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Toyota to triple EV output as it chases Tesla, BYD

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Re: Toyota to triple EV output as it chases Tesla, BYD

#11

Post by bartvk »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #6
scarygliders wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have all the best and lovely EV tech. ever, but until and unless electricity prices come down, and "filling up" an EV with stored energy is cheaper than filling up an ICE or hybrid vehicle, AND you get the same range in an EV that you can with an ICE vehicle, then EV's - currently - aren't a rational and wise choice for the average consumer. Electricity prices are going through the roof here in the UK, which…

There's no fundamental reason why electricity prices be rising. Solar and wind have been dropping at nonlinear rates for a decade,and likely will for another decade. They are already the cheapest power sources by LCOE than even natural gas turbine. I don't live in the UK, but in the US the electrical cost of recharging an electric car was far less than fueling a gas car even before the current rise in gas prices. Lon…

> You sound like a shill for British Petroleum

Please read the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Toyota to triple EV output as it chases Tesla, BYD

#12

Post by Rygian »

scarygliders wrote: post #5
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, look, this isn't complicated. Here's some kind-opinion, kinda-fact points: 1) Tesla is making vehicles with EV drivetrains at cost parity or less than an ICE car (depends on the actual reporting on Tesla's per-car margin accuracy). This number is somewhere around $100/kwhr at the pack level. 2) EV drivetrain cost has been steadily falling at nonlinear rates for a decade, with very much runway. 3) CATL and other b…

You can have all the best and lovely EV tech. ever, but until and unless electricity prices come down, and "filling up" an EV with stored energy is cheaper than filling up an ICE or hybrid vehicle, AND you get the same range in an EV that you can with an ICE vehicle, then EV's - currently - aren't a rational and wise choice for the average consumer. Electricity prices are going through the roof here in the UK, which…

I'm not sure what's the price of a kWh where you live.

Where I live (France), at 0.22 €/kWh:

- If I use Tesla Superchargers (ie. a long-distance trip), my expenditure in power is half of what I'd pay for petrol.

- If I charge at home (ie. 95% of my car use), my expenditure is between one half and one third.

and the ride is so much more fun.

My car battery is 4 years old and retains almost the same charge as when it was brand new. How many are "a few years" in your opinion, and what observations have you made to form that opinion?

Also, let's imagine that my battery drops to a 60% charge retention when it is, say, 12 years old. Why would I have to "inevitably replace" it, while it is still largely adequate for almost all my needs?

And by the way, when I do long-distance trips, I take longer to change my toddler's diapers and/or feed him than it takes for my car to be topped-up for the next leg of the trip. If anything, I'm inconvenienced by having to move the car away from the charger because it's ready before I am.

Last, but not least, it only takes a couple days of workers' strike at an oil-related industry for people to spend hours queuing at the one gas station that has not run dry yet.

Cheers!

Re: Toyota to triple EV output as it chases Tesla, BYD

#13

Post by epolanski »

bamboozled wrote: post #3

Meanwhile in Japan I can't buy a 4WD mini van that's fully electric, one of the most common petrol car form factors in Japan. They can't even do the basics in their own home market. Good luck Toyota, you will need it.

I think yours is a very blind take.

The Japanese auto industry deliberately decided to put the emphasis on hybrid technologies before EVs.

- the overwhelming amount of the world does not and will not have infrastructure to support that many EVs for quite some time. Energy-starved countries such as most of Europe bar some like Scotland or Norway are already unable to cope with the current electricity demand. Japan itself has a grid that's isolated from the rest of the world and even internally it has several design issues (east and south grids run at different frequencies, 50 vs 60hz) that prevents them from scaling

- for the aforementioned reasons, demand for petrol cars is going to be still high for decades to come in most of the world.. Not only most, if virtually all, automakers already have EVs out there, but the technology evolves at such a rapid pace, that waiting before converting is quite sensible. Don't forget that the investments required in EV world are much smaller in comparison to producing ICE-powered machines. There's lots of know how involved in those, and developing an ICE costs multiple billions. E.g. The OM654 Mercedes diesel engine costed more than 3 billions in R&D and benefitted from lots of know-how Mercedes possessed by decades. Thinking that legacy automakers will struggle in the transition is a rather blind take. Yes, many won't enjoy such a market dominance as they did, but that's mostly related to how relatively easy (compared to ICEs) it is to create an EV startup and offer something that others don't. On a much smaller scale the auto industry will see the same disruption that the gaming one saw with indie video games.

