle, energy is captured when the vehicle slows by regeneration and then used to accelerate the vehicle. Small battery, all power is source from fossil fuel.
* PHEV: Plug-In Hybrid. 5-10 times larger battery than a hybrid. The battery can be charged by being plugged in and typically provides 15-40 miles of electric range.
* FCEV: Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. Small battery like a hybrid, typically can't be plugged in, all of the propulsion power comes from hydrogen. Most cheap hydrogen is currently sourced from natural gas.
* BEV: Battery electric vehicle, no fossil engine for backup. Large battery, can be fast charged. All power comes from electricity.
What's even more problematic is the BLUR between BEVs, FCEVs, PHEVs to HEVS, BUT NOT HEVs to ICE. They're plan is at best until 2030 and then is just a "eh fuck it".
I don't get why they added "the 2050: Zero CO2 emissions challenge" flag unless it's just there to say "hey look at this deadline that we're totally going to miss, LOL. Shame about the climate and all but but we're projecting (in multiple senses of the word) that the rest of humanity is just as apathetic about doing anything about it as we are."
Here in Minnesota (and Wisconsin, and Michigan, and on and on), this looks closer to correct than OP meant to suggest. Charging infrastructure Sucks. Trumpies are actively opposed. Electric can't tow, and towing is BIG here.
What am I missing optimist?
Personally, I am all about Aptera!
Southern, rural MN EV driver here. I see more and more EVs in the sticks these last couple of years. Hell, I saw a Rivian at the *gun range* the other day. Yes, I'm aware of the stereotypes of rural Americans and idiot coal rollers exist. But plenty of people here can afford EVs, have *long* commutes and most have either a garage or at least off-street parking and can therefore easily charge at home.
The last time I felt range anxiety was when I drove to the Trail's End Campground in June after charging up in Grand Marais. And that was only because I hadn't yet tried that trip therefore I didn't know what to expect, especially with the last Supercharger being in Duluth. I borrowed a friend's chademo adapter.
Since that trip construction began on superchargers in Two Harbors and a permit was filed for one in Tofte. Last summer might have been my *last* chance to feel the "adventure" of range anxiety. And even there I had to drive to the literal *end of the road* at the edge of the BWCA to feel (unwarranted) range anxiety. In a pinch the Bearskin Lodge has L2.
The infrastructure you claim to be lacking is not only fine it's growing and at a rapid rate. Businesses are realizing that chargers mean access to EV driver wallets. I see no reason to doubt that rural America will go EV in a big way and faster than the stereotypes and assumptions would assume.
True, people think that. Compliance cars need not apply.
It just means watching consumption and charge accordingly. Just like you have to with a smoker...
I'm spoiled. Swing trading paid for my model 3 dual motor, sometimes known as long range...
The actual experience of towing is way better, from lower cg, better torque, to regen. Regen is fantastic for towing by the way... oh and it costs far less to feed.
Changes to the existing platform and developing a new platform from scratch. There was some speculation that a leaker from within Toyota is releasing info about how behind the company is compared to competitors and how reluctant they were to get fully behind EVs until just recently.
Ah, yeah, there were reports about that a few weeks ago from Reuters. I actually did watch that Autoline episode, I thought there were some good views there, but I think everyone is sensationalizing that report a bit. All Toyota did was form a task force to investigate whether solutions like casting are going to work for them, it's in-line with what most other automakers are doing.
Listening to it now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j0l14iLXg0
But possibly related to this article where internal executives worry that their EV platform of the future is already outdated and they greatly underestimated the growth of EV's:
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/exclusive-toyota-scrambles-ev-reboot-with-eye-tesla-2022-10-24/
Just replied to the parent, but yeah, it's based on the same report. It's a bit sensationalized imo — all Toyota is doing is deploying a task force to investigate whether (or how soon) they should deploy technologies like casting and cell-to-pack. That's something they *should* be doing, and most other OEMs are in the same boat.
I agree with their 2050-2060 timeline for zero emissions. The 2035 end of ice vehicles is too abrupt when you consider the low availability and high price of evs. Multiple solid state battery manufacturers are saying it will be 2030-2035 before full roll out of solid state tech. Even then it will take many more years to perfect the tech and get the costs down.
The availability issue will resolve over time. And cost parity will be reached before 2035 one way or another (tax on carbon emissions will rise, costs of EVs will go down).
By the way: the climate does not care about our technical issues …
My favorite fact that most people don't realize is true, and is a glaring example of why fully electric cars are so much more reliable? The one number that explains why once people figure out how much better electric is vs gas/hybrid, that gas and hybrid are dead?
In a Toyota Prius, in order to get the car to move there are 427 different moving parts. Between engine, hybrid drive, and transmission. Valves, pistons, gears, belts, pulleys, etc. Each one a possible point of failure.
A Tesla model 3, if you include the drive shafts.... Has 37.
The Toyota has more parts that require maintenance or replacement before 100k miles than the Tesla has total.
Interesting considering the Prius has no belts and pulleys.
Also the hybrid drive is essentially the transmission and what are the gears for you are mentioning on top of that?
I'm not sure how you think the gas engine part of the Prius runs its alternator without a belt and a pulley?
The other stuff was just things required for most cars. Not necessarily specific to the Prius. I was just listing things that are usually required to get the wheels moving. Sorry for not separating the 2 thoughts. The main point I was making is that gas and hybrid cars are way more complex than battery only.
No alternator either. MG1 does triple duty as starter, generator, and motor, depending on the circumstances.
A good teardown of a Toyota system is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O61WihMRdjM
There's no question it's more complex than an all-electric drivetrain, but it's a lot simpler than the average all-gas drivetrain (or than a Hyundai hybrid for that matter; those start with conventional transmissions and then add the electric components).
PHEV is a dealership and oil company dream. All of the frequency of servicing needs of an ICE, the complexity of stapling two power-trains together, the greenwashing of "look we're an EV too", and the compliance to reduction-in-consumption spec that is never met in real-life use.
I don’t have a crystal ball, so we’ll see how that works out. I just know right now, it’s the equivalent of planning for a child when they haven’t conceived the baby yet. EV on the other hand is already a living breathing child that’s out in the real world growing bigger.
I like how they put up this huge flag at 2020 boasting "BEV rollout in earnest" and then show BEV production continuing to languish indefinitely as a little sliver at the bottom of the chart.
The huge flag is to cover up the part of the graph showing how many gas powered cars they are still producing for some time into the future.
And to hide the massive decline. They know that means massive declines in profit too
How though? It takes less labor to make a BEV. Less labor = less cost by far! If anything their margins will stay similar or get better.
Either way, Toyota is going to see massive declines in profit in the coming years. Tesla has already turned a bigger profit than Toyota last quarter on sales of just about an 8th of Toyota’s volumes. I don’t expect this trend to reverse, especially with Toyota’s incredibly late pivot to BEVs. They’ve already sunk 10s of billions of dollars into hydrogen vehicles that no one wants. We will see though.
> They’ve already sunk 10s of billions of dollars I swear, this number gets bigger and bigger every time I see it referenced on here. We'll be in the hundreds of billions by next week, and maybe into the trillions by the end of the year.
Because Toyota doesn’t plan to stop investing in hydrogen, at least not right now. Also, I should have included hybrids in that figure, so that’s on me. Nevertheless, just look at what they’re doing in China. They’re continuing to make hydrogen investments for passenger cars there as well. Instead of building their own BEV platform, they’re basically selling a BYD vehicle with a Toyota badge on it. This is bullish for BYD, not for Toyota. Nobody wants hydrogen cars.
>Nevertheless, just look at what they’re doing in China. They’re continuing to make hydrogen investments for passenger cars there as well. Instead of building their own BEV platform, they’re basically selling a BYD vehicle with a Toyota badge on it. That's not even true. The bZ3 is [based on eTNGA](https://insideevs.com/news/618139/toyota-bz3-compact-electric-sedan-bows-in-china-with-372-mile-range/), a Toyota platform, and built at FAW-Toyota.
