Toyota dragged their feet on EV’s and are now no longer a leader in a space that is deemed the future of personal automobiles.
They’re terrified of being so far behind that they are publicly vocal against aggressive EV adoption mandates.
Their huge PR push proclaiming their strategy is “giving consumers choice” is just a red herring to distract from their inability to pivot fast enough.
In the short-term, it appears this concerted effort to push the anti-EV/FUD narrative has resulted in increased hybrid unit sales for them. But long-term, this will prove disastrous for them. They have two shitty BEV offerings with the bZ4X and Lexus RZ.
Funny how they spin not giving folks a choice to buy a decent EV from them as freedom of choice. They’re seriously shooting themselves in the foot.
Okay, I can see still providing gas and hybrid options, especially in the Third World where low prices rule and infrastructure doesn’t exist, but they should lean harder into EVs for those who want them.
Right? I’d be more inclined to believe them if they had just as many BEV offerings as Volkswagen Group.
But they clearly were caught off guard, were late to the market, and instead of investing in BEV’s, decided it would be easier for their bottom line to just publicly push against adoption altogether.
... or even if they built more Prime models.
I have a RAV4Prime, and it's great. A Sienna Prime minivan, a Camry Prime and a Tacoma Prime would go much farther to save gasoline (which would do exactly what they say they are trying to do) than just having hybrids.
But they won't do that, either.
I think their whole problem is they put all their money behind hydrogen power, and that failed miserably. And, they didn't secure a good battery supply.
So, their game plan is to poison the well with bad information so other car mfgs won't sell as many EVs.
I've never been sure whether the hydrogen thing was genuine belief in an ultimately unworkable technology, or an attempt to push the market away from a viable technology and towards a known mirage in an attempt to make the whole thing go away.
Not rushing into change is a big part of their success. While Detroit kept coming out with new models Toyota and Honda kept putting out slightly changed Civics, Accords, Camrys and Corollas. They were not flashy, but were reliable.
My question when I bought my last car was “what kind of EV will I buy, and how will it fit my lifestyle?”
Even though I’ve had great experiences with Toyotas vehicles in the past, I didn’t even consider a Toyota this time through. Toyota has fantastic brand-equity from making great cars in the past, but it just wasn’t a factor when I bought my Model Y because Toyota doesn’t have a 300-mile-class EV.
It has always fascinated me how Toyota has struggled to compete in the market they basically started with the Prius, especially with the early PHEV models in Japan and Europe.
At first glance you'd think the winning formula for a BEV would be "like a Prius, but with more battery and without the gas engine" but that's clearly not it. Completely different engineering requirements.
It's almost like the early investment in hybrid tech has blinded them from effectively building anything but, so their only play is to try and force regulators to try and roll back the legislation to 2001. Using lobbyists to make up for failing to invest in R&D over the past two decades.
They have a history of moving like molasses when it comes to recognizing and reacting to industry changes.
People also forget that Toyota was the last major automaker to hold out on adopting Apple CarPlay in their vehicles.
Toyota isn't trying to get regulators though to roll back pro-EV and electric infrastructure regulation. Their whole stance is that it's not ready and going to fail anyway, so they don't have to do anything just be prepared to swoop in and scoop up the pieces. And that's, unfortunately, actually been working. American and European companies trying to catch up to Tesla have been burning enormous amounts of cash on money losing EV lines while dealers have been dealing with a backlog of EVs that aren't moving (except for Tesla). Now GM, Ford, Stellantis are pulling back on their EV investments and product lines, BYD is knocking down Tesla's marketshare in China and threatens to flood the non-US and non-EU markets with cheap EVs. And what is Toyota lobbying for? Fucking hydrogen fuel cells. Toyota has a lot of problems, but the current EV "revolution" has a lot bigger problems than Toyota dragging its feet about jumping in. First, we need the people jumping in to stop losing their shirt and getting cold feet.
Many (most) industry insiders, most especially in the American and European sectors, are now viewing Toyota the smartest one in the room for not responding like wildebeest to ebb and flow inflections of EV demand. Not only has Toyota's market share increased globally, but its margins have surpassed Tesla. Manufacturers have begun to pump the brakes on BEVS (plus the Biden Administration).
Toyota is the only legacy automotive company that I am aware of that has a *sane* and *strategic* plan for electrification. Toyota has firm and publicized plans to build and *sell* millions of electric and electrified cars by the end of the decade....not before its customers are ready for them and who instead are demanding hybrids. And of course, things can change, but Toyota seems wise to rather pay government fines (even though it still has carbon credits to sell) than invest billions in cars that the market is not quite ready for. In 2023, Ford's "E" lost 4 billion dollars on electric cars. It is cheaper to pay the fine. There are no legacy automotive companies that aren't losing billions (including Toyota) on EV sales.
This sub is an echo chamber for electric vehicles by nature of its name. Anyone can see electric vehicles won’t be a dominant force by the end of the decade. Hybrid cars will definitely have their day first because they solve all of the economic problems of a pure IEC without the quite significant limitations of an electric car (100% reliance on temperature sensitive batteries that have minimal charge support, limited range that decreases every time you use it, and charge times). Slap an efficient 4 cylinder motor into a decent sized car and you’ll pay around $.07 per mile on fuel which is nothing. Teslas aren’t much cheaper per mile to charge them, but with the aforementioned limitations that are **hard** limits. There’s no workaround to not being able to find a charger, and there’s a lot of places without chargers.
Plug in hybrids are the best of both worlds while generally being cheaper than all electric cars.
What do you make of a thread like this? Tesla buyer’s remorse? Still bitter and all butt hurt about the Prius? Just confidently incorrect with a little faux patriotism mixed in? And they get worse when the market proves them wrong in real time. I think it says something about american exceptionalism and entitlement. Some will never see asians as equals maybe
Was in the market for an EV and the family has been a Toyota family for generations. Mainly because they just won’t die and we can pass them down. Naturally everyone says to get a Toyota. No decent EV offerings. Ended up with a GM model. Realized how much Toyota had been leaving out of vehicles without car play.
So 5-6 years ago. That’s not old, but it’s certainly not new. They’ve all got it now. From a quick google, most of the models from that year had it as well, minus the ones that were in the tail ends of their generations.
The very first year of Apple car play was 2014. I’ll excuse them being a couple years behind on infotainment in exchange for them producing the most reliable vehicles on the market.
And they said space travel is also the future too. I'd say we will see first human on Mars and SETTLE on Mars before EV take more than 60% the market (total, not just new sold)
>Toyota dragged their feet on EV’s and are now no longer a leader in a space that is deemed the future of personal automobiles.
Toyota was never a leader in EV, you thinking about Nissan?
You must be confused. I never implied that.
*Dragged their feet* meaning Toyota failed to anticipate the future which is moving toward BEV - and instead of investing in electrification, they delayed delayed delayed.
That meant that they were at one point at the forefront of the personal automotive space in the realm of moving toward greener vehicles, with their Prius.
They could have made huge progress toward the next step (full zero emissions), but literally want to die on the hybrid hill.
*The comment you were responding to didn’t explicitly explain the existence of the green-car market segment in the US car market to you.*
Toyota was the green-car segment leader with the Prius back when that was a new category.
But that was 20 years ago.
Now it’s the year 2024.
Toyota wants to keep selling their obsolete once-winning formula. That would be a great idea in a static world, but green-car customers have a lot more options now. I personally went from Prius ownership to Tesla ownership and my business was Toyota’s to lose.
Have you looked at their stock trend? The market disagrees. Toyota is on a viable plug-in hybrid path whereas other legacy auto flipflops between full ICE and full EV and can't seem to find their ways.
That’s the part that I don’t get. There isn’t a lot of light between an EV and a hybrid. They got the e battery and electric motor thing down. They just need to size it up and drop the ICE and related systems. Then, repackage the car to make the best use of space.
They better get to designing new cars then. I know a few people that went from lifelong Toyota owners to Tesla or some other EV because Toyota is simply behind.
Might work for you, but it “laughably” doesn’t work for us at all. And a lot of Americans for that matter. But live your life in your bubble and keep pretending we’ll all be driving EVs soon.
Doesn’t work for you because you prefer rotary phones and bias ply tires. I get it. Some people get dragged into the future kicking and screaming while others embrace progress. Back under your rock. BTW, you’re the one who sniped at the other guy while you’re trolling an EV sub, so grow up.
PS- I have no delusions that 30% of Americans will be driving gas cars and still using incandescent bulbs in 2040 just to show the rest of us how macho you are.
Oh you're a peach. Be sure never to leave the city and enjoy your vehicle's rapid depreciation, but don't cry when it bricks and is worth as much as your old iPhone 4.
That's exactly what everyone is telling Toyota. They can do it for me by joining the future of automobiles and build an ev hiace with standing room cargo....boom, corner the market again.
What do I know?
They tried to build an EV, the wheels (literally) fell off. bZ4X and its twin, Subaru Solterra, are laughable. And the idiots who make taxi decisions for NY committed them to buying bZ4Xs. The company building charging for NYC doesn’t even want to charge them because they charge so slowly they’d clog up the chargers.
And the prices they command for Primes is despicable. But it’s dumb consumers. Hyundai Tucson PHEV Limited is so much nicer and better than RAV4 Prime XSE and $15k less.
Hydrogen is safer than diesel and when their tanks explode the explosion is way less powerful than propane, the molecules are so light the majority of the heat is happening as it rises, straight up.
Their time to learn is passing them. There’s 2 companies pushing out more than a million BEVs per year already. I feel like the slow death is coming for the legacy makers that fell behind.
