Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Toyota has stepped up lobbying to preserve its investments in hybrids, hydrogen

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 315 posts

Re: Toyota has stepped up lobbying to preserve its investments in hybrids, hydrogen

#161

Post by Robotbeat »

dragonwriter wrote: post #155
Causality1 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be nice if Toyota actually had any interest in plug in hybrids. Their only one, the Prius Prime, is more expensive than its competitors and offers less than half their range. What's the point of getting a PHEV if I still spend half my commute running on gasoline?

> Their only one, the Prius Prime, is more expensive than its competitors and offers less than half their range. What's the point of getting a PHEV if I still spend half my commute running on gasoline? The Prime has a 25 mile battery range, which is well over the average driven commute distance in the US (its about the average daily driven distance for drivers.)

It’s about half of what you’d need to comfortably go without gas the vast, vast majority of time. The Chevy Volt has about the right plug in electric range (50 miles) for a future where we have to basically synthesize all fuels.

Re: Toyota has stepped up lobbying to preserve its investments in hybrids, hydrogen

#162

Post by bluGill »

modeless wrote: post #76
bluGill wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To engineers it was, but to politics things are more complex. If the politics of the world demand hydrogen it doesn't matter how stupid the idea is you have to do it. Politics can shut your company down completely overnight, bad engineering can do it, but only after decades of bad decisions. Politically the powers were pushing hydrogen not long ago and nobody should be surprised if they do again.

Nobody was going to shut down Toyota for stopping hydrogen car development 10 years ago.

Don't bet on that. Countries do such things all the time. Japan probably wouldn't, but the US has plenty of manufactures that would love to shut down a competitor, or maybe Germany decides to shut one down. Even California could decide hydrogen is the only way to meet their emissions.

Such things have happened, though it is rare.

Re: Toyota has stepped up lobbying to preserve its investments in hybrids, hydrogen

#163

Post by Robotbeat »

b112 wrote: post #94
nicoburns wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair Toyota announced their new lineup of BEVs just last month, to be released next year. Toyota is late to the party, but they are on their way.

To be fairer, they were very early to the party too. They bet on electric, very early in the game and more than one kind too!

That’s what’s so frustrating! They had the technology and the scale to go nearly all-in on battery electric about 2 decades ago (maybe with gas backup in the early days) but they squandered it.

Re: Toyota has stepped up lobbying to preserve its investments in hybrids, hydrogen

#164

Post by reducesuffering »

anonuser123456 wrote: post #116
Causality1 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be nice if Toyota actually had any interest in plug in hybrids. Their only one, the Prius Prime, is more expensive than its competitors and offers less than half their range. What's the point of getting a PHEV if I still spend half my commute running on gasoline?

This year they introduced the RAV4 prime, with 48 miles electric. The Prius prime is still in it's initial design iteration. Major updates occur typically every 7 years for auto manufacturers, so one would expect a new, improved range Prius prime somewhere in the 2023 range.

RAV4 prime is woefully underproduced. Wait times of 2 years, and it'll be almost impossible to get in areas outside of coastal US. Sounds like they haven't nailed down the battery supply chain for it.

Re: Toyota has stepped up lobbying to preserve its investments in hybrids, hydrogen

#165

Post by nebula8804 »

specialist wrote: post #69

Toyota should pull an Intel, and become the TSMC of automobiles. I've waggishly said I'd buy a Tesla made by Toyota. Surely there are other EV efforts that would benefit from Toyota's manufacturing prowess and capacity. -- Solid hydrogen fuels will be the next wave. Specifically non-gaseous, before anyone has a spaz attack. We know! Storage, transportation, distribution of H2 is not practical. Plasma Kinetics' has a…

Plasma Kinetics is a company I only hear about in the presence of one Sandy Munro. Is there anything more than just some renders and hypothetical spec sheets?

>Toyota should pull an Intel, and become the TSMC of automobiles. I've waggishly said I'd buy a Tesla made by Toyota. Surely there are other EV efforts that would benefit from Toyota's manufacturing prowess and capacity.

We already have that. Magna Steyr builds custom runs for many auto companies big and small.