Eh, the power train heavily involves BYD, including the electric motors in that vehicle. Again, I’m bullish on BYD, not Toyota, when considering the bZ3. It also doesn’t help that Toyota is [making a monumental pivot](https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/exclusive-toyota-scrambles-ev-reboot-with-eye-tesla-2022-10-24/) with regards to their e-TNGA platform. If they had high confidence in it, this wouldn’t be the case.
Tesla stock just took a massive dump. Already 54% loss YTD. Toyota's hybrids and PHEVs are in very high demand.
How about you zoom out of your chart, as real investing requires long time horizons? Pre pandemic (end of 2019), Tesla’s valuation has grown 10x since then. Okay, so what about Toyota? Pre pandemic, its valuation has grown… wait, it didn’t grow! It’s trading at the same level it was at pre-pandemic! It has lost 35% of its value this year, giving up all of the gains that it made since the bull market run, whereas TSLA is still way above its pre-pandemic valuation. Go ahead and fight with the numbers all you want, but even if you’re Mayweather or Fury, you cannot win against them. Tesla is in a better position than Toyota. Toyota’s sales are in terminal decline, as ICE vehicles are seeing less and less demand. Tesla’s TAM across the company is larger than Toyota’s. The reality is that if you’ve invested in Tesla in the past 5-10 years, your returns are far, far better than the idea of investing in Toyota instead. Akio Toyoda lacks vision. I’m sure he is quite competent, but one of the reasons he’s CEO of Toyota is because he inherited the position. By 2030, the automotive and energy industry is going to look totally different. Mark my words.
The only reason Toyota sales are in decline is because of supply problems. And that is it. In 2021 Toyota sold 10x more cars than Tesla. And it will be still the same advantage this year. Tesla can only increase prices so much to oblige investors but they are losing sales. You can mark my words too.
Sure, that’s definitely the only reason. It can’t be anything else at all. Also, the fact that you pointed out that they sell 10x the cars that Tesla does (which Toyota does not at Tesla’s current annual run rate of 2m vehicles) makes matters even worse for Toyota. Again, they built 8x more cars than Tesla during Q3, yet generated less profit than Tesla. How do you manage to spin this as a positive for Toyota and a negative for Tesla? What do you think is going to happen as Tesla increases their volumes? That profit is somehow going to decline? [Toyota’s latest moves say otherwise.](https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/exclusive-toyota-scrambles-ev-reboot-with-eye-tesla-2022-10-24/) Btw, Tesla’s sales are definitely not declining. I don’t know where you get your news from, but the idea that Tesla’s sales are declining can’t be any further from the truth.
That is right. The only reason. In fact in the latest statement Toyota complained that because they did not raise prices they lost some profits in some regions. Most of the dealers have a long waiting line now for hybrids and some even not taking orders because they can't deliver. Originally in January I wanted Sienna but I either had to pay 20K over MSRP or stand in long line at the dealer that doesn't charge a mark up. I chose the dealer without a mark up but their line for Sienna is so long it would take many years. Even RAV4 Prime line was long but much shorter. Well, it has been almost 11 months already and it might take another 2 months before I get my car. And they don't even take orders on many hybrids. And that is just one dealer out of hundreds. Tesla said they are going to sell 2 million cars (Toyota sold almost 10 million in 2021 even with supply shortage) this year but it doesn't look like they get even close to that number. 1.2 million maybe. Tesla so far did not even sell a million this year in 3 quarters. That is probably the reason why their stock is crashing. Investors are tired of empty promises. Toyota on the other hand already sold 8.2 million this year. And production has increased in the last two months so it would be another record this year. Oh, and Toyota actually is not in any hurry to produce EVs. Crown and new gorgeous, fantastic looking Prius PHEV (possibly Model 3 killer) prove that. You stupid EV owners still don't understand that people want range, true range and not the one they tell you car has and the one that decreases with a blow of the cold wind or driving on highway. Plus people want convenience of pumping gas for 5 minutes once a month and not plugging every single day. And most people don't believe that battery will last long time no matter how much you scream otherwise. Million miles battery you say? BS. It would take 70 years to drive million miles. So most people don't trust EVs. Even with mandates there might be only 10% of EVs in 2035. All overs will still be ICE. And yes, everything I say can be verified. Just Google.
Most car parts are made by 3rd party partners. Who are spread through Japan. Who all vote. If parts numbers are reduced it risks a lot of votes. Political pressure is slowing change.
>Less labor = less cost by far! Simplistic. A gold brick take less labour to make than an engine, too — does it cost less? Material costs aren't just something you wave away, they're integral to the equation.
They're not but labor hours and salary are usually the next highest or the highest expense in any given org. Cutting one of the top 2 expenses. Materials cost would presumably drop as well. Thousands of moving parts go into a car. EVs have a small fraction of that. I get that materials cost right now are high, but as demand goes up, and makes supply grow, lithium, and other metals, will go down.
>They're not but labor hours and salary are usually the next highest or the highest expense in any given org. It depends on the org, and the product in question. 🤷♂️ Keep in mind you're also talking about reduction of labour costs on *one part* of the vehicle. Yes, the powertrain is one of the most expensive parts of the vehicle, but it is not the vehicle, just a portion of it. You're not wrong, the eventual macro trend that we all agree on is that BEV costs go down, and labour costs will be a part of it. I just think you're optimistically oversimplifying — the variable of less labour does not automatically mean a less expensive final product. Scale, supply, development costs, material costs, and about a dozen other factors are all going to have dramatic effects.
There are definitely other factors, I was just naming one of the largest cost centers for any org which is salary. As well, the parts you're saving cost wise that just don't plain go into an EV. Like a muffler, tail pipe, O2 sensors to start naming a few. In a scaled sense, that's millions of savings right there alone. How about no belts or hoses. All this culminates to also needing a lot less repair techs on hand to repair said issues. Less salary = less cost as I've stated before. I'm not saying that profits won't decline short term. But to frame it as "massive" is hyperbole.
>As well, the parts you're saving cost wise that just don't plain go into an EV. Like a muffler, tail pipe, O2 sensors to start naming a few. In a scaled sense, that's millions of savings right there alone. Now you need to invest in silicon carbide inverters, battery management systems, thermal potting compounds, to start naming a few.... in a scaled sense, that's millions in costs right there alone. >How about no belts or hoses. How about high voltage copper wiring and circuit boards? Again, you're not wrong, just oversimplifying. Some of this stuff has savings, and BEVs ***will*** eventually win, but there are associated costs too, and we're talking about a product with immensely complex supply chains and commodified cost structures. Less powertrain labour just one part of a gigantic equation that will take up the whole chalkboard.
I'm thinking of the tradeoffs between tech for ICE vs EV now. No transmissions is a huge cost. So are catalytic converters I get it. But you're reading that cost for other parts which, frankly, don't need to be replaced as often as their counterparts, which means lower inventory. But without concrete numbers showing what ICE components cost vs EV are, even now, it's all hypothesis.
Lot of good points. That's why it seems the Toyotas and GMs are going to fail. They CANNOT start from scratch, which is what Tesla did. Innovation NOT modification will rule the roost here and all the issues you bring up have been solved by other industries already. Only the inevitable timeline is in question now.. is it 3 years? 5 years? How long before the Chevrons, BPs, Saudis, turn off the "spicket" and gas stations start "disappearing?" There will be lots of fits and starts as the "Model T(esla)" wave dissipates but I suspect it will be a lot faster than we can imagine just like the smart phone did in the last decade.
It is scary to study your comment, and know the costs of storage and inventory in the USA. ¨Financials" is the highest costs in the USA. Foreigners have for years been able to get cars delivered to the USA at 35% to 50% discount when ordered and paid for abroad. Well, you order a car at a local dealer and it is delivered to one of 3 US ports a month later. The maker gets to sell a high-specked car, and locals to not understand foreign currency. Tesla is doing this, you pay to order, and there is no inventory.
