Toyota’s advanced battery technology roadmap • Hacker News Board

Re: Toyota’s advanced battery technology roadmap

#181

Post by dnsco » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 1:57 PM UTC

giancarlostoro wrote: post #175

thiago_fm wrote: post #160

I hope they are successful on this. Japanese carmakers are really good and well-disciplined on building it with quality and also cheaply, I'm really excited about what they'll bring. I've always enjoyed Toyotas, I have one. Toyotas are always cheaper than the alternative and extremely reliable.

My understanding is that some of the Toyota cars also use Lexus motors under the hood. It might say Toyota, but it's the same motor on a Lexus.

The Lexus brand was created to sell Americans expensive Toyotas, because when they entered the market there was an inherent perception of Japanese cars as cheap.

Internationally a bunch of cars that have a Lexus badge in America have a Toyota badge on them.

Re: Toyota’s advanced battery technology roadmap

#182

Post by randcraw » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 1:58 PM UTC

Basically the same story from Electrek, dated Oct 12 (no paywall):

https://electrek.co/2023/10/12/toyota-joins-race-to-try-and-...

Re: Toyota’s advanced battery technology roadmap

#183

Post by mrfox321 » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 1:58 PM UTC

giancarlostoro wrote: post #175

thiago_fm wrote: post #160

I hope they are successful on this. Japanese carmakers are really good and well-disciplined on building it with quality and also cheaply, I'm really excited about what they'll bring. I've always enjoyed Toyotas, I have one. Toyotas are always cheaper than the alternative and extremely reliable.

My understanding is that some of the Toyota cars also use Lexus motors under the hood. It might say Toyota, but it's the same motor on a Lexus.

Lexus is Toyota. In Japan, they are branded as Toyota, hood symbol and all. They just market them differently in the West.

The same thing goes for the Acura / Honda distinction.

Re: Toyota’s advanced battery technology roadmap

#184

Post by mauvehaus » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 1:58 PM UTC

giancarlostoro wrote: post #175

thiago_fm wrote: post #160

I hope they are successful on this. Japanese carmakers are really good and well-disciplined on building it with quality and also cheaply, I'm really excited about what they'll bring. I've always enjoyed Toyotas, I have one. Toyotas are always cheaper than the alternative and extremely reliable.

My understanding is that some of the Toyota cars also use Lexus motors under the hood. It might say Toyota, but it's the same motor on a Lexus.

Toyota and Lexus are the same company. Much as Infiniti is a division of Nissan and Acura is a division of Honda. In fact, the renowned original Acura NSX is the Honda NSX in much of the rest of the world.

Re: Toyota’s advanced battery technology roadmap

#185

Post by giancarlostoro » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 1:58 PM UTC

mrfox321 wrote: post #183

giancarlostoro wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that some of the Toyota cars also use Lexus motors under the hood. It might say Toyota, but it's the same motor on a Lexus.

Lexus is Toyota. In Japan, they are branded as Toyota, hood symbol and all. They just market them differently in the West. The same thing goes for the Acura / Honda distinction.

So I knew it was owned by the same, I didn't realize it was marketed differently. That's interesting to know.

Re: Toyota’s advanced battery technology roadmap

#186

Post by threeseed » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 1:59 PM UTC

manxman wrote: post #163

creshal wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There seems to be a lot of noise, confusion and FUD coming from Toyota lately. Not really? The old CEO with his irrational hate of all-electric cars left, and Toyota is now free to catch up with the rest of the industry. And the best way to catch up has always been to leapfrog a tech generation ahead, rather than trying to copy what the competition designed last year.

You think the problem is just the CEO and not the corporate culture or its complacency and arrogance and now confusion now that it's no longer the darling of Wall Street/The Nikkei? It's yet another Japanese zombie corporation that's lost its way.

> It's yet another Japanese zombie corporation that's lost its way

Toyota's revenue is up 24.2% since last year [1].

I think Tesla would love to be a zombie corporation with those numbers.

[1] https://pressroom.toyota.com/tmc-announces-april-through-jun...

Re: Toyota’s advanced battery technology roadmap

#187

Post by hef19898 » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 2:03 PM UTC

1-6 wrote: post #171

thiago_fm wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still better than the kind of promises you'd get from Elon Musk, costing you 10K to get a FSD system to drive you into a wall. I like the fact that they show their intent without making you pay for it

“It’s better to be an optimist who is sometimes wrong than a pessimist who is almost always right” Mark Twain

And there is promising the moon and delivering a tennis ball, and that years late...

Re: Toyota’s advanced battery technology roadmap

#188

Post by amalcon » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 2:06 PM UTC

thiago_fm wrote: post #164

hijinks wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wouldnt hold your breathe.. they've been claiming solid state has been around the corner since like 2010

Still better than the kind of promises you'd get from Elon Musk, costing you 10K to get a FSD system to drive you into a wall. I like the fact that they show their intent without making you pay for it

I've got plenty of gripes with Musk -- not the least of which are Tesla's marketing of assistive driving technologies, which the folks there had to know would be misleading.

I think this is somewhat unfair, though: that $10k is for a software unlock. Battery tech is hardware. Toyota can't charge extra for advanced batteries before said batteries are ready for mass production, for obvious reasons -- so they didn't really have the opportunity to engage in this kind of broken promise.

Re: Toyota’s advanced battery technology roadmap

#189

Post by Qwertious » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 2:07 PM UTC

jacknews wrote: post #165

creshal wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There seems to be a lot of noise, confusion and FUD coming from Toyota lately. Not really? The old CEO with his irrational hate of all-electric cars left, and Toyota is now free to catch up with the rest of the industry. And the best way to catch up has always been to leapfrog a tech generation ahead, rather than trying to copy what the competition designed last year.

This seems like an e-washing argument to me. Just a couple of months ago (well after the new CEO joined) they were touting their ammonia engine as the 'death of EVs'.

To be fair, the ammonia engine is an obvious holdover from their hydrogen attempts (which make sense in the specific context of Japan*). If they have the tech and they're not outright scrapping it, they might as well spruik it in case it works out.

*So, Japan imports most of the energy their electrical grid comes from, largely in the form of LNG. If Japan wants to move away from fossil fuels, then that new energy source needs to come in some form; importing liquid hydrogen has seemed an obvious prospect for years now.

This is important because if Japan's future electrical grid will run on hydrogen anyway, then a BEV's energy chain will be (imported hydrogen)->electricity->battery->car, whereas a hydrogen FCEV will just be (imported hydrogen)->electricity->car. Thus, hydrogen stands to be more efficient than BEVs in the specific context of future Japanese logistics.

But where does ammonia come into this? Simple: Ammonia, being NH4, has been considered as a better method of transporting hydrogen instead of liquid hydrogen (hydrogen has great specific energy (energy-per-weight) but literally the worst energy density (energy-per-volume), and ammonia could fix that. If so, then a car engine that uses ammonia directly could be more efficient than a hydrogen engine that's fed from ammonia anyway.

Re: Toyota’s advanced battery technology roadmap

#190

Post by AndrewDucker » Mon, Oct 23, 2023, 2:08 PM UTC

leke wrote: post #169

hijinks wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wouldnt hold your breathe.. they've been claiming solid state has been around the corner since like 2010

Apparently BYD will be releasing one of its models with a sodium ion solid-state battery this year. That is, it's verified and working and ready to ship. First source link I could find on google. https://www.whichcar.com.au/news/byd-may-launch-first-sodium...

Your link says "may" not "will", and is from December last year.

I shall keep my fingers crossed that it does happen, but with no "They're actively being manufactured right now" news articles, I'm not hopeful that they'll be available to buy in the next two months.