151–160 of 264 posts
I've seen this news of Toyoda's passing posted across various social media channels and it's incredible to see how many Toyota owners have thanked him posthumously. I remember that when Steve Jobs died. This seems similar in a sense.
From that statement, I'm guessing you've never owned a Camry?
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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.
Toyota Mirai:
Tank Size: 5.6 kg of hydrogen
Cost per kg of hydrogen: $13.11
Miles of range: 402
Cost per mile: $0.18
Ioniq 5:
Battery Size: 77.4 kWh
Range: 302 miles
Miles per kWh: 3.5
Cost per kWh (Currently at my house): $0.27 per kWh
Cost per mile: $0.08
Ford Maverick Hybrid (My current vehicle):
Tank size: 13.6 Gallons
Range: ~500 miles
Average fuel economy: 38.5 mpg (my average currently)
Cost per gallon: $3.40 (last price I saw on the way into work)
Cost per mile: $0.088
To get an equivalent cost per mile electricity would have to $0.63 per kWh. Largely though that is currently with hydrogen made from natural gas, versus green hydrogen which will end up being intrinsically lin.18/ked to the cost of electricity. From what I have seen it is somewhere around 3 watts of electricity to get 1 W equivalent of hydrogen which might be able to get a 2 to 1 ratio in the future. I think certain sectors like aerospace will be okay with the additional cost due to other advantages but regular consumers it seems less likely.
Cost for Hydrogen (I went with the lower number): https://h2fcp.org/content/cost-refill
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Brand reputation is a positive feedback loop. Better reputation -> charge more money -> poorer people who are gonna use your product at 11/10ths and try and skate by with the bare minimum of proactive maintenance buy it less -> the average example on the road is in better condition for its age -> high end consumers go "hey those things are lasting well I'll buy one" -> your average customer is richer so you don't hav…
Yep. The opposite feedback loop is “big Altima energy”. The $1000 cheaper new cars become the preferred cars of those who don’t care or can’t really afford it, which end up being the cheapest and most abused used cars. Which end up on buy-here-pay-here lots. And repeat.
Taking a small local car manufacturer and turning it into the one of the worlds biggest car makers, , overtaking all the US giants and creating the JIT process to revolutionise manufacturing is remarkable.
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However the whole EU market can't return to ICEs because of fleet emission limits, which are now 95g CO2/km and from 2025 will be 15% lower, with other changes too. So my guess is, people who can afford it (including charging infra) will have EVs which will get better and more expensive and the rest will not buy new cars. Maybe the market will shift to smaller forms of mobility, we'll see.
I am coming from an Eastern Block. It was quite common during communism to drive 20-30 years old cars. I think that Eastern Europe will teach the western part how to properly stagnate.
It is true that certain cars (Trabi comes to mind) could be fixed roadside with a screwdriver and a hammer usually, but >100k kilometers life was still rare - people simply used their cars less and for shorter trips those days.
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.
What I don't understand is why whatever BEVs they have tried so far, have been pretty crappy. For instance, the bZ4X is a total joke in almost all aspects -- features, range, etc.
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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.
Toxic individualism doesn't get things done, nor does it encourage excellence. A hierarchy with mutual respect does, though it must be fair and tempered with reasonable mobility.
Made in Japan Toyota are built different. There’s something special about manufacturing in Japan even down to a simple screw.
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> 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.
Toyota wasn't first. But it was them learning a lot from working on looms, and other stuff at textile mills taught them how to max productivity. Textiles making was already a very competitive industry in late 19th century, and the only way to push forward in productivity after looms were optimized to the max was to cut slack in between machines — management techniques. There the manufacturers were stealing each other…
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Yep. The opposite feedback loop is “big Altima energy”. The $1000 cheaper new cars become the preferred cars of those who don’t care or can’t really afford it, which end up being the cheapest and most abused used cars. Which end up on buy-here-pay-here lots. And repeat.
I have to wonder if maybe it was the way GM and their dealers marketed these vehicles. The Prizm wasn't sold in my market so I don't truly know, but I think brand loyalty on the dealers' side saw them push customers to the more true-blue options like the cavalier. One doesn't have to spend long at your average street corner to see how that turned out for the customer.
https://jalopnik.com/nissan-is-going-to-pay-dealers-more-to-...
Walk into a Honda/Toyota dealership and you'll probably be offered 48 or 60, and a short warranty to match.