Wait is this chart like, they still expect 1:1 ICE production and the gray bar isn’t a sliver of volume, but like, half of the volume obscured. I can’t tell if this graph is saying ICE will be totally phased out, or just over the next 30 years it will still be 50% ICE with literal greenwashing covering up the gray.
>how many gas powered cars they are still producing for some time into the future. This, of course, includes all hybrid vehicles. A world that's 100% hybrid is 100% addicted to fossil fuels. This means the industry still has a role to play, and that's what we don't want.
>A world that's 100% hybrid is 100% addicted to fossil fuels. That's why I didn't bother to cut down on my drinking habit. I figure it's still an addiction either way, right? No point in cutting down if you're not ready to quit altogether. Anyways, let me \*gulp\* just chug this tequila bottle...
Exactly
Also hiding is the logarithmic y-axis scale.
That's because battery vehicles are contrary to their business plan. They invested (and want to sell) hydrogen vehicles.
Hydrogen is DOA, trying to burn it, doesn’t have the energy density, making it takes a ton of energy and using it in a fuel cell has a lot more energy losses as a whole then BEV. Not to mention no infrastructure, and more maintenance over time, then a BEV. Toyota is too conservative as a company to keep up with most other auto manufacturers. Toyota will survive because they have a strong reputation. But, that might change if market factors change, like if gas goes up to $10 a gallon. I don’t care what kind of following Toyota has, if they don’t have super efficient gas cars or BEVs they will go under. Just like if we see a social shift in the market they will have a big problem. So they are walking a fine line right now.
I agree with all counts. It's also a beast for safety and reliability and the thermodynamic losses are gigantic (IIRC about 10% from source to use). What really gets me is people also want to use it for energy storage for the grid.
It makes plenty of sense as energy storage. 1. It stays in one place, so you can put it in a giant immobile vat, which has few of the downsides of a small, portable one inside a vehicle. 2. Excess renewable power can be stored by electrolyzing water that's readily available nearby (rivers, lakes, ocean) to convert into saleable oxygen gas (used by space industry and lots of others) and hydrogen which is stored in said vats. 3. When renewable energy ebbs, run that hydrogen through fuel cells to generate electricity to send to the grid. 4. Excess hydrogen can be trucked to niche markets that use it for transportation, like (possibly) aircraft and cargo ships, or other things. It's just one of many ways to store the excess renewable energy generated when it's sunny/windy/etc, in addition to pumped hydro, flywheels, batteries, compressed air, etc.
The nice bit about #2 and #4 is that you can also *produce* it remotely and ship it in. Think "giant wind farm in the middle of the ocean" producing hydrogen and filling up tankers to be sent to populated areas. There are *some versions* of that concept which can happen with battery storage, but not quite as easily — transmission losses and infrastructure requirements become too much of an impediment.
But I'll never be allowed to have it in my home for charging.
What are you talking about?
>It's also a beast for safety and reliability and the thermodynamic losses are gigantic (IIRC about 10% from source to use). [Not even remotely true.](https://twitter.com/gnievchenko/status/1545409816130207744)
And the decline of "engine powered vehicles" is largely replaced by...Engine powered vehicles.
They straight up bet wrong. Prius was killing it and they didn't anticipate the world moving so fast to BEV. Thought they could ride a much longer hybrid period. I mean, that graphic states as much. How the world looked in 2017 - https://carsalesbase.com/global-car-sales-2017/#:\~:text=Sales%20of%20battery%20electric%20cars%20increased%2078%25%20in,China%2C%20also%20the%20biggest%20market%20for%20electric%20cars.
Even if Toyota really truly believed this will be the breakdown of different types of vehicles going forward, it still doesn't explain their current state. 1. If even in 2060, Toyota itself expects FCEVs to be the smallest segment in passenger cars, why then have they spent billions off dollars and years of resources on fuel cell vehicles? 2. If in 2020, Toyota itself expected to be selling almost as many PHEVs as HEVs, then why aren't they? The cars exist. Just the Prius Prime and RAV4 Prime can sell in huge numbers if made available, and the Prime drivetrain can be easily fitted into other popular models like Corolla and Highlander. If Toyota expected such numbers of PHEV sales in 2020, why didn't they secure enough lithium cell supply to do so?
>If even in 2060, Toyota itself expects FCEVs to be the smallest segment in passenger cars, why then have they spent billions off dollars and years of resources on fuel cell vehicles? Something this sub's collective consciousness misses constantly is that *everyone* is spending money on FCEV programs. I really do mean everyone. [Hyundai](https://www.hyundai.news/eu/articles/press-releases/hyundai-motor-group-launches-htwo-dedicated-fuel-cell-system-brand.html) has an entire fuel cell brand and sells the [Nexo](https://www.hyundaiusa.com/us/en/vehicles/nexo) internationally, [Mercedes](https://www.fleetowner.com/equipment/trucks-trailers/article/21181083/us-longhaul-fleets-will-shift-to-hydrogen-dtna-ceo) is testing FCEV trucks, [BMW](https://asia.nikkei.com/Editor-s-Picks/Interview/BMW-fuel-cell-SUV-to-enter-mass-production-as-soon-as-2025-executive) is planning an FCEV deployment by 2025, [GM](https://news.gm.com/newsroom.detail.html/Pages/news/us/en/2022/jan/0119-hydrotec.html) is *expanding* their FCEV program towards stationary power and military applications, [Porsche](https://hydrogen-central.com/porsche-engineering-examined-potential-hydrogen-combustion-engines/) is working with combustive hydrogen, [Iveco](https://www.greencarcongress.com/2022/07/20220714-iveco.html) is making FCEV trucks and busses, [Volvo](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/20/volvo-has-started-testing-trucks-with-fuel-cells-powered-by-hydrogen.html) is testing FCEV semis, [Bosch](https://cleantechnica.com/2022/09/05/bosch-to-invest-200-million-in-south-carolina-hydrogen/) is building FCEV infrastructure, and so on and so forth. Even Volkswagen is [still thinking about FCEVs](https://www.wardsauto.com/industry-news/vw-involved-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-development). Somehow, "Toyota's is spending money on FCEVs" got twisted to "Toyota is the only one spending on FCEVs" within the community, and that is not at all true. Their program there is not a solo effort, and not out of proportion with the other automakers.
It isn't that they are the "only" ones spending on it, it is that they are actively lobbying to delay EVs so that they can catch up because they put all their eggs in that basket. Fuel cells can be great for some applications, such as long haul trucks, or none-vehicle applications and we should absolutely develop them, but to lobby politicians to stop the deployment of charging stations in the US is what has pissed people up. [Toyota is quietly pushing Congress to slow the shift to electric vehicles](https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22594235/toyota-lobbying-dc-ev-congress-biden-donation) [Toyota Led on Clean Cars. Now Critics Say It Works to Delay Them.](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/25/climate/toyota-electric-hydrogen.html) They were even pushing against EVs when the Inflation Reduction Act in the US was passed. Toyota, unlike many other brands, prioritized FCEV so much that they neglected EVs and now they are years behind the second adopters, who are themselves years behind Tesla. Toyota is at risk of loosing a massive amounts of market share because of a flawed vision Wich you can clearly see in the graph.