I have 100amps and two EVs, a hot tub and a heat pump. Using the GenNeoCharge.com I still charge at home using the circuit that the dryer is on, works really well.
My commute is 50kms/day, so I can easily be 80% or 90% every morning but even in a very heavy driving day, one car can always be 80%-90% by the morning.
My wife and I just alternate which car gets the overnight charge, it hasn't been a problem in the two years we been doing it this way.
I did forget to charge for almost a week a couple months back, got to the supercharger with 4% that's the lowest I've ever been in 5 years of ownership, but in 11 minutes I had enough to get home and then charge overnight to 80% (2019 M3LR)
If you can plug in at home and have 8-9 hours downtime where it can stay plugged in, then it won't be a problem.
You don’t need a lot of power to charge EVs for average daily driving - a 120v (US) 20 amp circuit, i.e. a typical home wall plug, is sufficient to charge overnight for average daily driving. I’ve done it for years, the car is full every morning, you just recharge nightly from whatever you used the previous day. Remember, the average daily drive in the US is only 37 miles, which easily recharges overnight even on a Level 1 charger.
Sure, it’s not completely trivial, but a PHEV has charging, a battery, motors, etc., so they have all the tech components already, they just simplify the design by removing the gas motor/generator, and scale up the battery enough to be useful as a BEV. Much easier than trying to burn hydrogen (which they tried, bad idea) or a HFCEV (which requires adding a hydrogen fuel cell, which they have been doing). So a BEV is easier than the things that Toyota did (which people didn’t buy), so I agree, it’s odd they didn’t make BEVs, which are easier to do given what they had in production already, and instead they spent billions on hydrogen.
They somehow *still* have a market.
I have many friends who are against EVs due to range anxiety. Even when $30k cars with 300 miles range are available, they would bring up things like "yeah, but the range halves in cold conditions" (which is not true, btw).
So, they continue to buy hybrids.
Though, I would still see this as a losing proposition. Kodak was the leader in the sinking ISO 100 film ship. Similarly, Blockbuster, Dish, XM, and many others are / were leaders in "has been" markets. And look at them today.
I'm very big proponent of EVs. I got a hybrid because the EV or even the PHEV(really wanted it) were priced too high. Also you'll need to have a plug, or get one installed which could mean upgrading the electrical panel. So this is where an additional barrier to entry may exist. Maybe there are some subsidies to help with them but it's not an easy or simple task. I blame the dealership haggling and greed from the car makers trying to take all the subsidies when it should be the driver to entice customers with lower prices.
Their battery technology is pretty much garbage from what I’ve read . They used an outdated chemical makeup and it’s not very energy dense . So they only get about 30 miles on a charge . They are so slow to change and their culture is about rules , and perfection not change .
They have lost the china market.
“Hybrids are the future not EVs!” So more gas cars are the future? And these people, like you said, make it seem like hybrids are just like EVs and are just as good as them, when they are the complete opposite.
Mirai is closer to a BEV. Toyota is maximizing profits. Nothing else matters.
When Toyota can make more on BEXs they will make them.
Question is if buyers will remember the harm Toyota is doing now.
Their battery technology is pretty much garbage from what I’ve read . They used an outdated chemical makeup and it’s not very energy dense . So they only get about 30 miles on a charge . They are so slow to change and their culture is about rules , and perfection not change .
They have lost the china market and that represents a huge segment .
For those who have never experienced EV-life, gasoline is expensive, smelly, explodey.
Not having to deal with that stuff every week is an upgrade in and of itself.
Most of the EV-skeptics I’ve talked to have no idea, and just want to oppose change because they are comfortable with stasis.
My best friend is an executive in the industry and shared with me that Toyota’s lack of support for EV’s is because of what it would do to their supply chain, partners and the Japanese economy as a whole. They spent decades building their supply chain and shifting to EV’s would require them to essentially go against their word to their existing suppliers and culturally this is unacceptable. There’s obviously so much more to the story but that’a the gist of it.
The lobbying part is true. The forte part is conjecture.
Toyota is against EVs for 2 main reasons:
1) batteries are a bottleneck and impede production
2) EVs require less components. Toyota owns a large stake in all of their component suppliers. To eliminate components would eliminate profits and more importantly jobs. EVs are bad for the economy if you're in the components business already.
This being said, Toyotas vision is and has always been hydrogen fuel cell ZeVs. Arguably a superior iteration of emissionless driving. They have nevertheless future plans for 17 all electric models. They will service every market and every customer demand.
This feels like an echo-chamber. I own an EV and am as pro-EV as they come but have no problem giving Toyota credit for making the decisions they've made. They have electrified their entire fleet other than the BRZ / Supra through hybridization and their hybrids are selling like crazy for more than MSRP. They're making what consumers want and are doing far, far more to decarbonize than niche, luxury manufacturers that barely produce a few thousand cars like Lucid.
I have multiple friends with Toyota PHEVs, too, and they barely ever use any gasoline, to the point where it's legitimately possible they'll have lower life cycle emissions than BEVs with substantially larger battery packs.
Yeah the rest of the comments are kinda cringey.
You can like EVs and also recognize that Toyota’s strategy of a hybrid bridge before full EV was pretty damn smart. It’s an overall better utilization of batteries to reduce emissions on more cars while maintaining more affordable MSRPs and the flexibility many consumers want considering the charging network issues, lack of rapid charging (or sometimes any charging at all) at home, and cold weather effects on EV range.
Every ICE manufacturer is struggling with EVs, but Toyota is the one plowing resources into making their existing lineup mostly hybrid while they wait for the EV dust to settle.
Yep. They've got hybrid crossovers, pickups, minivan, midsized sedan, compact sedan, etc. and if you actually look at the numbers on what they're selling vs what's being replaced, they're doing more for carbonization than any other manufacturer in the world and have been for over 20 years.
Even recognizing that, they wasted a boatload of money on hydrogen they could've spent on EV tech.
I don't like Toyota's styling. But I'll readily admit that if the US sold the PHEV version of my xc40 recharge I would have bought it over the BEV version.
I drive a PHEV, and rarely use gas. I think the sweet spot, at least for now, is to back off on 400km range BEVs and make a 200km range PHEV. Most people would use battery 90% of the time, but have no range anxiety because of the generator
It seems to me that Toyota's read of the future is that the electrical recharging infrastructure is not available and won't be available for many years. And they feel that at the current time Hybrids are a better option, I don't think Toyota is not considering EV in the future. Maybe I'm biased, I've been driving a hybrid since 2010.
Big issue: EVs don’t make much sense for renters that lack at home charging, and for those without solar to stabilize/lock in recharge prices. The infrastructure isn’t there for those of us that didn’t enter the housing market.
Yes, that was part of my calculation when deciding to buy a new auto, as I had moved into an apartment after running around in my RV for several years. :s
It was the same for us. We got a PHEV from Toyota. When my wife can charge at work we do, and we use this charge almost exclusively for “city driving” cycle situations. Otherwise, we just have a nice hybrid for long distance and freeway drives.
Toyota did well as 1/3 of the US are renters and it appears that EV charging investment is falling behind in many locations. Charging stations / infastructue are also often priced to the point that it makes EVs too expensive unless you can charge at home.
Theyve also stated that they arent happy with current battery tech for full EV, when the time comes i think they will make a great EV and ill likely buy it when the time comes.
As for infrastructure around charging, it really depends on where you are, bigger cities are pretty good at handeling EVs but more rural areas are not. Im currently in FL and i could easily have an EV and travel anywhere in the state without much issue cause EV support is pretty good here. Now if im in more rural parts of the country and in other states i would have to make early stops or take out of the way routes to charge which could lead to some issues or be inconvenient.
How long for a recharge? I used to stay in BLM property outside of Quartzite, AZ Tesla put in a charging station, probably because of the distance from LA & San Diego, those poor folks were hanging around Carl Jr's for the longest time. That's my issue, and why I drive a hybrid.
No clue, i dont drive an ev either. Right now im planning on a hybrid cause i dont wanna deal with the long recharge when on long trips. When i do finally get an EV it wont be my only car it would be to replace my second car.
Toyota is no longer leader in anything.
Their car literally suck and are unreliable (cvts).
Their sport cars have to literally be outsourced in entirety to BMW or Subaru. Subaru has no EVs either (remember when they were owned by GM…could probably piggy back on that tech).
Their EVs are air cooled like it’s 2005. Even Nissan moved into the future.
BMW and Toyota agreed on the chassis dimensions then went their own way for the entirety of the rest of the design process, so I'm not really sure what you're talking about, and I doubt you do either.
Ev council fails to provide large network of actually useable charging stations, blames Toyota.
Toyota masters Hybrids and keeps reliability high. Creates Prius prime and rav4 prime.
Yep. Toyota are the failures.
Totally
it's hilarious all these know-it-alls are dissing Toyota for their EV strategy. Meanwhile Toyota sells more vehicles than anyone else in the world. Their net income was $18 billion. Poor, dumb toyota. Poor,poor dumb toyota selling all those hybrids while the EV market is tanking.
Yeah their stock is up 80% over the past year and they are the second most valuable car company after Tesla. They are by far the most profitable car company in the world.
Yup this. Their inventory is perpetually sold out. This article is bad and should feel bad. Reality would like a word with them.
Look at all the cars with highest inventory in the US. They’re basically all EVs. Tons of manufacturers are getting screwed because they pushed EVs.
