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

• guerby 5y ago
  Also here: https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22594235/toyota-lobbying-dc-ev-congress-biden-donation https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22594235/toyota-lobbying-...
  • fsflover 5y ago
    Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27961606 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27961606.
• ashtonkem 5y ago
  My pet theory is that Toyota or Honda will be on life support by the end of next decade, if not dead. They both had a huge head start in batteries with their hybrids (Honda’s first hybrid was released in 1999), and they squandered it. Hopefully the Korean car companies crush them with superior products.
  • typon 5y ago
    I've pre-ordered an Ioniq 5. Tesla has a real competitor in Hyundai. If you don't care about the "self-driving" thing, other companies are catching up fast.
    • ashtonkem 5y ago
      I’ve gone from bullish to bearish on self driving, all I want from that area is radar guided cruise control and highway friendly lane keeping. Sadly the Ioniq 5 won’t be on sale in my state. I’m considering a model Y because the range is desirable for the semi-regular camping we do.
      • rpmisms 5y ago
        Good news: Tesla's basic Autopilot is fantastic for that. Just don't fall asleep.
      • tonyedgecombe 5y ago
        >all I want from that area is radar guided cruise control For some reason I read that as "all I want from that area is radar guided cruise control missiles".
    • Infinitesimus 5y ago
      The ioniq 5 is a great vehicle. If their adaptive cruise control is anything like the current Sonata (that I have) with the new lane changing tech, it'll already go a long way in making highway drives and stop and go traffic a breeze. Not sure how well HDA 2 (their term for cruise control ) does but the older version doesn't handle sharper turns well and loses the lines briefly. New tech also steers the car out of harm's way like Tesla does so they've come a very long way.
    • persedes 5y ago
      I was close to getting one 2 years ago. Did the safety tests improve since then? If I recall the 2019 had issues with the roof / pillars, which were not strong enough to support the car in case you flipped it.
      • tonyedgecombe 5y ago
        The Ioniq 5 has only just been released, it's a completely different design from the previous model.
  • rantwasp 5y ago
    that’s a bold prediction. i don’t think it’s going to happen. building a car is about more than just the engine. It’s about the supply chain, it’s about parts, it’s about service. Toyota and Honda have a lot more experience in this area than a new-ish car manufacturer. They also build reliable, great cars that I like owning and driving. I like how everyone is up in arms about Toyota doing something [that serves their interest; in a legal way] to influence the government but people pretend Tesla is such a success story, ignoring all the money the govn has pumped into it.
    • sixQuarks 5y ago
      So you’re ok with Toyota spreading FUD as long as it’s legal. Got it. As for Tesla’s government money, ev credits are available to all manufacturers, it’s not Tesla’s fault others can’t make compelling electric vehicles. All other government loans have been paid back in full. Maybe you should read more than just headlines
      • rantwasp 5y ago
        is it FUD though? were do you draw the line between legal and illegal. right or wrong? I think it’s absolutely expected for Toyota to attempt to protect their financial interests.
        • ashtonkem 5y ago
          It’s legal for them to do so, I just think they’re bad people for doing it. Attempting to slow down the de-carbonization of our transit because your company bet wrong is just evil, no way around it.
          • rantwasp 5y ago
            i agree with you in principle, but (there’s always a but) there are other more impactful things that can be done to cut down carbon emissions (modern cars are already stupid-efficient). Who has the mora authority to declare that Toyota should roll over and die to attain some goal that may or may not be achievable?
  • dnautics 5y ago
    This is unlikely. Toyota, anyways, has really excelled in other ways, for example, using supply chains correctly and not taking a huge hit during the semiconductor shortage. The car market is also relatively slow to shift, I do think that there's plenty of time for Toyota to pivot.
    • frumper 5y ago
      My local Toyota dealer has about 25 new cars on their lot instead of 150+, that sounds like a pretty big hit.
      • chipsa 5y ago
        Is it that they're suffering a car shortage, or everyone else is, and they're getting cleaned out because that's where people can find cars?