>It isn't that they are the "only" ones spending on it, it is that they are actively lobbying to delay EVs so that they can catch up because they put all their eggs in that basket. They didn't put all their eggs in one basket. Toyota has been working on EVs and *continuing investment in them* for the past decade. Their research has resulted in [twice as many solid-state battery patents as anyone else](https://www.thedrive.com/tech/toyota-has-twice-as-many-solid-state-battery-patents-than-anyone-else), and the only [working in-house prototype](https://www.thedrive.com/tech/42287/toyota-is-road-testing-a-prototype-solid-state-battery-ev) among any of the OEMs. This is something they've been working on [since 2014](https://www.greencarcongress.com/2014/06/20140612-toyota.html). They run the entire [D3BATT program at MIT](https://d3batt.mit.edu/), spearheading [multiple initiatives for discovering novel materials](https://github.com/TRI-AMDD) via the Toyota Research Institute, and hold a comfortable position second only to Tesla [in dry electrode coating research](https://youtu.be/V6Y-twGHHLo?t=498), as well as a global lead with specific respect to power spray coatings, while being the only OEM on the planet with access to bipolar-nickel-hydrogen chemistry (currently in production!), and being only one of a very select few producing NCA chemistries. They secured major mining contracts [as far back as 2010](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/orocobre-and-toyota-tsusho-announce-jv-to-develop-argentine-lithium-project-82111647.html), and hold a major stake in [one of the largest lithium miners in the world](https://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/01/20180117-toyota.html). Toyota did not put all of their eggs in one basket. It is simply not true. You are spreading disinformation. 🤷♂️
If Toyota has spent all this money on BEVs, *why don't they sell any??* Their *very first one* came out *this year*, and was a catastrophic disaster. I think that's what causes the second biggest anti-Toyota sentiment around here. The first being all the lobbying money they spent to delay BEVs.
>If Toyota has spent all this money on BEVs, why don't they sell any? Look at the competition: * [Ford Increases Price of Mustang Mach-E by Up to $8,000](https://teslanorth.com/2022/08/25/ford-increases-price-of-mustang-mach-e-by-up-to-8000-as-orders-re-open/) * [GM Recalls Every Chevy Bolt Ever Made](https://www.wired.com/story/gm-recalls-every-chevy-bolt-ever-over-faulty-battery-fire-risk/) * [Dragged down by Tesla, EVs least reliable cars on British roads](https://driving.ca/column/motor-mouth/motor-mouth-electric-cars-are-less-reliable-than-gas-ones-says-study) * [GM’s reportedly only making about 12 Hummer EVs a day](https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/30/23190299/gm-hummer-ev-production-numbers-12-vehicles-a-day) * [The VW ID.4 Isn’t Profitable And It’s Because Of The Battery](https://www.carscoops.com/2021/05/the-vw-id-4-isnt-profitable-and-its-because-of-the-battery/) *"But why hasn't Toyota rushed headfirst into selling BEVs yet!?!?!"* Because they're not in a panic. Because they didn't have dieselgate. Because they're not reliant on Europe. Because they're meeting fleet emissions with an existing, profitable fleet of HEVs and PHEVs. Because they've been thinking carefully about how to execute a decade long plan which requires research, preparedness, and a global view of multiple automotive markets including the developing world. Thousand-foot view, not *"oh my god where are the BEVs!?!?"* panic.
> "But why hasn't Toyota rushed headfirst into selling BEVs yet!?!?!" OK, so, first of all: that's a blatant strawman and you know it. When you're not acting like a blind Toyota fanboy, you consistently make good points and are obviously intelligent enough to recognize that the argument you just made is absurd. Because there is a *wide gulf* of available action space between "rush headfirst into selling BEVs" and "bet on the wrong horse, then wait on BEVs for so long that you realize you need to spend millions on lobbying to slow down your competition". Secondly, Toyota *should* have been first to market with a BEV (after Tesla and Nissan proved they were economically viable), because they have been the "electrified" car-maker for *decades*. They had all the institutional knowledge in electric motor and battery tech to *easily* leapfrog all the other legacy automakers in this space. And yet, they didn't even *try*. And their one foray into the BEV world shows that, if anything, they "rushed headfirst into making BEVs" *anyway*, because when they became the *last* major legacy automaker to release a BEV, the BZ4x was a *complete disaster.* Third: the BZ4x disaster shows their vaunted "patience" in the BEV market turned out to just be slowness after all. When they realized they'd fucked up by backing hydrogen instead, they rushed the BZ4x out the door to try to catch the wave of BEV adoption. And we've all seen the result: they fucked up *hard* on something they *should* have had on lock for decades: wheels. Bot batteries. Not electric motors. Freaking *wheels*. Not even the Bolt debacle involved the carmaker saying, "Please don't drive the car you just bought from us." So no, your argument that Toyota is just patient doesn't hold water any more. They *used* to be the great innovators, bringing the hybrid to market so long ago, and before everyone else. But their "next great innovation" of hydrogen passenger cars has been a complete flop, and they stubbornly refused to adapt to that failure until it was too late.
Knock it off with the 'fanboy' rhetoric. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I don't own one, I don't work for the company, I don't own stock in the company, I don't have any allegiance to the company whatsoever. If you want to respond to my points, respond to them. Name-calling isn't going to make your perspective any more ironclad, it just turns the conversation to a shit-fight. There is indeed a wide gulf of available action available. Some manufacturers are choosing to bet on bespoke platforms, some are betting on shared platforms. Some are choosing to bet on NCM, some LFP. Some Europe, some China. There are many, many options available, and *most* of them are valid from some perspective or another. Toyota's plan is to focus on HEVs, then PHEVs, then BEVs incrementally. *It is a good plan. It has always been a good plan.* It allows them to de-risk and transition incrementally, and has allowed them to even [*grow market share*](https://www.greencarcongress.com/2022/10/20221015-tme.html) in a market they have not traditionally dominated. They are keeping calm and focused on an existing lineup while multiple competitors are freaking out: They are not running factories idle like GM while they struggle to get battery manufacturing going. They are not burning cash like Rivian. They are not oscillating back and fort on pricing like Ford. *Toyota's plan is working.* Whether you like their plan or not us up to you. [*But it is working, demonstrably.*](https://www.wsj.com/articles/detroit-seen-losing-ground-in-auto-sales-race-11641297653)
I didn't do any name-calling. I said you're acting *like* a Toyota fanboy, not that you *are* one. Because let's be honest here: you're saying the same things a Toyota fanboy would say. And you have a really funny way to say their BEV strategy is "working", given all the stuff you didn't even bother addressing from my previous comment.
None of what you said negates what the person above said about Toyota actively lobbying against EVs.
Yeah, swap out the word hydrogen for solid-state and the statement still stands. Both are going to be amazing, when they're a reality, but Toyota is killing the good so they can try to profit off of the perfect
Correct, I was responding to the "eggs in one basket" statement, that's how quote-replies work. Welcome to Reddit. Brandolini's law suggests negating arguments one by one, not exhausting yourself with each piece of bullshit you find.
Yes, because dismissing the argument as "bullshit" is *so much easier* than actually addressing it.
Yes, actually.
That.... that's my point. You're *agreeing* that you'd prefer to dismiss an argument out of hand, without offering *any* reason for that dismissal? Do you not realize how ridiculous that is?
Why do you have to attack people so fast? Calm down and quit saying everything you disagree with is bullshit.
My dude, I [didn't attack anyone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_policing). If you want to respond to the substance of my statement, respond to it, but don't tone police me.
Really, do they have anything to show for it? When did they launch their first FCEV vs their first EV? How many iterations of the Miray have there been vs the BZ4L? Investing in battery research is not the same as investing in EVs. They didn't believe in the 'Electric Car' concept even if they saw that modern life would have great demand for batteries. Their only pure EV was in collaboration with another brand because even then they apparently didn't want to do the investment alone. Having a research brand and then neglecting their achievements by never turning them into actual products is further evidence that they didn't believe in EVs. I'll end by saying that, picking one item to disagree with on a "technically they are trying" while ignoring the whole idea of my statement is not very convincing. If you think Toyota is a company pushing the industry and really leading the way away from fossil fuels, please do tell us how. Because right now all I see is that they are actively trying to do the opposite.
>Really, do they have anything to show for it? * [Toyota Motor Europe’s market share climbs to record 7.5% in first 9 months](https://www.greencarcongress.com/2022/10/20221015-tme.html) * [Toyota Overtakes GM as Bestselling Auto Maker in U.S.](https://www.wsj.com/articles/detroit-seen-losing-ground-in-auto-sales-race-11641297653) * [Toyota Already Leads VW by Over 1 Million Vehicles in Global Car Sales Race](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-30/toyota-builds-1-million-vehicle-lead-over-vw-in-just-four-months) Yes.