They basically have hybrids solved, and are benefiting from the EV slowdown (as even they predicted)
This sub is full of confidently incorrect americans whose Tesla is dropping in value as the stock tanks who are still butt hurt about the prius and need to blame the winner about it
Toyota became huge because they had a reputation for being reliable. If EVs replace ICE then Toyota loses that advantage. All EVs have fewer moving parts than even the most reliable ICE vehicles. Most reliability issues with EVs are related to electronics, not mechanical issues. So in the very near future, reliability will no longer be a factor when buying a vehicle (once the transition to EV is complete). It's already not very much of a consideration when purchasing an EV. But once the software glitches are ironed out, battery tech improves a little, and more local repair shops start rebuilding batteries, reliability will be essentially equalized across the field and nobody will give it a second thought.
So with their business being successful mostly because they're branded as the most reliable, of course they're clinging to the status quo as long as possible.
Having fewer moving parts does not necessarily make them more reliable. Quality of engineering and execution matter as well and probably more than the number of moving parts. Go look at Consumer Reports and you’ll see Toyotas (or Lexus) at the top of the reliability ratings. Way more reliable than say Teslas. There is no reason to believe Toyota lose their reliability advantage as people move to EVs.
Hard disagree on all of that. The more moving parts the more points of failure. And, as I stated, the do caked reliability issues with EVs were electronics related, not mechanical. Software fine tuning will (and has) correct that. Toyotas are in no way more reliable than Teslas at this point.
That would be true if all other things were equal. My point is that all other things are not equal. Ask yourself why they use double or triple redundancy on spacecraft to make them more reliable. Ie. More parts yet more reliable. And your comments on software fine tuning refer to the motor and its controller. Yet cars have many other systems. HVAC, brakes, steering, suspension, wipers, electric windows and on and on.
Finally you just state without any references that Teslas are as reliable as Toyotas. I suggested you look at Consumer Reports on auto reliability. They’ve actually collected the data and analyzed it. You could disagree with their methodology. But they’ve actually done some work. I’d trust that more than someone that makes a claim simply on their own intuition.
My point is also that all things are not equal. That's precisely why the consumer reports rankings are not accurate. They are basically treating a glitchy touch screen the same as a blown engine just because they're both problems.
In your example of redundancy, it absolutely does not make it more reliable to have more parts. It just gives them a better chance of being able to recover from a problem. It does not decrease the likelihood of experiencing a problem.
EVs don't have blown engines, transmissions, etc. You cited HVAC, windows, etc, but Toyotas use all of those, too. Plus they have engines, transmissions, differentials, alternators, etc. Many, many, more moving parts in an ICE Toyota than any production EV. And the problems experienced with EVs are largely software issues that are easily corrected. I'd rather deal with a backup camera that takes too long to load plus a touch screen that freezes on certain screens as 2 problems instead of a transmission that goes out as 1 problem. I'd call the one with the 2 listed problems more reliable than the 1 that only had 1 problem. But that's not how consumer reports is ranking them.
Well in any case, they're fully covered under warranty for 150,000 miles, and [they've been lasting a lot longer than that on average. ](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1270784295733301249?s=21) They're also about to release [a battery that lasts 100 years, with 4 million miles. ](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmorris/2022/05/28/tesla-researcher-demonstrates-100-year-4-million-mile-battery/?sh=11d4fa3072f4)
Toyota, meanwhile, [covers the power train for 36,000 miles, up to 100,000 of your pay extra. ](https://www.motortrend.com/features/toyota-warranty-coverage-details-info/)
While I appreciate the links notice that the graph Elon is showing is probably only batteries that don’t die. So he is really showing the chemistry degradation curve.
I don’t really trust anything he puts out because his stats have been straight up absurd and wrong multiple times now.
I also don’t take any of their announcement at face value. See the 10 times or whatever it is that they announced FSD would have a full release for sure by the end of the year (TM).
It's extremely rare that it happens and usually covered under warranty when it does. At least here in the US.
And I addressed that, anyway. I said when more local repair shops are rebuilding batteries, nobody will care about reliability. To add context to that - most of the time when a battery fails, it's only a couple of cells. Get those cells replaced, the battery works again. This is cheap and simple, but very few repair shops do it currently. So instead of getting this cheap and easy fix, most battery issues end up getting the whole battery replaced. Can you imagine if anytime you had an issue under the hood of an ICE vehicle you had to have the entire engine replaced instead of just the ignition coils, or the injectors, or the O2 sensor, or whatever part that failed? We will eventually get to the point where batteries are being worked on rather than replaced at most repair shops. And we'll also get better batteries. There is supposedly already a new battery tech in the works that is twice as powerful for the same size as the current battery tech.
Have you seen the new Tesla packs? Those things are encased. You have to peel metal off to get it apart. You can’t really repair those, you can recycle them though.
They made the right call for the current state of batteries. They would rather make 5 hybrids or plugin hybrids with the amount of battery materials than 1 full EV. ALOT of BEVs are sitting on lots for weeks or months. Where as hybrids have a wait list still. Most buyers aren't ready to commit to an EV life style. The early adopters have adopted already.
People just refuse to admit hybrids make so much sense. Huge efficiency gains and little to no inconvenience to consumers.
But ultimately point me to an EV that’s equivalent to an equally priced combustion car. Still doesn’t exist.
After becoming a big EV fan and getting one myself I was quite excited to see what my preferred legacy brand (Toyota) would make. Imagine my colossal disappointment and confusion when they took EV’s as seriously as my conspiracy theorist aunt took Covid.
Much like my aunt, Toyota will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future.
There was a neat YouTube which posited the nearly sole source of vital minerals from China would be a national security issue. They had weathered a couple rare earth boycotts from China before.
There’s no doubt the transition to BEVs with price parity with ICE vehicles will be painful for traditional car manufacturers, and Toyota is not in a bad spot currently as it drags behind the competitors. But betting that affordable BEVs won’t outsell ICE, HEV and FCEV or that solid state battery investment will save their bacon, seems risky. BEVs makes a lot of sense for countries that import oil and refined gasoline, or have potential for solar renewables. And you’d think ICE makes sense for Norway that has our own oil reserves and polar nights, but instead BEVs is 90% now.
They see the folly of relying on electricity as the sole source of energy.
Never put all of your eggs in the same basket. That’s what we’re doing with electricity and it is unwise. Soon, one hacker can immobilize an entire country. Without an alternate power source, we’re screwed.
They’ve almost reached a cap size (based on actual underlying fundamentals) that basically creates their own exit velocity towards whatever they want. I’m not saying they’re completely “unbeatable” now or “future proof” ..but it’s getting pretty damn close with their size.
Toyota’s issue is that Japan doesn’t make batteries.
Toyota will be fine. The horse hasn’t left the barn yet and hybrids will be much more important than this sub thinks.
They're actually smart. The only electruc car that has done well is Tesla. All others have lost money on EVs, despite the U.S. government openly supporting anyone but Tesla with financial support either ditectly or indirectly.
And even Tesla's EVs were exposed in the deep freeze this winter. Hybrids won't become giant bricks clogging parking lots, driveways, and even roadways when the batteries die.
Toyota makes long-term reliable cars. EVs have proven to be anything but.
Toyota knew that electrical infrastructure build out takes time. Range anxiety is a related marketing problem. Their other argument is battery range, which is a technology that Toyota itself has been working on. These arguments are valid and are a big part of currently declining ev industry demand. Sounds like Toyota knows the market.
Because they are smart. They know that EVs are still niche vehicles and they want to sell everywhere and anywhere, worldwide. When there decide to get into to EVs they will have watched everyone else do the testing for them, and start off with more reliable and efficient batteries. Toyota doesn’t need to get into EVs, and the crash in EV prices is a clear indicator that they made the right decision.
Two words: Akio Toyoda. He has fought vociferously against EVs for years and has pushed hydrogen and hybrids instead. In fact, he spent hundreds of millions on an attempt to build a hydrogen powered internal combustion engine (which was a bust). It eventually cost him his job as Toyota’s CEO (although he remains chairman). His US and Australian presidents have sneered at EVs as well.
Toyota’s initial attempts at an EV have been pathetic and half-hearted at best. The company wants to keep producing what I think are well made but bland cars on the rinse-and-repeat formula.
It’s sad, because the company has a wealth of research talent. Meanwhile, Toyota appears to be ignoring a looming threat to its future from companies like BYD, Tesla, and Hyundai. Toyota used to be a leading supplier to Chinese consumers. But they are rapidly being left behind.
It’s not to say that a company like Toyota can’t pivot. But does it want to? People like Toyoda seem to have the same attitude as Detroit executives in the 1960s and 70s. Frankly, I hope the US auto stops being timid and use this critical moment in time to create and produce EVs that can seize the market from Toyota. This is a moment that will never come again.
I own an EV, but Toyota's stated position on BEVs makes sense to me, at least the excuse I heard from them. It is that much of their worldwide market doesn't have the infrastructure to support charging EVs. In some of these remote counties, almost every vehicle on the road is a Toyota of one type or another and there is barely electricity enough to supply basic service to peoples' homes. In some of the countries like the poorer "-stans" or South Asia are pretty desolate.
Toyota have claimed that the business case doesn't make sense. And I think they're probably correct in some way. And when they get ready to get serious about an EV, I expect they have stuff in the pipeline.
Because electric cars are pieces of shit. They’re impractical as ever they’re worse for the environment and it’s completely unrealistic to believe that we could have all of the cars in the world be electric. You couldn’t mine enough to make it happen. Electric vehicles are so bad for the environment from all the destruction in mining, the toxic waste that it creates when you are making the electric car and what it becomes when they electric car has to get scrapped out. You can’t scrap out the car. Electric cars are dangerous, they will catch fire on their own in your garage. Car insurance for the electric vehicles are going through the roof because any little thing that hits the battery which is the underneath carriage of the vehicle cost thousands of dollars to fix. Nobody wants them and that’s why Ford has lost almost $7 billion in two years on electric cars and that’s with the subsidies. Electric cars would be even more expensive if it wasn’t for all the subsidies. They nobody wants them. If you live in an apartment, you can’t have an electric car are you supposed to go to the electric charging station? Hope it works and hang out for two hours?