Re: Toyota to triple EV output as it chases Tesla, BYD

#14

Post by zelos »

bartvk wrote: post #9
scarygliders wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have all the best and lovely EV tech. ever, but until and unless electricity prices come down, and "filling up" an EV with stored energy is cheaper than filling up an ICE or hybrid vehicle, AND you get the same range in an EV that you can with an ICE vehicle, then EV's - currently - aren't a rational and wise choice for the average consumer. Electricity prices are going through the roof here in the UK, which…

Your first point about price, I think is skewed by the high energy prices in UK and Europe. Elsewhere in the world, it may be a lot more attractive. Your point about having to "inevitably replace an EV battery after a few years", did you mean "incidentally", instead of "inevitably"? The rest of your points may be valid or not, I don't know. But I feel like the picture is more nuanced.

The price point is wrong. Even charging at peak times EVs are cheaper. Charging overnight EVs are far cheaper.

Re: Toyota to triple EV output as it chases Tesla, BYD

#15

Post by KingOfCoders »

epolanski wrote: post #13
bamboozled wrote: post #3

Meanwhile in Japan I can't buy a 4WD mini van that's fully electric, one of the most common petrol car form factors in Japan. They can't even do the basics in their own home market. Good luck Toyota, you will need it.

I think yours is a very blind take. The Japanese auto industry deliberately decided to put the emphasis on hybrid technologies before EVs. - the overwhelming amount of the world does not and will not have infrastructure to support that many EVs for quite some time. Energy-starved countries such as most of Europe bar some like Scotland or Norway are already unable to cope with the current electricity demand. Japan its…

How is Germany "unable to cope with the current electricity demand"? People use solar power to power their EVs here (We have solar power but no car).

Re: Toyota to triple EV output as it chases Tesla, BYD

#16

Post by ip26 »

scarygliders wrote: post #5
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, look, this isn't complicated. Here's some kind-opinion, kinda-fact points: 1) Tesla is making vehicles with EV drivetrains at cost parity or less than an ICE car (depends on the actual reporting on Tesla's per-car margin accuracy). This number is somewhere around $100/kwhr at the pack level. 2) EV drivetrain cost has been steadily falling at nonlinear rates for a decade, with very much runway. 3) CATL and other b…

You can have all the best and lovely EV tech. ever, but until and unless electricity prices come down, and "filling up" an EV with stored energy is cheaper than filling up an ICE or hybrid vehicle, AND you get the same range in an EV that you can with an ICE vehicle, then EV's - currently - aren't a rational and wise choice for the average consumer. Electricity prices are going through the roof here in the UK, which…

What are your electricity prices? If I assume 34p/kWh and 150p/L for gas, 3.3mi/kWh and 30mpg, and plug it into a unit converter, the EV is almost half as much to fuel. Are your electricity prices higher than 70p/kWh now?

https://chooseev.com/savings-calculator/

Re: Toyota to triple EV output as it chases Tesla, BYD

#17

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

londons_explore wrote: post #10
dotancohen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live electricity prices are about 1/8 the price per kilometer compared to gasoline. And I have rooftop solar, so for me it's even better. And I have not had to suffer a gas station in over a year - that in itself would be worth it even if not for the cost per kilometer. Not to mention no oil or filter to change, no plugs or coil packs to go bad, no catalytic converters to steal...

