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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

#241

Post by TheLoafOfBread »

clouddrover wrote: post #240
TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, hear me out, there could be NFC payment terminal instead of registering on ANOTHER STUPID APPLICATION Even public transportation trams and buses in Eastern Europe have NFC terminals on board to buy tickets. Why is it so hard for a damn charger in Western Europe to have one? https://www.dpp.cz/en/fares/cashless-payment-of-fare

So you don't actually want any practical solutions. You just want to have a whinge and a moan. Instead of wishing for what isn't, you could be doing a lot better with what is.

I don't need a "practical" application of local gas network to buy gas.

I don't need a "practical" application of local supermarket chain to buy grocieries.

Why should I tolerate buggy applications to charge an electric car on incompatible chargers? Why there isn't an NFC terminal which I can find almost in any store in EU and today even on vending machines? The chargers already have internet connection, so where is the problem? I am not a masochist and I am refusing to live in this customer hell. This is one of the reasons why I am selling this joke of a car and going back to ICE.

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

#242

Post by genocidicbunny »

clouddrover wrote: post #239
genocidicbunny wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, what about all the other issues they raised? About cost? About charging time? About charger compatibility? About the inability to effectively charge at home? The clunky app-based payment methods?

TheLoafOfBread will have a better time using better charging networks, the ones he will set up as his preferred charging providers in A Better Routeplanner. Instead of talking in circles, just try A Better Routeplanner.

This thread is getting a little deep, but to close it out, I decided to indulge you and plan a somewhat typical commute for me from a while back. The total trip time including charging ends up being 3 hours. The same trip sans charging times is under 2 hours. That's 5 hours a week extra that I would be losing out. The trips are also short enough that I also don't need a break that sitting around waiting for charging would provide. The total distance would also use up almost a full charge, so if I start the morning with a full charge, I would still end up needing a long stop somewhere to charge up at the end of the night. I would also be unable to reliably charge at any of my destinations because of either lack of availability of facilities where I could park and leave my car for multiple hours to charge, or because the available facilities are meager (Here's a 120v 15A outlet, have fun charging much at those speeds). So yes, I will agree, ABRP does simplify things. I couldn't imagine having to deal with finding the charging stations and planning out my route without a tool like that. But all of the problems it seems to me that it solves are ones that arise from having an EV.

Here's my idea of simple: No apps needed, I pull up to the charger, any charger, I get out of the car, tap my credit card on the payment terminal, plug the charging cable into my car, stand around for 2-3 minutes while my car recharges to 100%, unplug, grab my receipt and drive off. If I'm on a long trip and starting to get low on charge, I look for the next charge station sign I see. Basically, exactly like a gas station is right now. My understand of TheLoafOfBread's comment was that they were thinking along the same lines as me.

ABRP does very little to move the needle towards this version of simple. It can't make charging times shorter than what is physically possible, it can't offer you charging stations that are as ubiquitous as gas stations, it can't enforce having the same easy to use connector at every charge station. It has a role to play, a small one, and frankly not terribly interesting one.

We are talking in circles, so perhaps it's time to finish the conversation.

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

#243

Post by oceanplexian »

TheLoafOfBread wrote: post #237
clouddrover wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone else is managing to. Maybe you should try again. It just seems like a lot of your problems are self-inflicted. You could be doing things easier.

Or, hear me out, there could be NFC payment terminal instead of registering on ANOTHER STUPID APPLICATION Even public transportation trams and buses in Eastern Europe have NFC terminals on board to buy tickets. Why is it so hard for a damn charger in Western Europe to have one? https://www.dpp.cz/en/fares/cashless-payment-of-fare

If you’ve owned any EV besides a Tesla you know this is sadly the cold hard truth. I’m not sure why EV owners rush in to try and refute the problems with charging but as a Bolt EV owner it was a terrible experience.

Imagine if every time you tried to use a gas station you needed to install a buggy, crashing phone App that required you to type in your credit card and other personal information. Imagine if 50% of gas stations simply didn’t work and you get stranded somewhere far from home having to sleep in your car. This is the reality of owning a non-Tesla EV. After a year of this and owning a rapidly depreciating car I said screw it and went back to gas.

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

#244

Post by mgfist »

starkd wrote: post #214
mgfist wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the not too distant future EV will be better than ICE for 99.9% of use-cases. And for passenger vehicles that'll be more like 99.999%.

That was not my point. The consumer should be able to decide when/if that happens. Not some arbitrarily imposed timeline. Advances in technology should be tested in the consumer marketplace.

There's no "if". And the when is just a matter of time required to bring up mineral/battery supply chains.

EVs are already (in most cases) cheaper than equivalent ICE vehicles over the lifetime of a vehicle. Soon they will become cheaper upfront as well. ICE won't compete very well after that, except in the luxury/enthusiast market.