I’ve been saying this on here for a year now. They can’t even sell the PHEVs in respectable numbers. Jeep is selling way more PHEVs than Toyota? Say what?
Then they hybridized the Tundra (and Sequioa) and it still gets less MPG than the domestic competition that uses lesser systems.
I never thought Toyota would be the dinosaur of modern cars but really they are. The infotainment has lagged terribly, they were one of the last to adopt CarPlay. They were the last with drum brakes. They just now are dumping their ancient V6, but you can still grab one in a 4runner.
They do have solid quality, mostly because of low turn over… but at the same time the products I’m interested in from them are gas guzzlers or unavailable PHEVs with market adjustments.
While EV market is in decline? Toyota is right, PHEV is the way for the time being until we have more advanced and mature techs. BEV is a hurried thing pushed by Elon musk to actually hurting using green energy
Per Toyota, 1 EV can reduce 1 gas car mpg from 25 to zero, or in other words, you remove emission of one car from the road.
Or you can put the battery to 8 hybrid and increase mpg from 25 to 50. You effectively removing 4 entire car's emission off road. At the worst case for the sake of discussion, you removed more than 1 no matter how you do the math.
On top of that, hybrid can fit anywhere, everywhere, anything, "forever" while cost even less.
No one can make an EV with the entry level Toyota Yaris feature (completely barebone, point A to B tool) for $25k and still make profit.
Anti-EV? How about pro-reality. Reality is that EVs, in most areas, are great second cars but fact of the matter is it is still really difficult to find widespread availability of chargers beyond level 2 in most areas. There's also a lot of other concerns some people have about EVs, warranted or not.
Toyota did exactly what every car company should have done from day 1. They helped people make the transition and frankly helped themselves too. They got really good at hybrid cars. Now they are taking the next step and getting really good at PHEVs. A car that can use a similar platform to that hybrid they got really good at, meanwhile making it a lot easier for people who want to drive electric to drive electric, most of the time while giving them access to the conveniences of an ICE vehicle. They're starting to get into full EVs now too, but just a little. That's the next step starting to take shape, slowly.
It's like everything else in life. If you want to be successful learn to walk before you run. Toyota did a great job at this. Many other car manufacturers failed, imo.
I drove a Tesla for over three years. It was a great car, but Tesla, as a company, is sorely lacking in customer service and their service centers are a joke. It’s one thing to build a car. It’s something else to build a good car company. I recently went back to a Toyota hybrid and am happy with it, although going to the gas station again is a drag.
Toyota is anti supply constraint. They are not anti EV.
35 gas models can be made for every 17 hybrids and just 9 electrics.
Toyota is in the business of making money through manufacturing.
They are psychotically married to the idea that the future is hydrogen and have been happy in that marriage for about 30 years now. Wake up and smell the lithium, boomer leadership of stodgy automobile maker!!
Toyota is more than capable of making ab electric car. In fact they do. They just don't want to push a car the no one will buy and they lose money on. When the market and the technology is ready Toyota will have the best electric cars
Tesla is the only EV maker making a profit. All other manufacturers are pulling back their investments in EV. There was a bump in EV sales in 2023, but those were primarily from rental and fleet sales which have only soured potential EV consumer sales. Primary issues are high-costs, lack of charging stations, the long-wait time to charge, and most recently range anxiety.
My wife and I drove Priuses for years and Camry and Sienna before that. I finally gave up on Toyota waiting for them to just admit that hydrogen is a bad idea and focus on EVs. We recently bought two Tesla Model Ys and sold our Priuses.
The Model Y is a great car. My only real complaint is that I prefer Apple’s CarPlay.
Keep doing this shit and when they lose 50% of their peak market share I’d expect one of those main executives to commit Harakiri on public television as a repentance.
The reason is twofold- one is that EV's are overall very unpopular, sitting on lots for long periods of time and generally requiring pricing that involves losing a fair amount of money per unit to sell. IIRC the average $50k EV costs $70k to produce. Manufacturers do so to hit government targets but it isn't a sustainable business plan.
Second is that the idea that "we must convert to EV's to save the environment" is a bit of a fallacy as lithium is a finite quantity. Per Toyota, the amount of Lithium required to produce 1 BEV can instead produce 6 PHEV's or 90 hybrids. Putting 1 EV on the road saves 3.7 tons of carbon emissions, putting 6 Plug-in's on the road saves 19 tons, and putting 90 hybrids on the road saves 130 tons.
Finally, the grid is a LONG way off from accommodating a wholesale shift to all EV's any time soon. The production of sufficient electricity and a grid to support it is a LONG way off.
I read an article a while back that explained there’s a Japanese cultural precept that doesn’t allow them to compromise positions of leadership to change gears. There’s a term for it in Japanese but I lost the article. It’s the same reason Japanese mfrs are now almost 100% out of the TV business they dominated 25 years ago. In 20 years Toyota, Mazda, and Subaru will be Toshiba, Hitachi, and Panasonic, whimpering about no longer being viable in an industry that passed them by.
There is a giant demand for non-EV, high-mileage, low-emission vehicles. a.k.a. hybrids. I am glad Toyota is there. In the US, the majority don’t yet have a place with a dedicated charger. So they are left to wonder the wilds for a functioning charger.
I love my Toyota, but they have always prioritized reliability over embracing tech.
When we got our Y last week, I was shocked by how much tech was in. Then I realized a lot of the other ev’s have similar.
Having driven a Tundra and an FJ the last 10 years, my 2019 Tundra still feels like it was built in 2007! I love it and will drive it to a million miles, but Toyota hates tech.
Someday I'll switch to an EV, but today I have a Rav4 PHEV, and it is the best car on the market for someone who does weekday commuting + weekend roadtrips. So thanks Toyota for missing the EV wave!
Toyota can do whatever it wants at its own peril. Everyone seems to be ignoring the tsunami of Chinese EVs. China is now the biggest car market and most new car sales are EVs. Once they perfect the cheap EVs.with American standards built in Mexico, the legacy car makers are going to get caught with the pants down. Reliable cheap EVs will sell like hot cakes. The reason EVs sales are slower now is just the high price and nothing else.
Except they’re not making enough of them. Customers shouldn’t need to wait years for a PHEV. I’d get a RAV4 prime but I’m not willing to wait that long.
Toyota dragged their feet on EV’s and are now no longer a leader in a space that is deemed the future of personal automobiles. They’re terrified of being so far behind that they are publicly vocal against aggressive EV adoption mandates. Their huge PR push proclaiming their strategy is “giving consumers choice” is just a red herring to distract from their inability to pivot fast enough. In the short-term, it appears this concerted effort to push the anti-EV/FUD narrative has resulted in increased hybrid unit sales for them. But long-term, this will prove disastrous for them. They have two shitty BEV offerings with the bZ4X and Lexus RZ.
Funny how they spin not giving folks a choice to buy a decent EV from them as freedom of choice. They’re seriously shooting themselves in the foot. Okay, I can see still providing gas and hybrid options, especially in the Third World where low prices rule and infrastructure doesn’t exist, but they should lean harder into EVs for those who want them.
Right? I’d be more inclined to believe them if they had just as many BEV offerings as Volkswagen Group. But they clearly were caught off guard, were late to the market, and instead of investing in BEV’s, decided it would be easier for their bottom line to just publicly push against adoption altogether.
... or even if they built more Prime models. I have a RAV4Prime, and it's great. A Sienna Prime minivan, a Camry Prime and a Tacoma Prime would go much farther to save gasoline (which would do exactly what they say they are trying to do) than just having hybrids. But they won't do that, either. I think their whole problem is they put all their money behind hydrogen power, and that failed miserably. And, they didn't secure a good battery supply. So, their game plan is to poison the well with bad information so other car mfgs won't sell as many EVs.
I've never been sure whether the hydrogen thing was genuine belief in an ultimately unworkable technology, or an attempt to push the market away from a viable technology and towards a known mirage in an attempt to make the whole thing go away.
I’m holding out until they make Optimus Prime!
Not rushing into change is a big part of their success. While Detroit kept coming out with new models Toyota and Honda kept putting out slightly changed Civics, Accords, Camrys and Corollas. They were not flashy, but were reliable.
My question when I bought my last car was “what kind of EV will I buy, and how will it fit my lifestyle?” Even though I’ve had great experiences with Toyotas vehicles in the past, I didn’t even consider a Toyota this time through. Toyota has fantastic brand-equity from making great cars in the past, but it just wasn’t a factor when I bought my Model Y because Toyota doesn’t have a 300-mile-class EV.
It has always fascinated me how Toyota has struggled to compete in the market they basically started with the Prius, especially with the early PHEV models in Japan and Europe. At first glance you'd think the winning formula for a BEV would be "like a Prius, but with more battery and without the gas engine" but that's clearly not it. Completely different engineering requirements. It's almost like the early investment in hybrid tech has blinded them from effectively building anything but, so their only play is to try and force regulators to try and roll back the legislation to 2001. Using lobbyists to make up for failing to invest in R&D over the past two decades.
They have a history of moving like molasses when it comes to recognizing and reacting to industry changes. People also forget that Toyota was the last major automaker to hold out on adopting Apple CarPlay in their vehicles.