        • frumper 5y ago
          They told me they were having the same supply issues as everyone else right now. I wanted to look at a highlander hybrid and they said they were only getting sent 1 every few months and usually didn't know when it would arrive until it was in transit.
  • sithadmin 5y ago
    There's zero chance Toyota ends up on 'life support' within a decade. They're a top 10 company globally in terms of revenue, and even in the worst case where they fail to release competitive EV models, the global switchover to hybrid electric (plus legacy ICE sales) in less developed markets will hold them over for quite a bit of time.
  • dekhn 5y ago
    toyota has the best reputation in the entire industry, runs their business tight, and has no real pathway to life support unless they repeatedly failed on every single major initiative, which seems unlikely. I just bought a RAV4 Prime, it's a plugin hybrid. It looks like they are rolling out HV to their most popular models over the next few years. That gives them everything they need to make EV, HV, or gas vehicles for the forseeable future.
  • esalman 5y ago
    I just leased a fully loaded Highlander which I intend to buy out after 3 years. So Toyota is getting my money for next 9 years, unless anything disastrous happens. I actually have another 7 year old Corolla, on which I have a spent a grand total of $140 in maintenance (battery). In fact I plan to purchase an 86 or a Supra in next couple of years or so. Last time I was driving a Hyundai, the engine lost power in the middle of evening rush hour traffic at 65mph on I-85, and the car had half the mileage of my Corolla. Toyota is going nowhere.
  • throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    I'd like to see that because it would be a nice big middle finger to all the brain dead fanboys who insist Toyota can never do anything wrong but being a big national company in Japan no matter what they do or don't do they won't be allowed to fail for the same reasons VW or Boeing won't.
  • WorldMaker 5y ago
    Honda actually seems to "get it" in Europe and Asian markets and may be on the path to navigating this transition. Honda of America seems the dumb beast too stupid to adapt and there is probably going to be a reckoning when it stops being hugely profitable to build giant gas guzzlers in America. Honda of America seems to have zero foresight or long term plan still. The Korean car conglomerate is definitely doing well with EVs, but if you are expecting someone to crush Toyota and/or Honda in Asian car sales especially, I'd keep an eye on Chinese EV companies. Some of them are doing wild work, and have got EV car costs down below nearly anyone else in the world with their economies of scale already. If some of those Chinese EV companies come to the American market I'm even curious if it would look just like the Honda/Toyota strategy of the 70s/80s with good value for the money cars that will surprise a lot of Americans that did not know they were looking for that sort of cheap/reliable.
• tharne 5y ago
  Articles like this misunderstand both innovation and capitalism. Progress isn't typically made by some unusually smart person or enterprise gazing into the future and creating the perfect thing. It happens by lots of individuals and companies making bets and guesses, most of which are wrong, but some turn out the be right. That way the overall system can be brilliant regardless of whether or not the individual actors are brilliant. Or, more precisely, you can have a brilliant system without brilliant actors. Articles like this one look back with the benefit of hindsight and are written from the perspective, "Company X missed obvious trend Y and now they're in trouble". In reality, a bunch of companies made guesses about what could work in an unknown and uncertain future and some turned out to be right and others turned out to be wrong.
  • dahfizz 5y ago
    The point of the article isn't "Toyota bet wrong on BEVs, haha they are dumb". The point is "Toyota bet wrong on BEVs, and are now lobbying the government to hinder electric vehicles instead of getting on board".
    • delusional 5y ago
      Or more cynically: "Toyota bet wrong on BEV's, so now they're trying to flip the table before it becomes obvious that they lost". The system that's supposedly smarter than the actors are under attack by those same actors because they didn't win.
  • emadabdulrahim 5y ago
    Why wouldn't companies pay the price for being wrong for far too long? Why don't they suck it up and let the government make decisions that would ease the transition to the future of EV?