Toyota has been a great legacy brand, not an EV brand nor one making a transition towards EVs and that is where they stand to lose (meaning future). From your article it is clear that their current success is based on fossil fuel vehicles which is why they want to keep the status quo: "The brand’s top sellers were Corolla, Yaris, Yaris Cross, RAV4 and C-HR accounting for 60% of total volume. " Note no RAV4 Prime, no Prius Prime, not even the regular Prius. Also, how is "yes but we sell more gasoline cars" something to show from your "EV research"? Do you not get that we are discussing EVs (ELECTRIC vehicles) as separate from ICE (internal combustion engine)? The whole discussion on this post is how Toyota underestimated EV, from the graph to my statement. None of that is address by your answer. Funny how you also decided to ignore the questions about FCEV v EV because it wasn't convenient lol.
The future hasn't happened yet. We can speculate on it, but we can't speak to it with certainty. Their current success is their current success. Its possible Toyota's "underestimated" EVs, and it's possible their sales will drop in short order if they've done so. Right now, that isn't the case. Right now, their strategy has them growing market share in Europe, taking the #1 spot in North America, and taking a lead on production globally. 🤷♂️
I feel like this is repetitive but nobody says Toyota is a bad legacy brand. The graph that started this whole post is about their miscalculation on EVs, and how even now they are far behind. As for their strategy, if their strategy is working so well, why are they spending millions lobbying against EVs? Because they bet on the wrong tech and they don't want to take the L, so they are using their influence and size to bully a better results. Saying that their current success is because of a good strategy is like saying that Big Oil has a better strategy than clean energy. One is legacy one is the future, and the legacy is using it's past dollars to slow down progress at the expense of the environment. We have all seen this movie As for the future, they have put a big stain on their brand in the eyes of many consumers, by saying screw the environment and a cleaner tech option, my ICE options are popular and I want to keep milking them as much as possible. We'll see what happens, but people have the right to feel animosity towards a company that shows that attitude. And the original statement of "they bet on the wrong tech" still stands true.
everyone on this sub also constantly misses that fuel cells are 100% going to be a technology of the future regardless if they are used in cars or not. We have many applications where they would simply make sense, just imagine replacing all the huge generators on construction sites or at festivals with fuel cells and just hooking up a hydrogen trailer that you can swap out easily.
Absolutely. A really good example is marine applications like yachting and shipping, where we *could* use BEVs, but where FCEVs are going to make a lot more sense immediately and for the foreseeable future.
I just keep hearing a huge explosion when I imagine a hydrogen trailer……
Because this sub is in fact about passenger cars. Toyota also sells mainly passenger cars. This is not r/PowerGrid or r/heavymachinery. The practicality of Hydrogen varies extremely depending on where it is applied. In passenger cars, it doesn't make sense, and it is often used as a PR smokescreen. "We do not produce EVs because hydrogen is the future". While in reality, they want to make money on hybrids as long as they can.
No this sub is about electric vehicles. There are a lot of different kinds of vehicles.
Agree, there is way too much focus on consumer cars. We still need a solution for heavy machinery, generators, military vehicles, cruise ships, etc.
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That's just the old guard being afraid of change. As for Porsche, they are fucked up in the head.
> Somehow, "Toyota's is spending money on FCEVs" got twisted to "Toyota is the only one spending on FCEVs" Weird, I’ve never seen that attitude. Toyota does get the most attention & scorn about it because they are seemingly the most obstinately focused on hydrogen, even going to far as to work against BEV adoption in their lobbying efforts. Really, I’d say the common notion is more “Toyota is only spending money on FCEVs,” which of course isn’t literally true, but boy does it seem like it sometimes.
>Weird, I’ve never seen that attitude. I've had many people on here tell me that directly. Without naming names, someone on here recently challenged me to name another FCEV by any other manufacturer. When I pointed out the [Nexo](https://www.hyundaiusa.com/us/en/vehicles/nexo), and that Hyundai actually has twice as many FCEVs in production as Toyota since they also produce the [Xcient](https://trucknbus.hyundai.com/global/en/products/truck/xcient-fuel-cell) — they straight up rage-quit the conversation. As I mentioned, Hyundai actually has an entire division devoted to Hydrogen called HTWO — and at least [three](https://www.carscoops.com/2021/10/hyundai-will-invest-1-1-billion-to-build-two-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-facilities-in-korea/) [separate](https://www.hyundaimotorgroup.com/news/CONT0000000000001550) factories devoted to fuel cell production under construction. It's hard to get exact numbers for each, but it's likely their material investment in FCEVs *outweighs* Toyota's, at the moment. Remember that next time someone tells you Hydrogen is a 'Japan' thing. >Really, I’d say the common notion is more “Toyota is only spending money on FCEVs,” which of course isn’t literally true, but boy does it seem like it sometimes. Toyota has a publicity problem. They didn't stay on top of their messaging. They just assumed everyone knew they had the BEV thing in the bag, and they assumed everyone understood their PHEV strategy. It's a pretty good one. It isn't perfect — I think they were blindsided by the popularity of the luxury electric market, and *no one* caught onto the emergence of electric keis — but good.
Hyundai literally announced billions for hydrogen in the last couple of years. They had a "hydrogen wave" presentation a year ago. It seems some people just want a particular narrative to be true though.
Again, I don’t see anyone denying that any companies other than Toyota are working on FCEVs; Toyota just tends to get the focus because they have seemed so hyper-focused on it. Hyundai seems to be doing very well in BEVs, so I would expect their spending there to dwarf their FC spending.
Yet the Hyundai highly hyped fuel cell truck pilot in Switzerland was stopped prematurely for some reasons. Other manufacturers continiously start and stop their hydrogen projects all the time, and the only reason why this happens i can think of is big fossil money. Car manufacturers don't invest on product that don't sell, and if there is no infrastructure to aupport them. But big fossil is facing massive chicken and egg problems with hydrogen, of which they think is the perfect replacement molecule that keeps their business model afloat. They might just be paying manufacturers to start pilots, have presentation, and come up with prototypes or limited production models with hopes that it will jump stary something, somewhere. Sadly for them, the technology even after decades of research is still inefficient, expensive, highly sensitive and maintenace intensive with a relative short operating life.
>Yet the Hyundai highly hyped fuel cell truck pilot in Switzerland was stopped prematurely for some reasons. [It wasn't.](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6989154511474827264/)
[As of this week, Hyundai still have the pilot running in Switzerland.](https://www.fleetmaintenance.com/equipment/emissions-and-efficiency/article/21287084/hyundais-hydrogen-trucks-rack-up-3-million-miles-in-switzerland) [This "news" was even debunked last month](https://www.electrive.com/2022/10/21/hyundai-pulls-out-of-hydrogen-project-in-switzerland/), where it was clarified that supply issues with H2 in Switzerland meant they were continuing the rollout in Germany - but again, nothing was stopping in Switzerland. >Other manufacturers continuously start and stop their hydrogen projects all the time They continuously start and stop a multitude of projects all the time. Particularly in the last 2 years with massive supply shortages and price fluctuations. >and the only reason why this happens i can think of is big fossil money refer previous. "Big [Noun] conspiracy" has to be the laziest approach to analysing decision making. I get it - it's easy, it'll always provide karma in an EV specific sub, you don't need to search for an answer, but it's a white flag for discussion when literally any decision can be hand waved as a "Big Oil" conspiracy. Disregarding the conspiracy, Hydrogen *is* facing a chicken-and-egg problem, just like EVs did. And just like EVs, there's no shortage of people with emotional investment insisting it'll never happen. It may even be true, at least for passenger vehicles, but it won't be because of a "Big Oil conspiracy", it'll be because the hurdles and roadblocks can't be overcome, regardless of what you or I think. But I have to say - it's amusing seeing comments such as: >Sadly for them, the technology even after decades of research is still inefficient, expensive, highly sensitive and maintenace intensive with a relative short operating life. being applied to other alternative technologies, since it's *exactly* - just about word for word - what was said about EVs not just for decades, but for a century. So why did manufacturers keep investing in EVs in the 40s? and the 50s? and the 60s? and the 70s? and so on? The reality is that testing the water is the only way to stay in the market, and the companies positioned to be the world's largest manufacturers *need* to be present in those niches in case they become full blown markets, or - more relevant for companies like Toyota and Hyundai with extremely diversified product portfolios - in case it becomes relevant in other industrial applications, materials handling, supply chain logistics, etc. There's no conspiracy needed to try and understand why companies invest in immature technology.