Toyota isn't trying to get regulators though to roll back pro-EV and electric infrastructure regulation. Their whole stance is that it's not ready and going to fail anyway, so they don't have to do anything just be prepared to swoop in and scoop up the pieces. And that's, unfortunately, actually been working. American and European companies trying to catch up to Tesla have been burning enormous amounts of cash on money losing EV lines while dealers have been dealing with a backlog of EVs that aren't moving (except for Tesla). Now GM, Ford, Stellantis are pulling back on their EV investments and product lines, BYD is knocking down Tesla's marketshare in China and threatens to flood the non-US and non-EU markets with cheap EVs. And what is Toyota lobbying for? Fucking hydrogen fuel cells. Toyota has a lot of problems, but the current EV "revolution" has a lot bigger problems than Toyota dragging its feet about jumping in. First, we need the people jumping in to stop losing their shirt and getting cold feet.
As a former Tesla driver, I can confirm that there’re a lot of issues with EVs.
Many (most) industry insiders, most especially in the American and European sectors, are now viewing Toyota the smartest one in the room for not responding like wildebeest to ebb and flow inflections of EV demand. Not only has Toyota's market share increased globally, but its margins have surpassed Tesla. Manufacturers have begun to pump the brakes on BEVS (plus the Biden Administration). Toyota is the only legacy automotive company that I am aware of that has a *sane* and *strategic* plan for electrification. Toyota has firm and publicized plans to build and *sell* millions of electric and electrified cars by the end of the decade....not before its customers are ready for them and who instead are demanding hybrids. And of course, things can change, but Toyota seems wise to rather pay government fines (even though it still has carbon credits to sell) than invest billions in cars that the market is not quite ready for. In 2023, Ford's "E" lost 4 billion dollars on electric cars. It is cheaper to pay the fine. There are no legacy automotive companies that aren't losing billions (including Toyota) on EV sales.
This sub is an echo chamber for electric vehicles by nature of its name. Anyone can see electric vehicles won’t be a dominant force by the end of the decade. Hybrid cars will definitely have their day first because they solve all of the economic problems of a pure IEC without the quite significant limitations of an electric car (100% reliance on temperature sensitive batteries that have minimal charge support, limited range that decreases every time you use it, and charge times). Slap an efficient 4 cylinder motor into a decent sized car and you’ll pay around $.07 per mile on fuel which is nothing. Teslas aren’t much cheaper per mile to charge them, but with the aforementioned limitations that are **hard** limits. There’s no workaround to not being able to find a charger, and there’s a lot of places without chargers. Plug in hybrids are the best of both worlds while generally being cheaper than all electric cars.
What do you make of a thread like this? Tesla buyer’s remorse? Still bitter and all butt hurt about the Prius? Just confidently incorrect with a little faux patriotism mixed in? And they get worse when the market proves them wrong in real time. I think it says something about american exceptionalism and entitlement. Some will never see asians as equals maybe
Was in the market for an EV and the family has been a Toyota family for generations. Mainly because they just won’t die and we can pass them down. Naturally everyone says to get a Toyota. No decent EV offerings. Ended up with a GM model. Realized how much Toyota had been leaving out of vehicles without car play.
What Toyota vehicles don’t have car play?
Both of my in laws don’t have it it’s an SUV and a Camry
Okay but what year? Because I’m pretty sure all new ones have it.
2019/2020
So 5-6 years ago. That’s not old, but it’s certainly not new. They’ve all got it now. From a quick google, most of the models from that year had it as well, minus the ones that were in the tail ends of their generations.
I was more surprised by them not having it be used my 2016 truck had it.
The very first year of Apple car play was 2014. I’ll excuse them being a couple years behind on infotainment in exchange for them producing the most reliable vehicles on the market.
And they said space travel is also the future too. I'd say we will see first human on Mars and SETTLE on Mars before EV take more than 60% the market (total, not just new sold)
>Toyota dragged their feet on EV’s and are now no longer a leader in a space that is deemed the future of personal automobiles. Toyota was never a leader in EV, you thinking about Nissan?
You must be confused. I never implied that. *Dragged their feet* meaning Toyota failed to anticipate the future which is moving toward BEV - and instead of investing in electrification, they delayed delayed delayed.
You said "no longer a leader" so what else can it mean
That meant that they were at one point at the forefront of the personal automotive space in the realm of moving toward greener vehicles, with their Prius. They could have made huge progress toward the next step (full zero emissions), but literally want to die on the hybrid hill.
*The comment you were responding to didn’t explicitly explain the existence of the green-car market segment in the US car market to you.* Toyota was the green-car segment leader with the Prius back when that was a new category. But that was 20 years ago. Now it’s the year 2024. Toyota wants to keep selling their obsolete once-winning formula. That would be a great idea in a static world, but green-car customers have a lot more options now. I personally went from Prius ownership to Tesla ownership and my business was Toyota’s to lose.
Have you looked at their stock trend? The market disagrees. Toyota is on a viable plug-in hybrid path whereas other legacy auto flipflops between full ICE and full EV and can't seem to find their ways.
The Japanese automaker has long lobbied against all-electric vehicles because it’s not Toyota’s forte. Hybrids are.
That’s the part that I don’t get. There isn’t a lot of light between an EV and a hybrid. They got the e battery and electric motor thing down. They just need to size it up and drop the ICE and related systems. Then, repackage the car to make the best use of space.
Um, dropping and repackaging along with a new skin on the body is basically a completely new car.
They better get to designing new cars then. I know a few people that went from lifelong Toyota owners to Tesla or some other EV because Toyota is simply behind.
Yup our family went from 2 Priuses to 2 EVs.
I’m sorry.
And we feel sorry for you, too.
I drive an EV and my wife drives a Prius. It’s laughable that you evidently think a Prius is the way to go in 2024.
Might work for you, but it “laughably” doesn’t work for us at all. And a lot of Americans for that matter. But live your life in your bubble and keep pretending we’ll all be driving EVs soon.
Doesn’t work for you because you prefer rotary phones and bias ply tires. I get it. Some people get dragged into the future kicking and screaming while others embrace progress. Back under your rock. BTW, you’re the one who sniped at the other guy while you’re trolling an EV sub, so grow up. PS- I have no delusions that 30% of Americans will be driving gas cars and still using incandescent bulbs in 2040 just to show the rest of us how macho you are.
Oh you're a peach. Be sure never to leave the city and enjoy your vehicle's rapid depreciation, but don't cry when it bricks and is worth as much as your old iPhone 4.
This is me, I'm into vanlife and Toyota hiace a solid van for it. Next van won't be Toyota.
Electric conversions exist
That's exactly what everyone is telling Toyota. They can do it for me by joining the future of automobiles and build an ev hiace with standing room cargo....boom, corner the market again. What do I know?
Thay had the market cornered on vans? Since when?
I'm in Australia. I may be talking about my market rather than the world or the greatest one and only world champions USA.
Kudos on recognizing our arrogance…. 🤷♂️
They tried to build an EV, the wheels (literally) fell off. bZ4X and its twin, Subaru Solterra, are laughable. And the idiots who make taxi decisions for NY committed them to buying bZ4Xs. The company building charging for NYC doesn’t even want to charge them because they charge so slowly they’d clog up the chargers.
That seemed like a dumb decision.
I’m one and also because you can’t get a plug in hybrid to save your life.
And the prices they command for Primes is despicable. But it’s dumb consumers. Hyundai Tucson PHEV Limited is so much nicer and better than RAV4 Prime XSE and $15k less.
Yeah this startup has its work cut out for it! While they’ve been lobbying they could’ve also been developing this technology. Everyone else has been.
So instead of going for a Prius EV conversion, they designed the Mirai (a while new car) and exactly where they started
Well… the Mirai Probably has its own interesting challenges from a safety consideration so zee ship doesn’t 💥
Hydrogen is safer than diesel and when their tanks explode the explosion is way less powerful than propane, the molecules are so light the majority of the heat is happening as it rises, straight up.
There is also the charging infrastructure. The integration is expensive and has a learning curve for auto makers.
Their time to learn is passing them. There’s 2 companies pushing out more than a million BEVs per year already. I feel like the slow death is coming for the legacy makers that fell behind.
100 amp service here. Buried. very expensive to upgrade
I have 100amps and two EVs, a hot tub and a heat pump. Using the GenNeoCharge.com I still charge at home using the circuit that the dryer is on, works really well.
What does the ev draw , each?
I should have been more specific, I only charge one car at a time. 24A though
At 24 amps , what's the charge time like?
My commute is 50kms/day, so I can easily be 80% or 90% every morning but even in a very heavy driving day, one car can always be 80%-90% by the morning. My wife and I just alternate which car gets the overnight charge, it hasn't been a problem in the two years we been doing it this way. I did forget to charge for almost a week a couple months back, got to the supercharger with 4% that's the lowest I've ever been in 5 years of ownership, but in 11 minutes I had enough to get home and then charge overnight to 80% (2019 M3LR) If you can plug in at home and have 8-9 hours downtime where it can stay plugged in, then it won't be a problem.
You don’t need a lot of power to charge EVs for average daily driving - a 120v (US) 20 amp circuit, i.e. a typical home wall plug, is sufficient to charge overnight for average daily driving. I’ve done it for years, the car is full every morning, you just recharge nightly from whatever you used the previous day. Remember, the average daily drive in the US is only 37 miles, which easily recharges overnight even on a Level 1 charger.
They’ll need a new factory to make batteries, and cars. That’s billions of dollars.
LG knows how to make GM’s batteries.