    • rantwasp 5y ago
      what does “being wrong” even mean. Everyone has an opinion and everyone has their own interests (including people in the gov). Assuming they are “wrong”, why would they suck it up? Why would anyone do something that goes directly against their self-interest?
• ramesh31 5y ago
  I think they bet perfectly fine, if you ignore the silly hydrogen efforts. Toyota has never been a technological front runner. They take the Apple approach; wait for something to be truly ready for prime time, then execute it better than anyone else. EV's are still 2% of the US market. And it will be a decade more until a 60+kwH EV is being sold for <$30k total upfront price out the door, which is where they need to be for mass adoption. That gives them time to keep perfecting the solid state batteries that will be crucial to getting Toyota levels of reliability, safety, and longevity from an EV.
  • rantwasp 5y ago
    haha. as far as new car tech goes Toyota is okay on adoption. You should see the tech from the past that VW has in its cars.
    • wil421 5y ago
      Disagree. 2016 VW: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-eoEKrjAtM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-eoEKrjAtM 2016 4runner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcm1nz_Zwn8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcm1nz_Zwn8 The VW looks similar to my FCA uConnect system. The 4runner looks like an Alpine head unit I put in my 2002 4 runner in the 2008/9 timeframe. Pretty sure Toyota killed the CD player in the last 3-4 years.
      • ramesh31 5y ago
        Yeah Toyota literally did not offer Apple CarPlay on any trim level of any vehicle until the 2020 model year, it was insane.
        • rantwasp 5y ago
          to be fair Apple CarPlay was vaporware until recently. Some may say it’s still not the best experience/integration.
  • NickM 5y ago
    And it will be a decade more until a 60+kwH EV is being sold for <$30k total upfront price out the door, which is where they need to be for mass adoption. “A decade more” seems way too pessimistic given current EV prices and battery capacities. The 2022 Bolt will have a starting price of $32k with a 65kWh battery, for example.
• MelvinButtsESQ 5y ago
  Production of batteries is the constraint ... previously, currently, and in foreseeable future (<5-8 years). Simply don't have the capacity to make 100% EVs. Further, given this capacity, the numbers work out such that we are, on the macro level, DRASTICALLY more fuel efficient and environmentally friendly by putting more hybrids and Plug-in Hybrids (which have fewer batteries) on the road than we are by reserving said batteries for fewer pure EVs. 2.5 Priuses are better than 1 EV. When battery technology and production capacity are NOT the constraint, then pure EV will make sense. All cars should be mandated hybrid soon (or all manufactures must meet a minimum hybridization level across their line ... sort of like fuel efficiency standards are measured today). All cars should be mandated Plugin Hybrid at some point after that. Maybe someday, we can mandate Pure EV.
  • harles 5y ago
    On the flip side, going all EV puts 2.5x more pressure on the supply chain to remove battery production and capacity as a constraint, which might be optimal long term.
  • ajmurmann 5y ago
    Why mandate how emissions are cut, instead of heavily taxing carbon emissions and having the market find the best solution?
    • jeromegv 5y ago
      Voilà.
    • eloff 5y ago
      In general I agree with you. Simply taxing things with negative externalities enough to cover the true cost would simply and conclusively fix a lot of things we struggle with, faster and without relying on politicians. I think it's politically very unpopular, but the economic theory behind it is extremely sound.
      • seph-reed 5y ago
• bildung 5y ago
  The FUD accusations seem a bit hasty here. The linked Senate hearing doesn't seem to contain negative things about BEVs (it only criticizes the "narrow focus" on them), but instead opts for including hybrid and hydrogen, with the argument being that "recent data shows that plug-in hybrids can achieve nearly the same or better GHG reductions than BEVs depending on your daily driving patterns, the carbon in the electric grid, the carbon resulting from battery production, and other factors." https://www.energy.senate.gov/services/files/E2EA0E4F-BAD9-452D-99CC-35BC204DE6F0 https://www.energy.senate.gov/services/files/E2EA0E4F-BAD9-4... That may be wrong, but the ars article didn't have any counter arguments.
