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

arstechnica.com

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

#41

Post by ramesh31 »

NickM wrote: post #34
ramesh31 wrote: post #6

I think they bet perfectly fine, if you ignore the silly hydrogen efforts. Toyota has never been a technological front runner. They take the Apple approach; wait for something to be truly ready for prime time, then execute it better than anyone else. EV's are still 2% of the US market. And it will be a decade more until a 60+kwH EV is being sold for <$30k total upfront price out the door, which is where they need to…

And it will be a decade more until a 60+kwH EV is being sold for “A decade more” seems way too pessimistic given current EV prices and battery capacities. The 2022 Bolt will have a starting price of $32k with a 65kWh battery, for example.

>The 2022 Bolt will have a starting price of $32k with a 65kWh battery, for example.

That's still a totally different class of car buyers. A "starting price" of $32k means no one is walking out the door with one under $40k total upfront cost. When I can walk into a dealership and finance something like that at $25k total loan amount, that changes everything.

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

#42

Post by seph-reed »

eloff wrote: post #35
ajmurmann wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why mandate how emissions are cut, instead of heavily taxing carbon emissions and having the market find the best solution?

In general I agree with you. Simply taxing things with negative externalities enough to cover the true cost would simply and conclusively fix a lot of things we struggle with, faster and without relying on politicians. I think it's politically very unpopular, but the economic theory behind it is extremely sound.

I really hope liquid democracy can someday become a thing.

The fact that an idea can be both good and unpopular is -- IMO -- the linchpin of almost every other problem we face.

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

#43

Post by tonmoy »

bildung wrote: post #21

The FUD accusations seem a bit hasty here. The linked Senate hearing doesn't seem to contain negative things about BEVs (it only criticizes the "narrow focus" on them), but instead opts for including hybrid and hydrogen, with the argument being that "recent data shows that plug-in hybrids can achieve nearly the same or better GHG reductions than BEVs depending on your daily driving patterns, the carbon in the electri…

This assumes power grid won’t keep getting greener or more efficient. Unless we go zero carbon we are just delaying the inevitable and sometimes easy short term carbon reduction actually hampers our efforts to zero emissions.

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

#44

Post by WhompingWindows »

The Japanese car companies have done pretty poorly in the 2010's in supporting the energy transition. Toyota has been extremely slow to adapt after the Prius, which makes sense because of their ridiculously large volume of sales of basic, gas-efficient passenger vehicles.

I give Toyota big props for the Prius, which was the original Green Vehicle 15-20 years ago, and still is a HUGE player in the efficiency space. IIRC, The number one vehicle trade-in for TSLA has been Priuses. Was there even a car before the Prius that used regenerative braking? In many ways, Prius "primed" the market for greener vehicles.

And yet, Toyota had no great BEV follow-up. In a high-tech educated country like Japan, an island nation with extremely large amounts of coastline, I'd assume Toyota and Honda would wise up to climate change earlier.

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

#45

Post by frumper »

dnautics wrote: post #12
ashtonkem wrote: post #4

My pet theory is that Toyota or Honda will be on life support by the end of next decade, if not dead. They both had a huge head start in batteries with their hybrids (Honda’s first hybrid was released in 1999), and they squandered it. Hopefully the Korean car companies crush them with superior products.

This is unlikely. Toyota, anyways, has really excelled in other ways, for example, using supply chains correctly and not taking a huge hit during the semiconductor shortage. The car market is also relatively slow to shift, I do think that there's plenty of time for Toyota to pivot.

My local Toyota dealer has about 25 new cars on their lot instead of 150+, that sounds like a pretty big hit.

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

#46

Post by kongolongo »

ramesh31 wrote: post #29
bildung wrote: post #21

The FUD accusations seem a bit hasty here. The linked Senate hearing doesn't seem to contain negative things about BEVs (it only criticizes the "narrow focus" on them), but instead opts for including hybrid and hydrogen, with the argument being that "recent data shows that plug-in hybrids can achieve nearly the same or better GHG reductions than BEVs depending on your daily driving patterns, the carbon in the electri…

>depending on your daily driving patterns This is the key point. Modern highly efficient turbocharged 4 cylinder ICE vehicles can be equally or more efficient than a hybrid in the right circumstances as well. But the vast majority of driving is city streets <45mph, where ICE can't even come close to BEV.

Well in the case of urban areas, outside of some select locations, the charging infra is just not there for BEVs. Even if there were good EV infra in urban areas, a compelling case could be made for improving and upgrading public transportation instead which is going to be more efficient than any personal vehicle - including BEVs.

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

#47

Post by throwaway0a5e »

ashtonkem wrote: post #4

My pet theory is that Toyota or Honda will be on life support by the end of next decade, if not dead. They both had a huge head start in batteries with their hybrids (Honda’s first hybrid was released in 1999), and they squandered it. Hopefully the Korean car companies crush them with superior products.

I'd like to see that because it would be a nice big middle finger to all the brain dead fanboys who insist Toyota can never do anything wrong but being a big national company in Japan no matter what they do or don't do they won't be allowed to fail for the same reasons VW or Boeing won't.

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

#48

Post by rpmisms »

ashtonkem wrote: post #10
typon wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've pre-ordered an Ioniq 5. Tesla has a real competitor in Hyundai. If you don't care about the "self-driving" thing, other companies are catching up fast.

I’ve gone from bullish to bearish on self driving, all I want from that area is radar guided cruise control and highway friendly lane keeping. Sadly the Ioniq 5 won’t be on sale in my state. I’m considering a model Y because the range is desirable for the semi-regular camping we do.

Good news: Tesla's basic Autopilot is fantastic for that. Just don't fall asleep.

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

#49

Post by stevev »

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 safety systems is Subaru with their eyesight features.

My personal experience and testing of my Toyota Sienna van’s PCS, otherwise known as a pre-collision system to assist in applying the brakes and or warn the driver that an object is detected in close proximity to the vehicle during moving speed, is almost absent. The system is too slow, delayed or late. Sense of safety from the pcs is non-existent.

These along with others things pushes me to have a greater interest in cars like Tesla despite it’s premium price.

At this point, we should point out that now there are such thing as smart cars (Tesla) vs dumb cars (toyota) and others and that safety should not be a second class feature but should be prioritized through the use of current camera technologies. Other than focusing on just the safety of a vehicle during a collision, although important, systems to prevent collisions should be prioritized as well.

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

#50

Post by ajmurmann »

Sitting in the US EVs seem like the clear winner. I was shocked too learn that there are no Toyota EVs because they somehow thought hydrogen was the future. I expected more from my most trusted car company. A recent visit to Germany made me less certain. I saw and drove in quite a few hydrogen-powered Mirais. Of course my short experience there isn't representative at all. It's hydrogen bigger elsewhere? Might we see a future where the US had predominantly EVs and Japan and/or Europe hydrogen cars?
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