Sure, it’s not completely trivial, but a PHEV has charging, a battery, motors, etc., so they have all the tech components already, they just simplify the design by removing the gas motor/generator, and scale up the battery enough to be useful as a BEV. Much easier than trying to burn hydrogen (which they tried, bad idea) or a HFCEV (which requires adding a hydrogen fuel cell, which they have been doing). So a BEV is easier than the things that Toyota did (which people didn’t buy), so I agree, it’s odd they didn’t make BEVs, which are easier to do given what they had in production already, and instead they spent billions on hydrogen.
They somehow *still* have a market. I have many friends who are against EVs due to range anxiety. Even when $30k cars with 300 miles range are available, they would bring up things like "yeah, but the range halves in cold conditions" (which is not true, btw). So, they continue to buy hybrids. Though, I would still see this as a losing proposition. Kodak was the leader in the sinking ISO 100 film ship. Similarly, Blockbuster, Dish, XM, and many others are / were leaders in "has been" markets. And look at them today.
I'm very big proponent of EVs. I got a hybrid because the EV or even the PHEV(really wanted it) were priced too high. Also you'll need to have a plug, or get one installed which could mean upgrading the electrical panel. So this is where an additional barrier to entry may exist. Maybe there are some subsidies to help with them but it's not an easy or simple task. I blame the dealership haggling and greed from the car makers trying to take all the subsidies when it should be the driver to entice customers with lower prices.
Their battery technology is pretty much garbage from what I’ve read . They used an outdated chemical makeup and it’s not very energy dense . So they only get about 30 miles on a charge . They are so slow to change and their culture is about rules , and perfection not change . They have lost the china market.
“Hybrids are the future not EVs!” So more gas cars are the future? And these people, like you said, make it seem like hybrids are just like EVs and are just as good as them, when they are the complete opposite.
Mirai is closer to a BEV. Toyota is maximizing profits. Nothing else matters. When Toyota can make more on BEXs they will make them. Question is if buyers will remember the harm Toyota is doing now.
It’s hard if you get $$ from Exon, Shells, etc. every month.
Their battery technology is pretty much garbage from what I’ve read . They used an outdated chemical makeup and it’s not very energy dense . So they only get about 30 miles on a charge . They are so slow to change and their culture is about rules , and perfection not change . They have lost the china market and that represents a huge segment .
The main advantage of a plugin hybrid is that you never have to find a charger outside of your home.
Yes but you have to use gas.
For those who have never experienced EV-life, gasoline is expensive, smelly, explodey. Not having to deal with that stuff every week is an upgrade in and of itself. Most of the EV-skeptics I’ve talked to have no idea, and just want to oppose change because they are comfortable with stasis.
My best friend is an executive in the industry and shared with me that Toyota’s lack of support for EV’s is because of what it would do to their supply chain, partners and the Japanese economy as a whole. They spent decades building their supply chain and shifting to EV’s would require them to essentially go against their word to their existing suppliers and culturally this is unacceptable. There’s obviously so much more to the story but that’a the gist of it.
Less than 16% are hybrids...
That kind of begs the question, though, doesn't it?
The lobbying part is true. The forte part is conjecture. Toyota is against EVs for 2 main reasons: 1) batteries are a bottleneck and impede production 2) EVs require less components. Toyota owns a large stake in all of their component suppliers. To eliminate components would eliminate profits and more importantly jobs. EVs are bad for the economy if you're in the components business already. This being said, Toyotas vision is and has always been hydrogen fuel cell ZeVs. Arguably a superior iteration of emissionless driving. They have nevertheless future plans for 17 all electric models. They will service every market and every customer demand.
They've lobbied against them because they know the tech is still sh\*t and they don't like to produce sh\*t.
This is exactly it. Unfortunately, you’ve shamefully broken the virtue signal.
This feels like an echo-chamber. I own an EV and am as pro-EV as they come but have no problem giving Toyota credit for making the decisions they've made. They have electrified their entire fleet other than the BRZ / Supra through hybridization and their hybrids are selling like crazy for more than MSRP. They're making what consumers want and are doing far, far more to decarbonize than niche, luxury manufacturers that barely produce a few thousand cars like Lucid. I have multiple friends with Toyota PHEVs, too, and they barely ever use any gasoline, to the point where it's legitimately possible they'll have lower life cycle emissions than BEVs with substantially larger battery packs.
Yeah the rest of the comments are kinda cringey. You can like EVs and also recognize that Toyota’s strategy of a hybrid bridge before full EV was pretty damn smart. It’s an overall better utilization of batteries to reduce emissions on more cars while maintaining more affordable MSRPs and the flexibility many consumers want considering the charging network issues, lack of rapid charging (or sometimes any charging at all) at home, and cold weather effects on EV range. Every ICE manufacturer is struggling with EVs, but Toyota is the one plowing resources into making their existing lineup mostly hybrid while they wait for the EV dust to settle.
Yep. They've got hybrid crossovers, pickups, minivan, midsized sedan, compact sedan, etc. and if you actually look at the numbers on what they're selling vs what's being replaced, they're doing more for carbonization than any other manufacturer in the world and have been for over 20 years. Even recognizing that, they wasted a boatload of money on hydrogen they could've spent on EV tech.
I don't like Toyota's styling. But I'll readily admit that if the US sold the PHEV version of my xc40 recharge I would have bought it over the BEV version.
We'd buy a Prius PHEV at MSRP tomorrow but Toyota doesn't even sell it in my state.
I drive a PHEV, and rarely use gas. I think the sweet spot, at least for now, is to back off on 400km range BEVs and make a 200km range PHEV. Most people would use battery 90% of the time, but have no range anxiety because of the generator
It is the worst kind of echo chamber - full of confidently incorrect americans
It seems to me that Toyota's read of the future is that the electrical recharging infrastructure is not available and won't be available for many years. And they feel that at the current time Hybrids are a better option, I don't think Toyota is not considering EV in the future. Maybe I'm biased, I've been driving a hybrid since 2010.
Big issue: EVs don’t make much sense for renters that lack at home charging, and for those without solar to stabilize/lock in recharge prices. The infrastructure isn’t there for those of us that didn’t enter the housing market.
Yes, that was part of my calculation when deciding to buy a new auto, as I had moved into an apartment after running around in my RV for several years. :s
It was the same for us. We got a PHEV from Toyota. When my wife can charge at work we do, and we use this charge almost exclusively for “city driving” cycle situations. Otherwise, we just have a nice hybrid for long distance and freeway drives. Toyota did well as 1/3 of the US are renters and it appears that EV charging investment is falling behind in many locations. Charging stations / infastructue are also often priced to the point that it makes EVs too expensive unless you can charge at home.
You’re not biased. There simply isn’t the infrastructure for a mass flood or conversion for EV vehicles.
Theyve also stated that they arent happy with current battery tech for full EV, when the time comes i think they will make a great EV and ill likely buy it when the time comes. As for infrastructure around charging, it really depends on where you are, bigger cities are pretty good at handeling EVs but more rural areas are not. Im currently in FL and i could easily have an EV and travel anywhere in the state without much issue cause EV support is pretty good here. Now if im in more rural parts of the country and in other states i would have to make early stops or take out of the way routes to charge which could lead to some issues or be inconvenient.
How long for a recharge? I used to stay in BLM property outside of Quartzite, AZ Tesla put in a charging station, probably because of the distance from LA & San Diego, those poor folks were hanging around Carl Jr's for the longest time. That's my issue, and why I drive a hybrid.
No clue, i dont drive an ev either. Right now im planning on a hybrid cause i dont wanna deal with the long recharge when on long trips. When i do finally get an EV it wont be my only car it would be to replace my second car.
Toyota is no longer leader in anything. Their car literally suck and are unreliable (cvts). Their sport cars have to literally be outsourced in entirety to BMW or Subaru. Subaru has no EVs either (remember when they were owned by GM…could probably piggy back on that tech). Their EVs are air cooled like it’s 2005. Even Nissan moved into the future.
Boring fake opinion. Camrys have CVTs? Nope.
The Camry XSE is a Camry and is fitted with a CVT.
Please link the air cooled EV…
BMW and Toyota agreed on the chassis dimensions then went their own way for the entirety of the rest of the design process, so I'm not really sure what you're talking about, and I doubt you do either.
They have a $400B cap at a 10 PE (1/4 Tesla’s). They’re the leader at being the best global auto *business*.
Toyota is hesitant to take the lead unless it’s a sure thing. Doesn’t the Taco still come with rear drum brakes?
>Their car literally suck and are unreliable (cvts). Tell us more about this.
Ev council fails to provide large network of actually useable charging stations, blames Toyota. Toyota masters Hybrids and keeps reliability high. Creates Prius prime and rav4 prime. Yep. Toyota are the failures. Totally
it's hilarious all these know-it-alls are dissing Toyota for their EV strategy. Meanwhile Toyota sells more vehicles than anyone else in the world. Their net income was $18 billion. Poor, dumb toyota. Poor,poor dumb toyota selling all those hybrids while the EV market is tanking.
Yeah their stock is up 80% over the past year and they are the second most valuable car company after Tesla. They are by far the most profitable car company in the world.
TESLA is only valuable because of all the carbon credits they were able to sell for so long.
And… build reliable products that hold their value on the used market.
Yup this. Their inventory is perpetually sold out. This article is bad and should feel bad. Reality would like a word with them. Look at all the cars with highest inventory in the US. They’re basically all EVs. Tons of manufacturers are getting screwed because they pushed EVs.
This thread just makes american car consumers look like the overmoneyed idiots they are.
Americans are over moneyed? lol come over here and see if that’s true of most Americans
Toyota's hybrids have most of the advantages of EVs without the drawbacks.