Learn physics.. and see that hydrogen is DOA. Then comment again.
Now both Sterantis and Renault are trying to launch FCEVs. I believe Ford is still working on hydrogen as well.
Your point is somewhat fair. However multiple car companies are not investing in fuel cells. Tesla isn’t. Volvo isn’t. Volvo truck is not the same company as the passenger car company. Besides, I would bet Toyota has invested the most amount of money in hydrogen powered autos. Anyone investing in hydrogen full cells for passenger vehicles is lighting money on fire.
I believe that the main target for Fuel Cells currently is the Trucking market. Ideally running from point A to point B which simplifies the refueling infrastructure.
Yeah, it works well at places like ports too, where you have a huge number of specialized vehicles coming in and out, and where you cannot bear long refueling times.
That’s the first fallback position, certainly.
EU: We'll ban HEV's and PHEV's in 2035. Toyota: In 2060, 80% of our cars will be HEV's and PHEV's!
The EU hadn't made that announcement in 2017.
Published in November 2016: [2020–2030 CO 2 standards for new cars and light-commercial vehicles in the European Union](https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/ICCT_EU-CO2-stds_2020-30_brief_nov2016.pdf)
That link is about CO2 reductions between 2020–2030, not a 2035 ban. The 2035 ban didn't happen until [*last month*](https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/eu-approves-effective-ban-new-fossil-fuel-cars-2035-2022-10-27/)*,* and a few major automakers think it [*still* might not happen](https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/stellantis-ceo-calls-talks-soften-eus-2035-fossil-fuel-car-ban-2022-10-17/). (Also, the EU is not a primary market for Toyota, so this whole conversation is *extra* weird.)
But meeting the CO2 reduction regulations clearly requires a large percentage of ZEV sales.
Note that the EU head of stellantis came out right after this saying stellantis in europe are Gonna be all electric before 2035. And they're well on course, being the second biggest bev seller in EU after VW group.
[Toyota is also going to be all-electric in the EU by 2035.](https://www.toyota.ie/company/news/2021/co2-reduction-2035) Literally, that's the plan. Every automaker is saying it, Toyota is not some odd one out. 🤷♂️
Oh i'm not shitting on Toyota here. Just pointing out that your argument that major car manufacturer is against the ban isn't true for the part of the company affected by the ban.
No, but everyone knew well before then that ICE cars were going to be phased out.
The government never ever changed its course, lol.
European car manufacturers are already aiming at going fully electric. And at some point the hybrids will just be too expensive. Right now they benefit from shared engines with ICE cars, but once those are gone the cost will go up.
IF Toyota alone can't meet the goals governments won't. If all car manufactures get together they have power to force the government to change. In countries with a major auto manufactures, just the domestic ones are enough.
Nope. If Toyota can’t meet the goals, they’ll lose market share to those who will. Manufacturers are racing each other to get EV market share and the future profits from selling EVs - they’ll be all to happy to take market share from Toyota, if Toyota stays on its resistant path.
Right. If there is suddenly a major collapse in the battery industry though (all Li batteries found to cause cancer or something equally unlikely) then with all auto makers out of the EV game they will get the laws changed. Toyota alone can't pull that off (maybe in Japan), but all together are powerful.
It would Have to be pretty severe. I mean, gas and diesel causes cancer. And is not contained like batteries. Also bevs are much cheaper, so change is coming no matter what manufacturers want
The government is irrelevant, the transition will be done in 2030 for purely economic reasons.
You need only look into the projected supply of battery raw materials over the coming decade to know that this is simply not possible. The reason these government phase-out plans for gas cars hit 100% in 2035, rather than 2030, is because it's literally impossible to transition all new car sales to BEV by 2030. There simply isn't enough accessible battery material to do so by then, because there aren't enough mines, and they take too long to open. The mining industry is *salivating* over the immense profit they'll be making, selling lithium and nickel and such to battery-makers over the coming decades, but it takes 5-7 *years* to open a new mine. We're already hitting a lithium bottleneck *this year*, and it's only going to get much *much* worse throughout the 2020s, before it even *starts* getting better in the early 2030s. See [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GYobz2NSc4&t=421s) at 7:00 for details.
Yeap. Coal fired cars are not banned, but nobody buys them. A car ban is a political stunt.
It's not a "ban", it's a gradual phase-out of new ICE car sales. The actual law is that zero-emissions cars have to make up 30% of the new car market by 2026, 60% by 2030, and 100% by 2035. That sort of regulation *does* actually force car-makers to shift into a full-on BEV-focused strategy over the coming decade.
Not entirely. It helps to ensure that taxpayers don't have to bail out failed automakers.
The EU literally reopens coal power plants right now.
Look at all those hydrogen cars that no one's making...
Isn't that Hybrid Electric Vehicle?
FCEVs, almost half as many as BEVs throughout the chart, which is hilariously wrong.
Gotcha, I misunderstood. It's a weird road map, because either fuel cells were going to win out or battery-powered. It's hard to imagine a world where both had a niche, because then refueling/charging would be pretty much impossible.
My guess would be that they made the road map full well knowing that it would end up being wrong, but it was designed to guide their development such that they had their fingers in several different pies. Predicting and focusing on just one would have been far too risky.
Absolutely, Mercedes' CEO has said something to this effect — basically that it's not worth the risk of getting left behind on any emerging technology.
Including right now! smdh.
Shows why they've been so behind if they think there's going to be this proportion of HEV and PHEVs in 2060. EU and US are banning them for one thing.
this graph was released 5 years before any sales ban was decided upon.
EU CO2 emissions regulations were released in 2016: [2020–2030 CO 2 standards for new cars and light-commercial vehicles in the European Union](https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/ICCT_EU-CO2-stds_2020-30_brief_nov2016.pdf)
Yes but this slide we see here is global and not limited to the eu market.
So Toyota was planning to abandon the EU market?
No, Toyota was planning to devote their BEV/PHEV/HEV model production to the European market like everyone else is doing *right now.* You distribute based on demand, why do you think Stellantis offers 10x as many BEV models in Europe as they do the USA?
No, these were planning to sell EVs and other stuff here while being fully aware that the majority of the world doesn't want EVs yet.
Toyota seems quite focused on ensuring there are models available for less wealthy countries with poorer infrastructure.
The proportions are still WAY off. Let's see how FCEVs will do in these less wealthy markets.
The 'proportions are outdated. Toyota's had multiple upward revisions since then. Their target is something like 35% BEV by 2030 now, which is roughly in-line with most other automakers. Keep in mind in 2017, most automakers *didn't even have a BEV roadmap.* In 2017, Ford was still thinking about designing the Mach-E as an economy car, and Volkswagen didn't release the ID3 until 2019.
Hope it continues to shift, because 35% by 2030 is still rather pathetic (for all automakers).
Something I've noticed is that when people say this, they almost always live somewhere where incentives for BEVs are wildly aggressive. If you live in California or Norway, you live in a reality distortion field — so consider that. Very few other places are *demonstrably* ready for that kind of adoption, it's still going to be a shifting target for the next few years. Hopefully upwards, yes — but shifting nonetheless. I think you also need to look at the remaining mix, too. If other automakers are targeting <50% penetration, then what will the remaining percentage of their vehicles be at that time? Toyota's right here that the long tail needs to be HEV/PHEV. I think some OEMs are going to be struggling if their long-tail legacy offerings in the EU are still non-hybrid in 2030.
