Why Toyota is leaving electric cars to Tesla and GM

[Tessy]

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.yahoo.com/amphtml/finance/news/why-toyota-is-leaving-electric-cars-to-tesla-and-gm-161423450.html?client=ms-android-google

Interesting read

 

[GetOffYourGas]

Not a bad article. In general, I agree with them. As much as I want BEVs to catch on and take over, it's not a given that they will.

My biggest gripe with the article is this line:

hydrogen is cheap and plentiful

Hydrogen is certainly plentiful (every water molecule has two hydrogen atoms!). However, it is far from cheap. At least in a form that is usable by a fuel cell. It takes an awful lot of energy to extract hydrogen from water (known as hydrolysis). A much better use for that energy is charging a battery. A BEV can travel something like 3x as far as a FCEV on that same amount of energy.

Hydrogen can also be extracted from natural gas (which has four hydrogen atoms per molecule), but that kind of defeats the purpose, does it not?

 

[Geo]

Sometimes I imagine that Toyota is keeping their powder dry until prices drop and/or the other big manufacturers use up their EV credits.

Think about it. In a few years, GM, Tesla, and Nissan will have burned through their credits and the prices of their EVs will jump $7500. Meanwhile, prices on batteries and components will be lower. I couldn't think of a more perfect time for Toyota to jump in with a competitive EV priced $7500 below the competition (with credits, of course).

 

[GetOffYourGas]

Sometimes I imagine that Toyota is keeping their powder dry until prices drop and/or the other big manufacturers use up their EV credits.

Think about it. In a few years, GM, Tesla, and Nissan will have burned through their credits and the prices of their EVs will jump $7500. Meanwhile, prices on batteries and components will be lower. I couldn't think of a more perfect time for Toyota to jump in with a competitive EV priced $7500 below the competition (with credits, of course).

That strategy didn't work for those trying to capitalize on the hybrid credits. Toyota ate through their pretty quickly, while GM and Ford waited. But they just couldn't make up ground on Toyota. Plus there is no guarantee that those credits will still exist even a year from now when the next POTUS is in office.

I think Toyota is trying to milk their hybrid investment as long as possible. Plus some of them probably do believe that Hydrogen is the future. By skipping out on the BEV generation, they can "leapfrog" the rest and go straight to the "end game" of Hydrogen.

Note: I don't believe hydrogen is the future for light transportation, and think Toyota will be hurting a decade from now.

 

[BoltyMcBoltFace]

Sometimes I imagine that Toyota is keeping their powder dry until prices drop and/or the other big manufacturers use up their EV credits.

If it weren't for the Prius Prime, I might agree with you. I've seen estimates as high as 50,000 units/year for the Prime, and if that's true it's going to make a big dent in their available credits.

I do agree that they're waiting on pure plug-ins, but I think they're blinded by the Prius success and think that hybrids and plug-in hybrids are the only viable mass-market options, while twisted incentives in Japan and California have them chasing hydrogen for the zero-emission requirements. If they truly believe their own spin, they're going to be totally unprepared and years behind if cars like the Bolt and Model 3 turn out to be the hits that most of us on this forum expect them to be.

 

[Tcdn]

I'm a bit surprised at this article. I would have assumed Toyota because of the Prius success would keep their cards in the game

 

[DanCar]

Toyota has been caught off guard by the popularity of electric cars. You can bet they are developing their 200+ mile electric car. Typically development times are 5+ years. So they will downplay electric and upplay what they have, fuel cell, until their electric car is ready. In three years when their electric cars are ready they will be touting how wonderful electric car technology is.

 

[oilerlord]

Toyota has been caught off guard by the popularity of electric cars. You can bet they are developing their 200+ mile electric car. Typically development times are 5+ years. So they will downplay electric and upplay what they have, fuel cell, until their electric car is ready. In three years when their electric cars are ready they will be touting how wonderful electric car technology is.

I've seen no media or marketing of said Toyota EV.

From the article:

“The idea of a 300-mile-range, big, heavy-battery vehicle, we don’t think that’s the place for an EV,” Jim Lentz, CEO of Toyota North America, tells Yahoo Finance"

There are a few ways we can choose to interpret this:

a.) The CEO is lying.
b.) Toyota has kept their upcoming EV a tight secret, and instead of creating a marketing buzz, will instead make a surprise unveiling.
c.) Toyota actually isn't pursuing development of BEV's.
d.) Toyota has a huge bet on hydrogen vehicles, and may be a few years away from making these science experiments a mainstream reality.

I take the CEO's comments at face value, and choose c+d. Imagine if Toyota actually finds a way to get fuel cell cars into the mainstream. They would OWN the alternative fuel car market, and make EV's look like dinosaurs. Perhaps Toyota is closer to making this a reality than we realize.

 

[DanCar]

Expect a company to lie, when there is a profit motive. The stragey is to maximize current sales.

 

[oilerlord]

Expect a company to lie, when there is a profit motive. The stragey is to maximize current sales.

How so, Dan? I'm not getting your connection between the CEO lying about an EV in development and the company profiting from it. That would go against marketing 101 - create a buzz, get market excited, profit from it.

Please explain.

 

[DanCar]

Expect a company to lie, when there is a profit motive. The stragey is to maximize current sales.