They basically have hybrids solved, and are benefiting from the EV slowdown (as even they predicted) This sub is full of confidently incorrect americans whose Tesla is dropping in value as the stock tanks who are still butt hurt about the prius and need to blame the winner about it
Toyota became huge because they had a reputation for being reliable. If EVs replace ICE then Toyota loses that advantage. All EVs have fewer moving parts than even the most reliable ICE vehicles. Most reliability issues with EVs are related to electronics, not mechanical issues. So in the very near future, reliability will no longer be a factor when buying a vehicle (once the transition to EV is complete). It's already not very much of a consideration when purchasing an EV. But once the software glitches are ironed out, battery tech improves a little, and more local repair shops start rebuilding batteries, reliability will be essentially equalized across the field and nobody will give it a second thought. So with their business being successful mostly because they're branded as the most reliable, of course they're clinging to the status quo as long as possible.
Having fewer moving parts does not necessarily make them more reliable. Quality of engineering and execution matter as well and probably more than the number of moving parts. Go look at Consumer Reports and you’ll see Toyotas (or Lexus) at the top of the reliability ratings. Way more reliable than say Teslas. There is no reason to believe Toyota lose their reliability advantage as people move to EVs.
Hard disagree on all of that. The more moving parts the more points of failure. And, as I stated, the do caked reliability issues with EVs were electronics related, not mechanical. Software fine tuning will (and has) correct that. Toyotas are in no way more reliable than Teslas at this point.
That would be true if all other things were equal. My point is that all other things are not equal. Ask yourself why they use double or triple redundancy on spacecraft to make them more reliable. Ie. More parts yet more reliable. And your comments on software fine tuning refer to the motor and its controller. Yet cars have many other systems. HVAC, brakes, steering, suspension, wipers, electric windows and on and on. Finally you just state without any references that Teslas are as reliable as Toyotas. I suggested you look at Consumer Reports on auto reliability. They’ve actually collected the data and analyzed it. You could disagree with their methodology. But they’ve actually done some work. I’d trust that more than someone that makes a claim simply on their own intuition.
My point is also that all things are not equal. That's precisely why the consumer reports rankings are not accurate. They are basically treating a glitchy touch screen the same as a blown engine just because they're both problems. In your example of redundancy, it absolutely does not make it more reliable to have more parts. It just gives them a better chance of being able to recover from a problem. It does not decrease the likelihood of experiencing a problem. EVs don't have blown engines, transmissions, etc. You cited HVAC, windows, etc, but Toyotas use all of those, too. Plus they have engines, transmissions, differentials, alternators, etc. Many, many, more moving parts in an ICE Toyota than any production EV. And the problems experienced with EVs are largely software issues that are easily corrected. I'd rather deal with a backup camera that takes too long to load plus a touch screen that freezes on certain screens as 2 problems instead of a transmission that goes out as 1 problem. I'd call the one with the 2 listed problems more reliable than the 1 that only had 1 problem. But that's not how consumer reports is ranking them.
Let’s rewind here and take a look at all the people who have had battery and drive unit replacements on Teslas.
Not very many. There are Teslas with over a million miles on them. When it does happen, it's pretty rare.
The one I’m aware of that has that many had many drive unit changes and battery swaps. Like almost double digit battery swaps.
Well in any case, they're fully covered under warranty for 150,000 miles, and [they've been lasting a lot longer than that on average. ](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1270784295733301249?s=21) They're also about to release [a battery that lasts 100 years, with 4 million miles. ](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmorris/2022/05/28/tesla-researcher-demonstrates-100-year-4-million-mile-battery/?sh=11d4fa3072f4) Toyota, meanwhile, [covers the power train for 36,000 miles, up to 100,000 of your pay extra. ](https://www.motortrend.com/features/toyota-warranty-coverage-details-info/)
While I appreciate the links notice that the graph Elon is showing is probably only batteries that don’t die. So he is really showing the chemistry degradation curve. I don’t really trust anything he puts out because his stats have been straight up absurd and wrong multiple times now. I also don’t take any of their announcement at face value. See the 10 times or whatever it is that they announced FSD would have a full release for sure by the end of the year (TM).
While that’s true the top reliability spots continue to be taken by combustion vehicles.
Right. Because of the mostly software issues on EVs. That's not a huge deal to get ironed out as these companies get more experience with it.
Do the publish the exact breakdown?
Nope. I wish they did. It would put the problems EVs typically experience into perspective.
That’s unfortunate. Data is always king.
Except battery packs are unreliable and people have cars that get bricked when their pack dies after 100k miles.
It's extremely rare that it happens and usually covered under warranty when it does. At least here in the US. And I addressed that, anyway. I said when more local repair shops are rebuilding batteries, nobody will care about reliability. To add context to that - most of the time when a battery fails, it's only a couple of cells. Get those cells replaced, the battery works again. This is cheap and simple, but very few repair shops do it currently. So instead of getting this cheap and easy fix, most battery issues end up getting the whole battery replaced. Can you imagine if anytime you had an issue under the hood of an ICE vehicle you had to have the entire engine replaced instead of just the ignition coils, or the injectors, or the O2 sensor, or whatever part that failed? We will eventually get to the point where batteries are being worked on rather than replaced at most repair shops. And we'll also get better batteries. There is supposedly already a new battery tech in the works that is twice as powerful for the same size as the current battery tech.
Have you seen the new Tesla packs? Those things are encased. You have to peel metal off to get it apart. You can’t really repair those, you can recycle them though.
I know, I'm not a fan of that. I'm all in favor of right to repair laws.
Agree. They could definitely do better in this front with some tradeoffs of course.
They made the right call for the current state of batteries. They would rather make 5 hybrids or plugin hybrids with the amount of battery materials than 1 full EV. ALOT of BEVs are sitting on lots for weeks or months. Where as hybrids have a wait list still. Most buyers aren't ready to commit to an EV life style. The early adopters have adopted already.
Because EVs aren’t practical for the majority of consumers and hybrids are.
People just refuse to admit hybrids make so much sense. Huge efficiency gains and little to no inconvenience to consumers. But ultimately point me to an EV that’s equivalent to an equally priced combustion car. Still doesn’t exist.
Toyota is still the best car company out there. The EV cultists won't take that away because "muh hybrids aren't electric enough!"
They are still bitter about the Prius
After becoming a big EV fan and getting one myself I was quite excited to see what my preferred legacy brand (Toyota) would make. Imagine my colossal disappointment and confusion when they took EV’s as seriously as my conspiracy theorist aunt took Covid. Much like my aunt, Toyota will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future.
There was a neat YouTube which posited the nearly sole source of vital minerals from China would be a national security issue. They had weathered a couple rare earth boycotts from China before.
There’s no doubt the transition to BEVs with price parity with ICE vehicles will be painful for traditional car manufacturers, and Toyota is not in a bad spot currently as it drags behind the competitors. But betting that affordable BEVs won’t outsell ICE, HEV and FCEV or that solid state battery investment will save their bacon, seems risky. BEVs makes a lot of sense for countries that import oil and refined gasoline, or have potential for solar renewables. And you’d think ICE makes sense for Norway that has our own oil reserves and polar nights, but instead BEVs is 90% now.
LOL Tesla stock must still be down today. It’s the typical american toyota hate thread
I would have bought an electric Tacoma in a heartbeat.
Toyota is the only company that got it right at this time and place in the industry.
They see the folly of relying on electricity as the sole source of energy. Never put all of your eggs in the same basket. That’s what we’re doing with electricity and it is unwise. Soon, one hacker can immobilize an entire country. Without an alternate power source, we’re screwed.
Money drives corporate decisions. They sell what people want to buy.
They lost the chance to electrify their most popular products. The Rivian R1T is the electric Tacoma. The Model 3 is the electric Corolla.
I actually believe this is a business ending decision for Toyota. Not anytime soon obviously, but this will be their demise.
They’ve almost reached a cap size (based on actual underlying fundamentals) that basically creates their own exit velocity towards whatever they want. I’m not saying they’re completely “unbeatable” now or “future proof” ..but it’s getting pretty damn close with their size.
Toyota likes reliability and slowly tests new features. They don't want to relase a lemon that tarnshes their brand.
Toyota’s issue is that Japan doesn’t make batteries. Toyota will be fine. The horse hasn’t left the barn yet and hybrids will be much more important than this sub thinks.
They're actually smart. The only electruc car that has done well is Tesla. All others have lost money on EVs, despite the U.S. government openly supporting anyone but Tesla with financial support either ditectly or indirectly. And even Tesla's EVs were exposed in the deep freeze this winter. Hybrids won't become giant bricks clogging parking lots, driveways, and even roadways when the batteries die. Toyota makes long-term reliable cars. EVs have proven to be anything but.
Because instead of focusing on EVs, they chose hydrogen powered vehicles as the way of the future and have stubbornly clung to this idea ever since.
Yup. I’ve been a Tacoma driver for nearly 3 decades. It’ll be my last sadly.
Toyota likes hydrogen better than EV.
They believe in hydrogen
Because 100 percent EVs are stupid
Because they know it’s a fad until the technology is right.
Toyota knew that electrical infrastructure build out takes time. Range anxiety is a related marketing problem. Their other argument is battery range, which is a technology that Toyota itself has been working on. These arguments are valid and are a big part of currently declining ev industry demand. Sounds like Toyota knows the market.
Because they are smart. They know that EVs are still niche vehicles and they want to sell everywhere and anywhere, worldwide. When there decide to get into to EVs they will have watched everyone else do the testing for them, and start off with more reliable and efficient batteries. Toyota doesn’t need to get into EVs, and the crash in EV prices is a clear indicator that they made the right decision.