Consumers choose automobiles over horse and buggy. They are choosing EV over ICE too, in greater quantities every year.

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

#245

Post by lukas099 »

Paianni wrote: post #165
unregistereddev wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toyota does not - and as far as I can tell, has never - led the world in cutting-edge technology. They are a very conservative company. This does not mean they have missed the boat. Even their hybrids were not first-to-market. Toyota did not invent the hybrid ICE/electric car; they simply implemented it better than their competitors. Around 10 years ago, direct injection was the new thing for ICE vehicles. It improve…

The 1AZ-FSE was their first GDI engine, it was fitted to the T220 Avensis back in the early noughts. Incidentally, the implementation you describe is the 'D-4S' system, Toyota D-4 engines are purely direct injection with the same carbon buildup issues as all the others...which isn't the end of the world as the inlet valves and manifold can be walnut blasted to remove the deposits but it's not the easiest job to do.

TIL that blasting walnut shells at something is a widely-accepted technique in car repair

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

#246

Post by oceanplexian »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #111
nixass wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

How will we ever deliver 240VAC electricity to locations that are directly adjacent to urban city streets. Seems like an intractable problem. /s

240VAC, maybe if you have 4-6 hours for your car to charge.

You need a minimum 3 phase 480v electrical source to charge even a small battery in under an hour. We are talking 150-200Kw, or the equivalent energy to run around 170 American sized households to fast charge a single car. You think that’s happening in Europe, pretty much ever?

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

#247

Post by Forgeties79 »

rawgabbit wrote: post #215
Forgeties79 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> JIT made sense for Toyota and they took steps to ensure their suppliers were beholden to them (that is they shipped whenever Toyota needed it). Did that still hold true during the pandemic? I mean if you can't get stuff on the ships (huge part of the chain) they can't go out. It's not always a choice for suppliers as we saw.

Sorry I don’t follow your question. The pandemic resulted in both closed factories and ships not leaving port. A double whammy for JIT.

Yeah that's what I mean - due to "the double whammy" they couldn't guarantee their deals with Toyota so it's all sort of moot, right?

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

#248

Post by chrisoconnell »

lmm wrote: post #217
RigelKentaurus wrote: post #133

RIP Mr. Toyoda. 2 random thoughts- 1. I owned a 1987 Corolla FX GTS coupe hatchback. Manual transmission, brilliant red, with fantastic sporty design and handling. Will never love a car like I did that one. 2. The JIT revolution that Toyota did so well in the 70s took a long time to spread to the US. I worked on a GM project in 2002-03 where I saw some crazy problems. The same part would be called different names in…

That era's Corolla is legendary even now (though people tend to focus on the JDM version that had 2HP more). The GT86 was meant to be a tribute to it, although how well it succeeds is up for discussion.

While this is the same "generation" as the legendary AE86, it's worth noting that the FX Corolla's are on the AE80/EE80 chassis, featuring a FWD drivetrain or F/F layout.

What made the AE86 such a legendary car was the F/R (RWD) layout and a 16valve 4A-GE engine. These were made alongside the FWD Corollas of the same years, and were quite substantially different.

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

#249

Post by matthewdgreen »

oceanplexian wrote: post #246
matthewdgreen wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will we ever deliver 240VAC electricity to locations that are directly adjacent to urban city streets. Seems like an intractable problem. /s

240VAC, maybe if you have 4-6 hours for your car to charge. You need a minimum 3 phase 480v electrical source to charge even a small battery in under an hour. We are talking 150-200Kw, or the equivalent energy to run around 170 American sized households to fast charge a single car. You think that’s happening in Europe, pretty much ever?

Cars are parked for approximately 100% of the time they're not being driven. For typical vehicle owners (insomniac driving fanatics and corporate "fleet vehicles" excepted), that's much more than 4-6 hours per day. So no: we do not need 200kW HVDC chargers on every city street.

What we do need is ubiquitous Level 2 (240V AC) charging present at the locations where most drivers store their cars. For drivers who store their cars on public city streets, that means installing new cable runs and charging poles. Obviously this infrastructure isn't going to be "free", but it's not some kind of intractable technical challenge. Moreover it will eventually pay for itself through a modest surcharge on the electricity consumers use for charging.

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

#250

Post by fragmede »

radiator wrote: post #162
toomuchtodo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU also, just within the last few days, banned new combustion vehicle sales starting 2035. Burn the ships, there will be no going back.

The EU had also banned and stopped operating coal generators, but now they are back in operation.

There seems to be some sort of exceptional geopolitical event involving Russia and Ukraine. You may have heard of it. It's affecting the global energy market.
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