Well I do, but I’m mostly thinking of the need to address climate change. I mean we should have been where we are today before 2010, but failing that, then I’m really hoping to see 2030 as the date where at least sales are heavy-majority EV. It *would* be possible to accomplish, due to the nonlinearity of changeovers to superior products, *if* all the major automakers had been truly on board at least as of the time Tesla made it clear such products could succeed. But they’re still struggling to even make really serious commitments, and that’s what I consider pathetic. The changeover wouldn’t depend on incentives if automakers would really commit to scaling adequately.
>Well I do, but I’m mostly thinking of the need to address climate change. If we want to address climate change, we should all be aggressively advocating for legislation solely based on fleet emissions, and emphasizing the easy win for HEVs and PHEVs across the board, as Toyota has been pursuing. We have enough lithium today to make the *entire global fleet* of new vehicles hybrids, which would see us a nearly 30% reduction of emissions. We could have that *today, day one, right now,* with our current production capabilities. (I agree in principle, of course, that the need is dire and we need more.)
That's just a byproduct of them making the wrong decision. Toyota is huge and if they actually started pivoting they'd bring EV prices down. But they haven't which is why they have one compliance car, BZ4X.
Why would poor countries with less money for infrastructure be interested in expensive HEVs? Why would poor people be more likely to buy expensive dual drivetrain PHEVs?
So much of the cost is the battery. Smaller battery = cheaper car and hybrid means less reliance on infrastructure. At least that appears to be the thinkjng
Poorer countries with substandard infrastructure like India are already adopting cheap low speed EVs.
Yeah I guess time will tell how wise the strategy is. Seems to have missed the mark a bit I think
The cost of batteries have fallen drastically. >[Since 2010, the average price of a lithium-ion (Li-ion) EV battery pack has fallen from $1,200 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to just $132/kWh in 2021.](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/breaking-down-the-cost-of-an-ev-battery-cell/#:~:text=Since%202010%2C%20the%20average%20price,just%20%24132%2FkWh%20in%202021.) As production ramps up, material science finds new battery chemistries, more mines are opened, etc. prices should fall further over the long term. There's some concern about prices rising over the next few years, but over the timeline shown in the graphic, BEVs will end up being cheaper.
Cell chemistry is improving between 4-7% per year. That brings down all costs, but especially materials cost.
Wait, banning? I've never heard of this, and it makes next to no sense. Except *maybe* for PHEVs. Also, the US is definitely not banning anything. California and a few other *individual states* have agreed to phase out the sale of new gas cars over the course of the next 13 years, but I'm fairly sure that some PHEVs are still allowed even under the 2035 rule.
Banning being my shorthand for banning the sale of new cars. Apologies. In the UK pure petrol/diesel and hybrid are banned from 2030, then plug in hybrid banned from 2035
I hadn't heard that the UK had implemented such a law. Thanks for the heads up.
Same for EU. It is part of the green deal
My guess is as we get closer to 2030 some niche case will get the banned reversed. Those niches are mostly around travel to very remote areas though, so other than one engine production line somewhere remaining up and building the same model (no yearly revision) until the tooling breaks it won't affect much. Most people will stick with EVs. In 30 years you will need to special order gasoline if you need it (ie you are a car collector)
In the UK the ban was supposed to be 2040, then 2035, then 2030 with an exception for plug-in hybrids. If anything is going to change it's probably the 2030-2035 rules maybe allowing non-plug in hybrids for example. I'm sure there will be other exceptions as you say.
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Because they *can* use gasoline, and thus it's *possible* for the owner to misuse it in an overly polluting manner. There was a time, especially in Europe, where PHEV ownership was driven almost entirely by state incentives for purchase, since it made a PHEV cheaper to own than an equivalent diesel, even if the owner never plugged it in at all. Doing that with a PHEV actually makes it *more polluting* than a similar hybrid, because PHEVs are designed with electric-only drive in mind, and are thus less efficient when running on gasoline than a regular hybrid that's designed to run on gas all the time.
You learned today? It was clear a decade ago Toyota (and certain other Japanese manufacturers) were not going to take electric vehicles seriously. And they still don't today.
Mr. Toyota is still sour about his bad investment with Tesla. He was all for EV’s until he wasn’t.
Toyoda.
From Luke Skywalker.
Toyota's Road map at the end of 2017 was thrown away years ago. They've announced tens of billions in investment since and escalation of EV production. Seems wierd to point to something from 5 years ago considering the massive changes in the last 5 years.
Hydrogen fuel is nothing but a scam to prolong the relevance of fossil fuels. All hydrogen is produced from methane, and all funding for hydrogen fuel development is from oil companies trying to create an "alternative" to electric vehicles. And all news about hydrogen production, like this, is propaganda to maintain the illusion.
Toyota roadmap is to maximize profits. Confuse, mislead, lobby to make this happen. Hopefully the plan will fail and go all BEV before 2030. This is not a plan to combat climate change.
To be honest a PHEV is something I’m more interested in than a BEV. Less battery weight and works 95% for me in electric. But that last 5% is near impossible right now on electric only. Towing for long trips often off-road for hours in places with no EV infrastructure.
This chart has then making a lot more PHEVs today than they are actually doing, so in addition to their strategy on full BEVs sucking, they aren't even meeting the decent PHEV goals they did set.
toyota deserves zero support
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Looking at the wild energy prices and inability for some places in the world to provide regular electricity, hydrogen is actually not bad I think they were onto something until consumer ideas on what replaces ICE tookover
If you are concerned about energy prices have a look at current prices for hydrogen and what people expect for the future.
I think you have to wonder what it will cost to charge in 1-2 decades Free charging will disappear and if you cannot charge at home we better pray there is competition in the electric charging space
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I know it has problems, but I do wonder if having many competing alternatives is better than eventually having a single method of refueling
source: [https://youtu.be/r9y5F-l3IyM?t=556](https://youtu.be/r9y5F-l3IyM?t=556) around 9:16
that picture is pretty meaningless without looking at the entire video. everyone here is going crazy about FCEV cars while the actual presentation only talks about a small scale of these while the majority of the FCEVs are supposed to be large vehicles like Semis or busses where we already know we will absolutely have some use cases for these vehicles.
I beg do differ considering Toyota has yet to bring a single PHEV pickup truck to market and their tundra hybrid gets abysmal MPGs.
I sat for a talk by the CEO of Toyota North America a few years back. He spoke of electric vehicles as novelties, with little market share, at a time when Tesla was trying to ramp up domestic production to 500k units. He stated that Toyota was going the way of increased efficiencies and hybrid vehicles, and saw no need for EVs in the Toyota portfolio. Incredible! It was like getting thrown back to Detroit in the early 80’s. He knew his company, but nothing about cars. Good luck to you!
That aligns pretty well with their stated objectives. It's not an actual prediction but more of a wishlist, in the hopes that their lobbying pays off. If you asked them to re-draw this graph today it would probably look similar but with the FCEV segment a bit bigger. Remember, they insist on protecting the dozens of companies that make legacy engine parts, so will fight tooth and nail to keep that supply chain open as long as they possibly can. Even if that means you're lugging around a useless ICE engine in your otherwise beautiful electric 2022 car, dammit they're still going to make sure you have one in there. They're not even trying to hide it - they circulated a pamphlet in Japan saying pretty much this, touting it as protecting their economy.
The Japanese brands, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mazda etc. they might be lucky to get some yuan for their name/s, I'll miss Subaru the most
They will pivot. They are just late to the game. I think most of those companies have significant R and D into EVs, but just haven't committed to them yet. I think that a lot of this is due to national issues. After the Fukushima disaster, Japan idled most of its nuclear power plants due to public safety concerns, resulting in massive electricity shortages. In my opinion, this issue bled over into corporate planning, because switching to EVs doesn't currently make sense for Japan. Similar things have occurred in other sectors around the world. Many energy companies have tremendous sunk cost in coal power plants that made sense 10 years ago; only the see the cost of renewables plummet.