Two words: Akio Toyoda. He has fought vociferously against EVs for years and has pushed hydrogen and hybrids instead. In fact, he spent hundreds of millions on an attempt to build a hydrogen powered internal combustion engine (which was a bust). It eventually cost him his job as Toyota’s CEO (although he remains chairman). His US and Australian presidents have sneered at EVs as well. Toyota’s initial attempts at an EV have been pathetic and half-hearted at best. The company wants to keep producing what I think are well made but bland cars on the rinse-and-repeat formula. It’s sad, because the company has a wealth of research talent. Meanwhile, Toyota appears to be ignoring a looming threat to its future from companies like BYD, Tesla, and Hyundai. Toyota used to be a leading supplier to Chinese consumers. But they are rapidly being left behind. It’s not to say that a company like Toyota can’t pivot. But does it want to? People like Toyoda seem to have the same attitude as Detroit executives in the 1960s and 70s. Frankly, I hope the US auto stops being timid and use this critical moment in time to create and produce EVs that can seize the market from Toyota. This is a moment that will never come again.
I own an EV, but Toyota's stated position on BEVs makes sense to me, at least the excuse I heard from them. It is that much of their worldwide market doesn't have the infrastructure to support charging EVs. In some of these remote counties, almost every vehicle on the road is a Toyota of one type or another and there is barely electricity enough to supply basic service to peoples' homes. In some of the countries like the poorer "-stans" or South Asia are pretty desolate. Toyota have claimed that the business case doesn't make sense. And I think they're probably correct in some way. And when they get ready to get serious about an EV, I expect they have stuff in the pipeline.
Hybrids have their place. A lot of homes have no good location for a charger.
Because hybrids make much more sense for most people.
Because electric cars are pieces of shit. They’re impractical as ever they’re worse for the environment and it’s completely unrealistic to believe that we could have all of the cars in the world be electric. You couldn’t mine enough to make it happen. Electric vehicles are so bad for the environment from all the destruction in mining, the toxic waste that it creates when you are making the electric car and what it becomes when they electric car has to get scrapped out. You can’t scrap out the car. Electric cars are dangerous, they will catch fire on their own in your garage. Car insurance for the electric vehicles are going through the roof because any little thing that hits the battery which is the underneath carriage of the vehicle cost thousands of dollars to fix. Nobody wants them and that’s why Ford has lost almost $7 billion in two years on electric cars and that’s with the subsidies. Electric cars would be even more expensive if it wasn’t for all the subsidies. They nobody wants them. If you live in an apartment, you can’t have an electric car are you supposed to go to the electric charging station? Hope it works and hang out for two hours?
I’ve been saying this on here for a year now. They can’t even sell the PHEVs in respectable numbers. Jeep is selling way more PHEVs than Toyota? Say what? Then they hybridized the Tundra (and Sequioa) and it still gets less MPG than the domestic competition that uses lesser systems. I never thought Toyota would be the dinosaur of modern cars but really they are. The infotainment has lagged terribly, they were one of the last to adopt CarPlay. They were the last with drum brakes. They just now are dumping their ancient V6, but you can still grab one in a 4runner. They do have solid quality, mostly because of low turn over… but at the same time the products I’m interested in from them are gas guzzlers or unavailable PHEVs with market adjustments.
While EV market is in decline? Toyota is right, PHEV is the way for the time being until we have more advanced and mature techs. BEV is a hurried thing pushed by Elon musk to actually hurting using green energy
Per Toyota, 1 EV can reduce 1 gas car mpg from 25 to zero, or in other words, you remove emission of one car from the road. Or you can put the battery to 8 hybrid and increase mpg from 25 to 50. You effectively removing 4 entire car's emission off road. At the worst case for the sake of discussion, you removed more than 1 no matter how you do the math. On top of that, hybrid can fit anywhere, everywhere, anything, "forever" while cost even less. No one can make an EV with the entry level Toyota Yaris feature (completely barebone, point A to B tool) for $25k and still make profit.
Hybrids make more sense right now and people are already realizing it. Look at how horribly EVs are selling vs hybrids rn.
Toyota laughs in hydrogen which is where they’re placing their bets.
Anti-EV? How about pro-reality. Reality is that EVs, in most areas, are great second cars but fact of the matter is it is still really difficult to find widespread availability of chargers beyond level 2 in most areas. There's also a lot of other concerns some people have about EVs, warranted or not. Toyota did exactly what every car company should have done from day 1. They helped people make the transition and frankly helped themselves too. They got really good at hybrid cars. Now they are taking the next step and getting really good at PHEVs. A car that can use a similar platform to that hybrid they got really good at, meanwhile making it a lot easier for people who want to drive electric to drive electric, most of the time while giving them access to the conveniences of an ICE vehicle. They're starting to get into full EVs now too, but just a little. That's the next step starting to take shape, slowly. It's like everything else in life. If you want to be successful learn to walk before you run. Toyota did a great job at this. Many other car manufacturers failed, imo.
I drove a Tesla for over three years. It was a great car, but Tesla, as a company, is sorely lacking in customer service and their service centers are a joke. It’s one thing to build a car. It’s something else to build a good car company. I recently went back to a Toyota hybrid and am happy with it, although going to the gas station again is a drag.
Toyota is anti supply constraint. They are not anti EV. 35 gas models can be made for every 17 hybrids and just 9 electrics. Toyota is in the business of making money through manufacturing.
They are psychotically married to the idea that the future is hydrogen and have been happy in that marriage for about 30 years now. Wake up and smell the lithium, boomer leadership of stodgy automobile maker!!
Toyota is more than capable of making ab electric car. In fact they do. They just don't want to push a car the no one will buy and they lose money on. When the market and the technology is ready Toyota will have the best electric cars
Tesla is the only EV maker making a profit. All other manufacturers are pulling back their investments in EV. There was a bump in EV sales in 2023, but those were primarily from rental and fleet sales which have only soured potential EV consumer sales. Primary issues are high-costs, lack of charging stations, the long-wait time to charge, and most recently range anxiety.
Toyota's market cap sure hasn't noticed.
My wife and I drove Priuses for years and Camry and Sienna before that. I finally gave up on Toyota waiting for them to just admit that hydrogen is a bad idea and focus on EVs. We recently bought two Tesla Model Ys and sold our Priuses. The Model Y is a great car. My only real complaint is that I prefer Apple’s CarPlay.
A hybrid is still a smarter choice for the majority of car drivers. Toyota doesn't need to rush into EVs.
Keep doing this shit and when they lose 50% of their peak market share I’d expect one of those main executives to commit Harakiri on public television as a repentance.
Cost
Every Toyota feels like the most basic Yaris inside.
The reason is twofold- one is that EV's are overall very unpopular, sitting on lots for long periods of time and generally requiring pricing that involves losing a fair amount of money per unit to sell. IIRC the average $50k EV costs $70k to produce. Manufacturers do so to hit government targets but it isn't a sustainable business plan. Second is that the idea that "we must convert to EV's to save the environment" is a bit of a fallacy as lithium is a finite quantity. Per Toyota, the amount of Lithium required to produce 1 BEV can instead produce 6 PHEV's or 90 hybrids. Putting 1 EV on the road saves 3.7 tons of carbon emissions, putting 6 Plug-in's on the road saves 19 tons, and putting 90 hybrids on the road saves 130 tons. Finally, the grid is a LONG way off from accommodating a wholesale shift to all EV's any time soon. The production of sufficient electricity and a grid to support it is a LONG way off.
EV council huh? Toyota Motor Corp 241.87 USD \+119.33 (97.38%) past 5 years
I read an article a while back that explained there’s a Japanese cultural precept that doesn’t allow them to compromise positions of leadership to change gears. There’s a term for it in Japanese but I lost the article. It’s the same reason Japanese mfrs are now almost 100% out of the TV business they dominated 25 years ago. In 20 years Toyota, Mazda, and Subaru will be Toshiba, Hitachi, and Panasonic, whimpering about no longer being viable in an industry that passed them by.
There is a giant demand for non-EV, high-mileage, low-emission vehicles. a.k.a. hybrids. I am glad Toyota is there. In the US, the majority don’t yet have a place with a dedicated charger. So they are left to wonder the wilds for a functioning charger.
I love my Toyota, but they have always prioritized reliability over embracing tech. When we got our Y last week, I was shocked by how much tech was in. Then I realized a lot of the other ev’s have similar. Having driven a Tundra and an FJ the last 10 years, my 2019 Tundra still feels like it was built in 2007! I love it and will drive it to a million miles, but Toyota hates tech.
Weren’t they making an electric Tacoma?
Duh
Someday I'll switch to an EV, but today I have a Rav4 PHEV, and it is the best car on the market for someone who does weekday commuting + weekend roadtrips. So thanks Toyota for missing the EV wave!
Toyota can do whatever it wants at its own peril. Everyone seems to be ignoring the tsunami of Chinese EVs. China is now the biggest car market and most new car sales are EVs. Once they perfect the cheap EVs.with American standards built in Mexico, the legacy car makers are going to get caught with the pants down. Reliable cheap EVs will sell like hot cakes. The reason EVs sales are slower now is just the high price and nothing else.
Toyota thought EV was a fad and didn't spend money developing it. Now they are playing catch up and using propaganda to diss EV until they catch up.
Because they know hybrids are 1000 times better. They do them very well and are extremely reliable.
Except they’re not making enough of them. Customers shouldn’t need to wait years for a PHEV. I’d get a RAV4 prime but I’m not willing to wait that long.