  • ramesh31 5y ago
    >depending on your daily driving patterns This is the key point. Modern highly efficient turbocharged 4 cylinder ICE vehicles can be equally or more efficient than a hybrid in the right circumstances as well. But the vast majority of driving is city streets <45mph, where ICE can't even come close to BEV.
    • kongolongo 5y ago
      Well in the case of urban areas, outside of some select locations, the charging infra is just not there for BEVs. Even if there were good EV infra in urban areas, a compelling case could be made for improving and upgrading public transportation instead which is going to be more efficient than any personal vehicle - including BEVs.
      • Robotbeat 5y ago
        A sidenote but unless public transport vehicles are electric, they won’t be better than battery electric vehicles. Typical diesel buses with typical occupancy rates have worse emissions per passenger mile then, say, a model three with a typical occupancy rate and grid emissions factor in US. BEVs are fantastic, have SOME level of infrastructure literally everywhere with electricity (you literally can charge from a 120V outlet just fine), and we’ll need basically all vehicles to be battery electric to get to where we need to be. It also is trivial to add EV charging infrastructure, which is another under appreciated aspect. It’s easier than installing a streetlight.
• CivBase 5y ago
  > "If we are to make dramatic progress in electrification, it will require overcoming tremendous challenges, including refueling infrastructure, battery availability, consumer acceptance, and affordability," Robert Wimmer, director of energy and environmental research at Toyota Motor North America, told the Senate in March. That's the supposed FUD? What about that was wrong? Are we just supposed to ignore the challenges ahead of us? I had to read through most of that article to even get there and that was the big controversy. This article is trash.
• tabtab 5y ago
  It's sick how the US system allows companies to rent politicians.
• lsllc 5y ago
  Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27961606 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27961606
• martin_henk 5y ago
  Very good from Toyota. They take a diplomatic approach for the global society. As they don't enforce a complete structural upheaval in a short period, but rather promise they will support old eco systems until we are really sure what works best in the post gasoline world.
• WhompingWindows 5y ago
  The Japanese car companies have done pretty poorly in the 2010's in supporting the energy transition. Toyota has been extremely slow to adapt after the Prius, which makes sense because of their ridiculously large volume of sales of basic, gas-efficient passenger vehicles. I give Toyota big props for the Prius, which was the original Green Vehicle 15-20 years ago, and still is a HUGE player in the efficiency space. IIRC, The number one vehicle trade-in for TSLA has been Priuses. Was there even a car before the Prius that used regenerative braking? In many ways, Prius "primed" the market for greener vehicles. And yet, Toyota had no great BEV follow-up. In a high-tech educated country like Japan, an island nation with extremely large amounts of coastline, I'd assume Toyota and Honda would wise up to climate change earlier.
  • trixie_ 5y ago
    They've got some weird obsession with hydrogen.. even recently I've seen a lot of online advertising for their hydrogen vehicle the Mirai which is wildly impractical in the US and probably anywhere else.
    • bbarnett 5y ago
      It's extremely practical, they just need a refueling network.
      • kllrnohj 5y ago
        The Mirai is 196 inches long (same as a Model S or BMW 5 series) yet has less than 10 cu ft of trunk space. The volume required to fit all the hydrogen fuel cell components is massive. It's not especially practical as a result. Even if there was a refueling network, it's not like you're going to take it camping or road trip with such a small trunk, and for an around town grocery runner it's on the large side. It's not like there's a good source of hydrogen that doesn't come from electricity generation anyway. It's "just" a different take on the battery, one that appears to be mostly worse other than charge times.