> no catalytic converters to steal.. I predict that within 10 years gangs will start stealing EV batteries. With a grinder, trolley and 5 minutes you could remove one from a car. Then take it away and connect it to the grid as stationary storage and earn a few thousand dollars a year in balancing fees.

That's not nearly as easy as removing a catalytic converter. You can walk off with the catalytic converter. But a battery pack can be a quarter of the vehicle's considerable weight. EVs weight more than fossil fuel cars because of this. You're not going to casually walk off or moped away with 1,000 lbs of battery.

Re: Toyota to triple EV output as it chases Tesla, BYD

#18

Post by KingOfCoders »

vixen99 wrote: post #8
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no fundamental reason why electricity prices be rising. Solar and wind have been dropping at nonlinear rates for a decade,and likely will for another decade. They are already the cheapest power sources by LCOE than even natural gas turbine. I don't live in the UK, but in the US the electrical cost of recharging an electric car was far less than fueling a gas car even before the current rise in gas prices. Lon…

Cheaper at what cost? Two wrongs don't make a it right so putting aside issues with fossil fuel, let's not ignore an elephant in the room in terms of the human rights issues involved in the electric vehicle supply chain? This is no minor matter. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2023/electr...

Way behind reality. In 10 years batteries will mostly run without rare earth metals.

Re: Toyota to triple EV output as it chases Tesla, BYD

#19

Post by Tade0 »

epolanski wrote: post #13
bamboozled wrote: post #3

Meanwhile in Japan I can't buy a 4WD mini van that's fully electric, one of the most common petrol car form factors in Japan. They can't even do the basics in their own home market. Good luck Toyota, you will need it.

I think yours is a very blind take. The Japanese auto industry deliberately decided to put the emphasis on hybrid technologies before EVs. - the overwhelming amount of the world does not and will not have infrastructure to support that many EVs for quite some time. Energy-starved countries such as most of Europe bar some like Scotland or Norway are already unable to cope with the current electricity demand. Japan its…

You're completely ignoring China in this picture, which is by far the largest market for cars and where EVs already reached 22% market share last year.

There's already a price war going on there, so the question isn't how long western manufacturers will be able to produce combustion cars, but will they survive the deluge of competitively priced Chinese EVs.

The solar panel market did not and is now almost fully controlled by China.

Re: Toyota to triple EV output as it chases Tesla, BYD

#20

Post by tialaramex »

scarygliders wrote: post #5
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, look, this isn't complicated. Here's some kind-opinion, kinda-fact points: 1) Tesla is making vehicles with EV drivetrains at cost parity or less than an ICE car (depends on the actual reporting on Tesla's per-car margin accuracy). This number is somewhere around $100/kwhr at the pack level. 2) EV drivetrain cost has been steadily falling at nonlinear rates for a decade, with very much runway. 3) CATL and other b…

You can have all the best and lovely EV tech. ever, but until and unless electricity prices come down, and "filling up" an EV with stored energy is cheaper than filling up an ICE or hybrid vehicle, AND you get the same range in an EV that you can with an ICE vehicle, then EV's - currently - aren't a rational and wise choice for the average consumer. Electricity prices are going through the roof here in the UK, which…

> because your average Joe in the UK simply doesn't want one and the cost of recharging one is pretty bad.

On average a UK petrol car needs 1 gallon of fuel for 36 miles of travel. Maybe that's your commute round trip. That fuel costs about £7 in the UK.

You can fill the electric car up overnight, on say, Eon's "Next Drive" tariff that costs 9.5p per kWh, which means with a typical home charging setup (7kW) you can charge it for 10 hours and still spend less money than on a gallon of petrol.

Of course in reality after a couple of hours it'll be done. Which leaves you with about £5.50 per night extra in your pocket compared to ICE drivers.

But let's talk about poisoning children. Because that's the long term effect of ICE, intolerably high levels of air pollution. You can't really pay for that, no matter how expensive we make it, you can only stop doing it.

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