171–180 of 286 posts
Similarly, Hyundai building $8bn battery plant outside Savannah, Georgia: https://apnews.com/article/hyundai-georgia-electric-vehicle-...
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> They should unionize No one at these Toyota facilities has an appetite for that. The benefits package and overall lifestyle for a TMMK worker is quite nice compared to the average person in the Lexington metro and the jobs are competitive. Perhaps ironically, when I was in school, the biggest issue was finding engineers that would accept the pay which was generally lower than guys on the floor.
Well just 20 mins ago we heard that the majority of people at the VW plant in Tennessee signed UAW cards. Now this wont guarantee a successful vote but it makes the leadership give an honest attempt so maybe times might be changing for the Toyota plants as well. [1]: https://thehill.com/policy/transportation/4454085-uaw-says-m...
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What I meant is that Toyota electric cars are not popular inside the electric category. From range to charging speeds, they're behind other brands.
Ha, I read that as Tesla and it's still true. Almost like there's more to a car than range and charing speed.
Even if you care more about build quality and comfort, there are cars from VW, Audi, Hyundai, Mercedes, etc, that are better than, say, the Toyota bZ4X while having better range and charging. Toyota simply doesn't make the best pure electric cars.
$1.3B seems like a lot of money but it isn't for a car factory, especially spread over many years. For context: Tesla is guiding for $10+B a year capex spending for the next 3 years. Nevada factory took $6.2B and Tesla plans to spend additional $3.6B Toyota is still under-investing in EV. $1.3B is nothing. https://www.tesla.com/blog/continuing-our-investment-nevada
I do believe that Tesla's success in the last decade was in large part due to the fact it was the only technology company that could use all the money people were throwing at technology companies.
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Seems to be almost daily news stories about huge capital investment in manufacturing in the US, a couple billion here, a couple billion there. Was I just blind to these 5-10 years ago?
Geopolitics: China's sudden shift to authoritarianism under the new emperor has everyone fleeing for the exits as the US and Europe abandon the project to bring China into the club. Economics, Neoliberalism is dead. The pandemic killed it. Policy makers well understand the economy can tolerate a lot of disruption. Politics: Dispossessed voters turning to fascism has sharpened politicians and sane business leaders min…
If I understand you correctly, this is my reading of the pandemic as well. We suddenly all realized there is a _ton_ of slack in the system. On the individual level, but as well as societal.
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Toyota has probably shipped more battery capacity in hybrid cars than most EV manufacturers to date. They don't need to catch up to anything.
This might be true cumulatively but certainly isn't true on an annual basis anymore. If Toyota were shipping the same battery capacity as Tesla they could make every car they sell globally a hybrid or plug-in hybrid and they are at about 30% of that.
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As someone who lives a few miles from Georgetown, KY, it's important to note that this factory already exists and sounds like they are (partially) re-tooling it to begin EV production. So that might explain the dollar figure.
Louisville checking in, spent a lot of time in Georgetown and can confirm this is likely just more work on the Camry plant. Toyota has been good to the area. Off topic, but is there a popular tech meetup in the state? Moved back a year and some change ago and would love to get more involved.
- PHP user group (https://www.meetup.com/kentucky-php-user-group/events/298973...)
- Bluegrass Developers Guild (https://www.meetup.com/the-bluegrass-developers-guild/events...)
Also, being an early employee at a startup, I've been attending the rare Startup Lexington event I can make it to.
Feel free to contact my email (in profile) if you want to connect
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5 million prius * 14 kWhr 5 million tesla * 50 kWhr This is probably true, hybrids may win in the US market in the short term until they are outlawed?
They'll never be outlawed. There are too many use cases for 300+ mile trips in remote areas where recharging isn't possible or less remote areas where it isn't practical.
>> Environmental groups have long criticized Toyota for being slow to move toward fully electric vehicles, instead clinging to gas-electric hybrid technology. When you run a company as large and old as Toyota, you always hedge your bets. There are some other options to battery-powered electric vehicles (hydrogen IC). They are currently not as mature but anyone running something as big as Toyota needs to hedge against…
As a hybrid technology, it has a case. If you run 80% of the time on battery and 20% of the time on hydrogen at 50% RTE, you burn 120% of the fuel. But if you weigh 30% less, you could end up saving energy. The up to 60% efficiency of the fuel cell is losing energy as heat, and people like to run the heater, so some of that energy isn't lost in appropriate climates. And of course, refueling is faster for road trips. The best system weight is probably for the experimental direct-ammonia alkaline membrane fuel cells, assuming it's possible to stabilize them, because ammonia fuel systems (about 100 psi) are much simpler than hydrogen systems (about 10000 psi!). So there's a little room left for the hydrogen fans. But it's fundamentally a battery-powered car most of the time.