        • 5y ago
• stevev 5y ago
  In addition to not betting on evs, Toyota along with many other car makers fail to understand the human desire for safety and convenience in their vehicles through the use of current camera technologies and computer applications. A typical Tesla vehicle has 8 cameras thus providing a 360 degree vision to help assist the car/driver in a few applications. Security, safety and convenience. A close second in terms of safety systems is Subaru with their eyesight features. My personal experience and testing of my Toyota Sienna van’s PCS, otherwise known as a pre-collision system to assist in applying the brakes and or warn the driver that an object is detected in close proximity to the vehicle during moving speed, is almost absent. The system is too slow, delayed or late. Sense of safety from the pcs is non-existent. These along with others things pushes me to have a greater interest in cars like Tesla despite it’s premium price. At this point, we should point out that now there are such thing as smart cars (Tesla) vs dumb cars (toyota) and others and that safety should not be a second class feature but should be prioritized through the use of current camera technologies. Other than focusing on just the safety of a vehicle during a collision, although important, systems to prevent collisions should be prioritized as well.
  • gpt5 5y ago
    To continue the analogy with smart and dumb phones - the traditional car makers are struggling to match against the new threat from Tesla (who makes the “iphone”). Makes you wonder whether an Android equivalent OS will come out of Google or another tech company to compete back.
  • ubercore 5y ago
    I've driven a new Rav4 (in the US) and a Corolla hybrid (in Norway) and they both had what you're describing. If anything, the Corolla's system was a little _too_ sensitive.
  • bittercynic 5y ago
    >Sense of safety from the pcs is non-existent. This feels like a feature to me. I believe making drivers feel safer causes them to drive more dangerously.
    • 5y ago
• ajmurmann 5y ago
  Sitting in the US EVs seem like the clear winner. I was shocked too learn that there are no Toyota EVs because they somehow thought hydrogen was the future. I expected more from my most trusted car company. A recent visit to Germany made me less certain. I saw and drove in quite a few hydrogen-powered Mirais. Of course my short experience there isn't representative at all. It's hydrogen bigger elsewhere? Might we see a future where the US had predominantly EVs and Japan and/or Europe hydrogen cars?
• NoblePublius 5y ago
  This is about distribution. Toyotas are sold through dealers. Dealers make little money on selling cars and lots of money fixing them. The Prius appeals to eco concious drivers (who don’t mind that their car drives like a dishwasher) but also appeals to dealers because it needs oil changes, radiator flushed, and frequent brake changes. Full EVs require almost no maintenance so Toyota dealers lack any incentive to market them. Hydrogen has always been a fake out; never remotely close to a viable alternative yet marketed as something amazing coming soon (so don’t buy a Tesla!).
  • tmotwu 5y ago
    As someone who spends their time maintaining every aspect of my cars (oil, brakes, bearings, everything), Toyotas were by far the easiest, simplest, cheapest, most reliable and longest lasting. What a weak point to make about Tesla over Toyota.
    • NoblePublius 5y ago
      My Model Y has 27,000 miles on it and all I’ve had to do is refill the wiper fluid. Toyotas are great cars. And you buy them from a repair shop. Think about that.
• nojito 5y ago
  They didn’t bet wrong. Hydrogen will likely win out within the next 15 years. The issue that Toyota has is with government forcing them to build cars they don’t want to. They already build hybrids but for whatever reason hybrids don’t qualify under congress.
• ianai 5y ago
  How hard is it to concentrate hydrogen down post-production to where the Mirai/another FCV could use it? I ask, because I at least understand it's possible to separate hydrogen out of water relatively easily once you've got the water. (More and more, the ocean seems like a huge resource we're not tapping: the most lithium reserves on earth, pulling carbon out of it (for sequestration), and potential hydrogen source just off the top.)
  • trixie_ 5y ago
    You lose efficiency when using electricity for electrolysis, compression and transportation of hydrogen. And then through the fuel cell itself which is used to charge a battery. That entire roundabout process results in a pretty low efficiency for hydrogen. Why not skip all those steps and put the electricity right into a battery with little efficiency loss. https://insideevs.com/news/406676/battery-electric-hydrogen-fuel-cell-efficiency-comparison/ https://insideevs.com/news/406676/battery-electric-hydrogen-...