Re: Toyota has stepped up lobbying to preserve its investments in hybrids, hydrogen

#166

Post by jazzyjackson »

stevev wrote: post #49

In addition to not betting on evs, Toyota along with many other car makers fail to understand the human desire for safety and convenience in their vehicles through the use of current camera technologies and computer applications. A typical Tesla vehicle has 8 cameras thus providing a 360 degree vision to help assist the car/driver in a few applications. Security, safety and convenience. A close second in terms of saf…

Toyota has radar and ultrasonics and I’ve been perfectly satisfied with the number of bells going off alerting me of cross traffic and pedestrians. The PCS has stopped by from rear ending someone in traffic but will grant that it waits til the last minute, but I chose a car whose automation is based on informing me and saving my ass vs taking control of all the decisions like a Tesla

edit: also most Toyotas are not in the price bracket of 8-camera vehicles but all the safety equipment is standard, so I might argue Toyota is doing more for public safety by making these systems affordable, whereas tesla is making the public less safe by beta testing self driving software on city streets.

Re: Toyota has stepped up lobbying to preserve its investments in hybrids, hydrogen

#167

Post by Robotbeat »

KMnO4 wrote: post #132
anonuser123456 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This year they introduced the RAV4 prime, with 48 miles electric. The Prius prime is still in it's initial design iteration. Major updates occur typically every 7 years for auto manufacturers, so one would expect a new, improved range Prius prime somewhere in the 2023 range.

48 miles is probably good enough for 95%+ of people. Also worth noting that that’s higher than any other PHEV in its class (SUV).

The rav4 Prime is sufficient at nearly 50 miles of electric range, but it sucks that it took 2 decades to get there when even GM had the technology basically perfected a decade ago with the Volt.

It’s literally better than their hydrogen vehicles. Even if you had to synthesize the small amount of gasoline they might use.

Longer range plug in hybrids plus electrically synthesized liquids beat pure hydrogen vehicles in cost, refueling ease, and overall emissions.

Re: Toyota has stepped up lobbying to preserve its investments in hybrids, hydrogen

#168

Post by Robotbeat »

winternett wrote: post #117
Causality1 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be nice if Toyota actually had any interest in plug in hybrids. Their only one, the Prius Prime, is more expensive than its competitors and offers less than half their range. What's the point of getting a PHEV if I still spend half my commute running on gasoline?

3 major problems none of the EV evangelists are addressing about with EVs are 1. What happens to all the giant lithium batteries on these vehicles after they reach end of life? 2. How will people be able to evacuate a city or state in an emergency situation when charging/electric supply is not present (which is always likely to happen)? 3. Coal burning infrastructure is still inextricably involved in generating the p…

> 3 major problems none of the EV evangelists are addressing about with EVs are

This is straight up false. These same points are addressed again and again and again and again by EV supporters but I guess (if I took your claim seriously) no one actually pays attention? (See the sibling comments for folks responding to them.)

I mean, you might still disagree with what they have to say, but you CANNOT claim they don’t address those extremely common points. Is it okay to just repeat a lie like that for rhetorical purposes?

Re: Toyota has stepped up lobbying to preserve its investments in hybrids, hydrogen

#169

Post by toomuchtodo »

olivermarks wrote: post #146

'According to the US Department of Energy, less than 5 per cent of lithium-ion batteries — demand for which is set to boom as carmakers such as Mercedes lay out goals to go “all-electric” — are currently recycled.' https://www.ft.com/content/771498b8-9457-462f-aee0-e32db14ee... Unless battery reuse is made viable there is no path forward for any future mass market in EV's. https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/T…

https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/ (founded by JB Straubel [1], previously CTO of Tesla)

Hybrids are the worst of both electric and combustion powertrains, their time has passed. Small nuclear reactors aren't ever going to happen (can't compete economically with solar/wind backed by batteries).

[1] https://energy.stanford.edu/people/jb-straubel

Re: Toyota has stepped up lobbying to preserve its investments in hybrids, hydrogen

#170

Post by [deleted] »

bushbaba wrote: post #65

To be fair. A Chevy volt can be more environmentally friendly than a Tesla. Most people don’t drive more than 50 miles per day. Pushing for hybrids with 50-75 mile range might do more for emissions than pushing everyone to EV convert. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/are-chevy-...

[deleted]
Post reply on HN