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Shoichiro Toyoda, who turned Toyota into global automaker, has died

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Re: Shoichiro Toyoda, who turned Toyota into global automaker, has died

#91
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charging - Expensive and epic waste of time. Ionity leading the way with 0.79EUR/kWh and still you are there for 40 minutes and that's charger which can give me 150kW on start of charging. Slower chargers, like stupid 50kW? Yeah, 2 hours charging and they are wide and far. 20kW and weaker chargers? You are playing lottery with compatibility buddy. Yes it is there, yes it is on, but it does not like your car. What's t…

If you don't charge at home at least 90% of the time, the EV loses most of the benefits. This will slowly change as more EVs are sold and the charging infrastructure improves.

> This will slowly change as more EVs are sold and the charging infrastructure improves.

Yeah.. no. Especially not in old big towns around Europe where hundreds of thousands (even millions) of people live without underground garage and there's literally no place to install street side chargers on every corner.

Re: Shoichiro Toyoda, who turned Toyota into global automaker, has died

#92
post #31

Lots of people saying Toyota missed the boat on EVs. I'm not convinced the technology, infrastructure or battery supply is ready for true mass production of EVs. Toyota makes 10 million cars a year, they'll be selling good EVs soon enough to put Tesla to shame.

Toyota is building one of the most reliable and robust cars for the masses. With attitude to build cars they will be competitive for very long.

Agreed. I'm hopeful to see if their research into synthetically created hydrogen fuel powered cars will get us fuel created by green energy that we can run in hydrogen fuel cell cars so we get the best of both cutting fuel emissions to net zero and still have the flexibility of cross-country drives and fast fuelings without having to have all our (agriculture, industrial, etc.) vehicles be BEVs.

Re: Shoichiro Toyoda, who turned Toyota into global automaker, has died

#93
post #21
post #17

Made in Japan Toyota are built different. There’s something special about manufacturing in Japan even down to a simple screw.

My first manager was an ex-military crew-chief who was stationed in Japan for a bit. In his words, "Whatever your job is, you take pride in it and try to do it the best you can every day. If you're a gas station attendant, you try to be the best gas station attendant you can be." His description obviously stuck with me, as it's a nice summary of a fundamental social bargain: everyone is important and valued, and in e…

> everyone is important and valued

This statement is in seeming conflict well documented hierarchical nature of Japanese society.

Re: Shoichiro Toyoda, who turned Toyota into global automaker, has died

#94
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ Toyota has to sell EVs at scale eventually because new car ICE vehicle sales bans now and into the future…” The EU is pushing that 2035 date. Are other countries following?

The EU is about 450 million people with above average disposable income for global levels. I'm not sure if other countries are following, but they will :-)

Somewhat similar story in the US with California and New York pursuing 2035 sale bans - other states don't necessarily have to even follow, California has been the benchmark for US vehicle emissions standards for decades. The state has big car culture and a big population. Automakers often build things to the California standard and sell the CA-standard cars in the rest of the country. Its just not cost effective for them to make minor variations in the models.

Re: Shoichiro Toyoda, who turned Toyota into global automaker, has died

#95
post #63
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their current offering is "meh" from the EV perspective. It doesn't look like their experience with small-battery low-voltage hybrids gave them skills and experience to execute a good BEV. ICE reliability is a different game than batteries, efficiency, and software game of BEVs. I think there's a high chance that Toyota will be sidelined by EV-first automakers from Korea and China just like US automakers were sidelin…

i cant even imagine how hard it would be for an ICE manufacturer to pivot into EVs. Those decades of engine/transmission refinement expertise? out the window. Imagine trying to organize and pitch a new vehicle without including the powertrain people and, instead, a team with nothing on the road yet.

Volkswagen is the biggest EV maker in Europe:

https://eu-evs.com/marketShare/ALL/Groups/Line/All-time-by-Y...

I'd say they've pivoted.

Re: Shoichiro Toyoda, who turned Toyota into global automaker, has died

#96
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the batteries in each EV, you could make 7 plug-in hybrids. That's 1 full electric and 6 gas cars, vs 7 plug-in hybrids. I think Toyota's approach would save more emissions so long as we are battery constrained.

A lot of people who own plug-in hybrids don't really ever plug them in which makes them worse than gasoline cars or non-plugin hybrids because of added weight.

My wife had a plug-in Ford C-Max Energi for a few years. We always plugged it in but it only did ~20 miles on pure EV so long term our mileage was around 40MPG. My Prius easily beats that and I'm not paying an extra $20 a month on my electric bill.

You're right though, when we bought it according the the computer the previous owner had never charged it. The charge cable wasn't even out of it's plastic. When we sold it to Car Max the new owner never setup their Ford Sync so we kept getting reports by email and they never charged it once.

Re: Shoichiro Toyoda, who turned Toyota into global automaker, has died

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charging - Expensive and epic waste of time. Ionity leading the way with 0.79EUR/kWh and still you are there for 40 minutes and that's charger which can give me 150kW on start of charging. Slower chargers, like stupid 50kW? Yeah, 2 hours charging and they are wide and far. 20kW and weaker chargers? You are playing lottery with compatibility buddy. Yes it is there, yes it is on, but it does not like your car. What's t…

> when it lead me to charge to Freshmile Try A Better Routeplanner and configure it to plan routes which prioritize your preferred charging providers: https://abetterrouteplanner.com/ You'll probably have an easier time of it with ABRP.

Not the parent you're replying to, but this comment is very indicative of the problem being addressed. With an ICE car, or even a hybrid, this is just not a consideration. I don't need to plan my route around fuel stops unless I'm going somewhere well away from 'civilization'.

The issues described are not insolvable, but dismissing that they aren't currently solved is a little bit like sticking your head in the sand. Suggesting a better route planner just seems a little naive in that context.

Re: Shoichiro Toyoda, who turned Toyota into global automaker, has died

#98

> establishing a culture of quality control that helped Toyota evolve into a world-leading automaker. A lot of the JIT stuff that is so common, these days, was revolutionary, when he introduced it. I'm told that many agile techniques also had their genesis in his work.

> I'm told that many agile techniques also had their genesis in his work

The “kanban” interfaces definitely originate from Toyota. Scrum was influenced by Toyota’s management techniques, among others. I believe other familiar concepts, e.g. “kaizen” or continuous improvement, also originate from Toyota.

Re: Shoichiro Toyoda, who turned Toyota into global automaker, has died

#99
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first manager was an ex-military crew-chief who was stationed in Japan for a bit. In his words, "Whatever your job is, you take pride in it and try to do it the best you can every day. If you're a gas station attendant, you try to be the best gas station attendant you can be." His description obviously stuck with me, as it's a nice summary of a fundamental social bargain: everyone is important and valued, and in e…

> everyone is important and valued This statement is in seeming conflict well documented hierarchical nature of Japanese society.

My understand is it's more complicated than that: while inequitable, there's also a corresponding expectation of duty to those below one.

E.g. jobs for life

Re: Shoichiro Toyoda, who turned Toyota into global automaker, has died

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Toyota isn’t on top of the reliability rankings.

https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisf... : "Toyota, Lexus, and BMW are the top three most reliable brands in our annual auto reliability brand rankings" https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/consumer-reports-reliabil... : 5 of top 10 are Toyota

BMW, number 3?! They must build them different in the US, surely.
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