    • ianai 5y ago
      Your comment is OT, but here's a comment I made previously to it ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27872908 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27872908 ) : Even the term “fossil fuels” is an inappropriate framing of the chemicals involved since it restricts their use to burning. Consider the processes involved in their formations: organic material grew for eons millions of years ago. It then had to be buried in just the right conditions and later embedded into even further beneficial conditions. It took millions of years, high temperatures, and high pressures to go from plant material to these complex molecular forms. Then we dig them up or seep them out with fracking and further refine them. Then we burn them. Huge losses of energy all along the way. Using oil as fossil fuel is a huge waste of the energy it took to create those molecules.
      • maxerickson 5y ago
        Your esoteric definition of efficiency isn't very useful. If you have solar power, the comparison between storing it in hydrogen using electrolysis or a battery is pretty direct and useful and has fuck all to do with hydrocarbons.
• bushbaba 5y ago
  To be fair. A Chevy volt can be more environmentally friendly than a Tesla. Most people don’t drive more than 50 miles per day. Pushing for hybrids with 50-75 mile range might do more for emissions than pushing everyone to EV convert. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/are-chevy-volts-really-cheaper/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/are-chevy-...
  • deleted 5y ago
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  • js2 5y ago
    We love our Volt, but GM has discontinued Volt production. My spouse's driving is typical around-town errands with occasional road-trip. From the most recent monthly report: Fuel Economy: 205 mpg Electric Consumption: 31 kW-hr/100 miles Electric Miles: 341 Gas Miles: 81 Total Miles: 422 mi Percentage on Electric: 81%
  • deleted 5y ago
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  • asdff 5y ago
    Imo what would be even better for commuters and cities would be a push towards ebikes. They go 25mph, most traffic in rush hour goes 16mph so you can beat that if you can squeeze by or have a bike lane. Most have a range of like 20 miles at least, and iirc the average car commute in the U.S. is 5-7 miles one way so these vehicles can cover most commutes. Ebikes are more tolerable to biking in inclimate weather than regular bikes as well. You don't get sweaty biking in the heat, and in the rain or snow you can actually gear up without risk of sweat building and soaking up your rain or snow gear from the inside as you huff and puff on a normal bike. If enough people are inclined to ebike commute, there will be more political support for more bike lanes, even services like plows and salting of the bike lanes over the winter, or even cheap shades over the lanes to keep off rain or sun. The big barrier of ebikes is their cost. If you want one that isn't aliexpress tier with questionable batteries that might explode, you are going to drop money that could buy you a pretty decent used honda that is way more practical, probably $1500-2000. Plus there is the issue of theft and insuring these from theft or accidents. I'm not sure if theft would be covered by renters insurance or if you'd need a separate policy, it might even depend where the bike was stolen. If the government is willing to give new EV car buyers $7000, they should give that same stipend to ebike buyers who would be able to get any top of the line model for free with money left over with that amount of subsidy. Not only do you get most of the benefits of electric commuting like with an EV, but you don't have to deal with the congestion that a car sized vehicle like an EV carrying one person at a time brings.
• specialist 5y ago
  Toyota should pull an Intel, and become the TSMC of automobiles. I've waggishly said I'd buy a Tesla made by Toyota. Surely there are other EV efforts that would benefit from Toyota's manufacturing prowess and capacity. -- Solid hydrogen fuels will be the next wave. Specifically non-gaseous, before anyone has a spaz attack. We know! Storage, transportation, distribution of H2 is not practical. Plasma Kinetics' has a light activated fuel cell. https://plasmakinetics.com https://plasmakinetics.com There are many other nanomaterial research efforts. Like consumable silicas and reusable graphenes. Am less than noob, so can't guess which notions have most potential. Pay attention to the technology maturation lifecycle. Solid hydrogen today is maybe comparable to Li-ion in 2005. Imagine we hit "peak" Li-ion around 2030, producing 75 tWh annually. (Amazing, right?) That'd buy us some time to develop solid hydrogen, which will hopefully be shipping in actual products by then. And hopefully address use cases and applications poorly served by Li-ion. Like trucking, rail, maritime, whatever. Remove any remaining excuses for the die-hard fossil fuel hold outs. -- Toyota just got the timing wrong. And maybe they were too optimistic about H2. Trying to hold back EV is a dick move. Pisses me off. Not having a portfolio of technology platforms, something to span the gap from hybrids to hydrogen, was just incompetent.