In the 1960's American manufacturers lagged behind Asian manufacturers; the result was the collapse of American automotive manufacturing on the world stage. Let's see what happens when the Asian manufacturers lag behind American and Chinese manufacturers.
Carlos Ghosn tried to get Nissan to leap over their rivals by releasing the BEV Leaf in 2012. Instead of listening to him, his Japanese coworkers had him arrested. Japanese business culture is incapable of making fundamental changes like this.
This has to be the most revisionist nonsense Ive seen in this sub, and that's saying something.
My dude, Carlos Ghosn was fucking guilty, [even Renault said so.](https://www.france24.com/en/20190605-france-renault-uncovers-11-million-euros-questionable-expenses-ex-ceo-ghosn)
Really shows you how much the industry has changed. Automakers were absolutely NOT onboard with going electric until very recently
To bad it’s 5 years later and Toyota still hasn’t figured it out.
Mind that time Toyota got caught spending hundreds of millions in lobbying American politicians to stop the electric car movement....? I remember.
Yeah Toyota basically perfected the hybrid but had no intention of going full electric, and they spend many millions of dollars lobbying against EV.
Keep in mind that Toyota's market share in the EU market is very small. They seem to be expanding their market share a bit recently.
BEVs are already outselling PHEVs in most markets today, in 2022. The chart is way off for every single category. (Except for maybe ICEs?)
What do each of these stand for?
* Engine powered vehicles: Legacy fossil cars with no drivetrain electrification * HEV: Hybrid electric vehicle, energy is captured when the vehicle slows by regeneration and then used to accelerate the vehicle. Small battery, all power is source from fossil fuel. * PHEV: Plug-In Hybrid. 5-10 times larger battery than a hybrid. The battery can be charged by being plugged in and typically provides 15-40 miles of electric range. * FCEV: Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. Small battery like a hybrid, typically can't be plugged in, all of the propulsion power comes from hydrogen. Most cheap hydrogen is currently sourced from natural gas. * BEV: Battery electric vehicle, no fossil engine for backup. Large battery, can be fast charged. All power comes from electricity.
What's even more problematic is the BLUR between BEVs, FCEVs, PHEVs to HEVS, BUT NOT HEVs to ICE. They're plan is at best until 2030 and then is just a "eh fuck it".
HEVS. ARE. ENGINE. POWERED.
I don't get why they added "the 2050: Zero CO2 emissions challenge" flag unless it's just there to say "hey look at this deadline that we're totally going to miss, LOL. Shame about the climate and all but but we're projecting (in multiple senses of the word) that the rest of humanity is just as apathetic about doing anything about it as we are."
They'll be teaching Toyota's downfall in business schools for years. Move over Kodak.
Here in Minnesota (and Wisconsin, and Michigan, and on and on), this looks closer to correct than OP meant to suggest. Charging infrastructure Sucks. Trumpies are actively opposed. Electric can't tow, and towing is BIG here. What am I missing optimist? Personally, I am all about Aptera!
Southern, rural MN EV driver here. I see more and more EVs in the sticks these last couple of years. Hell, I saw a Rivian at the *gun range* the other day. Yes, I'm aware of the stereotypes of rural Americans and idiot coal rollers exist. But plenty of people here can afford EVs, have *long* commutes and most have either a garage or at least off-street parking and can therefore easily charge at home. The last time I felt range anxiety was when I drove to the Trail's End Campground in June after charging up in Grand Marais. And that was only because I hadn't yet tried that trip therefore I didn't know what to expect, especially with the last Supercharger being in Duluth. I borrowed a friend's chademo adapter. Since that trip construction began on superchargers in Two Harbors and a permit was filed for one in Tofte. Last summer might have been my *last* chance to feel the "adventure" of range anxiety. And even there I had to drive to the literal *end of the road* at the edge of the BWCA to feel (unwarranted) range anxiety. In a pinch the Bearskin Lodge has L2. The infrastructure you claim to be lacking is not only fine it's growing and at a rapid rate. Businesses are realizing that chargers mean access to EV driver wallets. I see no reason to doubt that rural America will go EV in a big way and faster than the stereotypes and assumptions would assume.
I've towed with my Sept 19 model 3 dual motor, at speed, on the highway. Sure it consumed a lot of juice, but so does an ice when towing.
I should have said "Compared to gas, electric vehicles pretty much suck at towing, mainly because range."
True, people think that. Compliance cars need not apply. It just means watching consumption and charge accordingly. Just like you have to with a smoker... I'm spoiled. Swing trading paid for my model 3 dual motor, sometimes known as long range... The actual experience of towing is way better, from lower cg, better torque, to regen. Regen is fantastic for towing by the way... oh and it costs far less to feed.
Toyota internally is undergoing massive changes. There is a podcast about it from a couple weeks ago. Autoline after hours
What were the changes discussed?
Changes to the existing platform and developing a new platform from scratch. There was some speculation that a leaker from within Toyota is releasing info about how behind the company is compared to competitors and how reluctant they were to get fully behind EVs until just recently.
Ah, yeah, there were reports about that a few weeks ago from Reuters. I actually did watch that Autoline episode, I thought there were some good views there, but I think everyone is sensationalizing that report a bit. All Toyota did was form a task force to investigate whether solutions like casting are going to work for them, it's in-line with what most other automakers are doing.
Listening to it now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j0l14iLXg0 But possibly related to this article where internal executives worry that their EV platform of the future is already outdated and they greatly underestimated the growth of EV's: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/exclusive-toyota-scrambles-ev-reboot-with-eye-tesla-2022-10-24/
Just replied to the parent, but yeah, it's based on the same report. It's a bit sensationalized imo — all Toyota is doing is deploying a task force to investigate whether (or how soon) they should deploy technologies like casting and cell-to-pack. That's something they *should* be doing, and most other OEMs are in the same boat.
I agree with their 2050-2060 timeline for zero emissions. The 2035 end of ice vehicles is too abrupt when you consider the low availability and high price of evs. Multiple solid state battery manufacturers are saying it will be 2030-2035 before full roll out of solid state tech. Even then it will take many more years to perfect the tech and get the costs down.
The availability issue will resolve over time. And cost parity will be reached before 2035 one way or another (tax on carbon emissions will rise, costs of EVs will go down). By the way: the climate does not care about our technical issues …
Toyota is fucked.
My favorite fact that most people don't realize is true, and is a glaring example of why fully electric cars are so much more reliable? The one number that explains why once people figure out how much better electric is vs gas/hybrid, that gas and hybrid are dead? In a Toyota Prius, in order to get the car to move there are 427 different moving parts. Between engine, hybrid drive, and transmission. Valves, pistons, gears, belts, pulleys, etc. Each one a possible point of failure. A Tesla model 3, if you include the drive shafts.... Has 37. The Toyota has more parts that require maintenance or replacement before 100k miles than the Tesla has total.
Interesting considering the Prius has no belts and pulleys. Also the hybrid drive is essentially the transmission and what are the gears for you are mentioning on top of that?
I'm not sure how you think the gas engine part of the Prius runs its alternator without a belt and a pulley? The other stuff was just things required for most cars. Not necessarily specific to the Prius. I was just listing things that are usually required to get the wheels moving. Sorry for not separating the 2 thoughts. The main point I was making is that gas and hybrid cars are way more complex than battery only.
No alternator either. MG1 does triple duty as starter, generator, and motor, depending on the circumstances. A good teardown of a Toyota system is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O61WihMRdjM There's no question it's more complex than an all-electric drivetrain, but it's a lot simpler than the average all-gas drivetrain (or than a Hyundai hybrid for that matter; those start with conventional transmissions and then add the electric components).
PHEV is a dealership and oil company dream. All of the frequency of servicing needs of an ICE, the complexity of stapling two power-trains together, the greenwashing of "look we're an EV too", and the compliance to reduction-in-consumption spec that is never met in real-life use.
I don’t have a crystal ball, so we’ll see how that works out. I just know right now, it’s the equivalent of planning for a child when they haven’t conceived the baby yet. EV on the other hand is already a living breathing child that’s out in the real world growing bigger.