How so, Dan? I'm not getting your connection between the CEO lying about an EV in development and the company profiting from it. That would go against marketing 101 - create a buzz, get market excited, profit from it.

Please explain.

The priority is to sell cars today, not in a few years. If the CEO told the truth: nobody wants our fuel cell cars, too expensive to buy and fuel, then sales would tank. Instead they say it is the best thing since sliced bread. Truth: EVs are great. Lie: they are bad as the CEO said. If he told the truth that would send buyers to others like Tesla, and lower sales and profits. A major no-no from Toyota's perspective.

 

[SparkE]

The more I think about it, the more I think that range-extended EVs (like the i3 or Volt) are really the current 'sweet spot' for EVs. This may change over the next 5 years, but for NOW I think they offer the best solution.

A 'plug-in hybrid' with a range of 30+ highway miles on battery handles the vast majority of *most* people's driving, while not getting 'stuck' because the battery is empty - use the gas engine. Most people drive under 40 miles a day. For the majority, charge overnight at home every night and the 2-3 times a month you need to drive more than 35 miles in a day (and can't find a plug) - you burn gas. You aren't hauling around a 60 kWh battery (10 will suffice). Almost all of your driving is pollution free, yet you aren't 'stuck' when you need to go further. The manufacturer can design the battery system with lots of 'spare', so the battery is never within 6% of total full or empty, increasing the lifetime of the battery. For those people who often drive more than 30 miles/day, they get a PHEV with more electric range (80 miles electric, like the i3), instead of the gen-1 Volt (40-ish). I think that the current crop of Ford PHEVs and the latest Prius PHEV just don't have enough electric range - ranges in the 20s really aren't enough, as you'd probably be using the gas engine every day (unless you had a pretty short commute and/or can charge at work as well).

My 80-ish mile range BEV is fine for 95% of my driving, and my old gas car (40 mpg) gets driven maybe once a month when I have to go far away. The BEV+old ICE for backup works just great for me. When my old Corolla dies, I think that I'll buy a used Volt to replace it. I'll probably also have a Bolt (or some other) 200-mile BEV as my main car, but having an inexpensive, mostly-clean second car that I can drive to SLC with 15 minutes notice (that's over 700 miles and 12 hours of driving) or Eugene (~600 miles, 10 hours) would be even better.

 

[Anonymous]

You aren't hauling around a 60 kWh battery (10 will suffice)

How ironic that a post starting with a defence and promotion of the PHEV that carries around a system of thousands of moving parts requiring maintenance, would then claim that carrying around something that has no moving parts or maintenance requirement is a waste.

IRONY. Look it up.

I'll gladly carry around the 85 kWh pack in our Tesla, it allows for greater performance (higher Volt*Amps), longer life (80% after 10 years will still be >300km range) and it allows us to never need to pump gas again!

As for my daily commute, I bought a Smart ED with a 17.6kWh pack, which is about 30% more pack than a regularly use, but glad to have that spare capacity.

I hate PHEV. Low power output vs pure electric of same car size/weight and needing to put gas in it is a fail. But that's my opinion having >1000 days of pure EV driving under my belt.

 

[oilerlord]

I'll gladly carry around the 85 kWh pack in our Tesla, it allows for greater performance (higher Volt*Amps), longer life (80% after 10 years will still be >300km range) and it allows us to never need to pump gas again!

As for my daily commute, I bought a Smart ED with a 17.6kWh pack, which is about 30% more pack than a regularly use, but glad to have that spare capacity.

I hate PHEV. Low power output vs pure electric of same car size/weight and needing to put gas in it is a fail. But that's my opinion having >1000 days of pure EV driving under my belt.

Yes, you occasionally have to put gas into a PHEV, and the engine requires maintenance from time to time, but that hardly constitutes as a "fail". Owners love their Chevy Volts, and they do make sense for people who want one car that does it all, with no range limits. I don't drive a volt, but I can respect that there are 200K mile Volts on the road with very few issues.

To the point of the article, it's also fair for Toyota's CEO to consider that a 1200 pound, $44,000-to-replace, 85kWh battery pack comprised of 7104 laptop battery cells, in a heavy car with 300 km of degrading range that also shrinks by up to 50% in a cold winter - could also be considered a "fail". I'm all about encouraging innovation, and If Toyota chooses to make a big investment in bringing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles into the Camry mainstream, all the power to them. If they pull it off, Toyota suddenly owns an alternative fuel car market segment that didn't previously exist.

 

[JeffN]

As for my daily commute, I bought a Smart ED with a 17.6kWh pack, which is about 30% more pack than a regularly use, but glad to have that spare capacity.

I hate PHEV. Low power output vs pure electric of same car size/weight and needing to put gas in it is a fail. But that's my opinion having >1000 days of pure EV driving under my belt.

The specification for your Smart ED is 0-60 mph in a little over 11 seconds. The about the same as the new Prius Prime PHEV that has a 25 mile electric range.

The Chevy Volt with a 53 mile range does 0-60 in about 8 seconds and launches from 0-30 mph about as fast as the original Model S 60 kWh.

 

[Anonymous]

Like I said, I have a short commute in the city, so 0-30mph is what matters to me, and the Smart ED at 2.8s is within a few tenths of a second of most other EV's, and for sure as fast or faster than most PHEV.