  • sokoloff 5y ago
    How much of Toyota's very good outcomes are a matter of Toyota manufacturing versus Toyota design (to including continual improvement based on experience in the field)? Many of Tesla's teething pains are self-inflicted at the design stage rather than being solely a manufacturing problem.
    • specialist 5y ago
      As a huge fan, I'm very keen to hear the story of Toyota. How'd they lose their edge? Is decline inevitable once you peak? Is death-by-bureaucracy just what happens once you have entrenched stakeholders? I now feel that Tesla is more Toyota than Toyota (continuous improvement). And becoming more Apple than Apple (monopsony). Plus a dash of Samsung (vertical integration). [h/t Sandy Munro's teardowns, The Limiting Factor, both on youtube.] -- Tesla somehow champions Wright's Law better than any one else. (Coupled with financial acumen bordering on fraud.) They're maniacal about efficiency, ramping up production, above all else. They eschew model years and just roll out improvements as fast as possible. I've never worked at place that both scaled up and focused cost reduction; it was always either-or. Even with the human cost, it's kind of exciting. (I worked in hypergrowth orgs in my 20s, at great personal cost. If I was 20 again, I'd be at Tesla (or SpaceX).) -- Tesla has also embraced Apple's monopsony strategy. For iPod, Apple bought out all mini HDDs. For unibody laptops, Apple bought every milling machine. You couldn't compete even if you wanted to. Why did Apple pursue thinness, past the point of reason? Because they could and no one else could copy them. In the same way, Tesla has embraced casting giant parts, by using the giant gigapresses. Acknowledging the obvious benefits like reduced part counts, improved quality... The deeper genius is any one who wants to copy them has to wait years to even buy their own gigapress. I'm sure there are other steps in their production pipeline which competitors cannot easily copy. Because the tools, materials, skills simply are not available at any cost. -- Tesla will be mining their own lithium. That's insane! Who else in the world will own the entire lifecycle of their products? And because Tesla is so vertically integrated, they'll be able to optimize globally. They'll have manufacturing steps done on site at the mines. Reducing shipping and handling costs. And since Tesla makes their own solar panels, they'll provide their own power. Such audacity! -- Plus some kind of crazy. Their misadventures with automation and robots should have killed the company. And yet they pivoted, compressing 40 years of manufacturing experience into 5 years. How the hell did Tesla pull it off? They've had so many near death experiences. And at every critical juncture, they double down. I feel like there's a lesson here, but I have no clue what it might be.
• drewda 5y ago
  This looks like a rewrite/gloss of recent New York Times reporting: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/25/climate/toyota-electric-hydrogen.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/25/climate/toyota-electric-h... Same thing happened the other day when a gloss by The Verge was trending on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27961606 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27961606 I get that some folks may not want to pay to subscribe to The New York Times, but it's unfortunate that HN is sending so much traffic to sites that are just rewriting others' original reporting (and slapping their own advertising on it). Perhaps another dynamic is that as these sites post their rewrites, HN posters can submit fresh URLs for the same topic over multiple days, rather than just the "canonical" NYT URL?
• dapf 5y ago
  Lobbying against the lobbying?
• ryanisnan 5y ago
  I really wonder how Toyota missed the mark here so widely. I'm an idiot, and I saw their lack of entrance into EV as a huge failure. I recall them a couple of years ago being boastful about how they were not interested in playing in the EV space, it just seemed very personal.
• mobiuscog 5y ago
  There are still huge numbers of car owners who do not have off-site parking to charge EVs. Unless EV public charging is able to 'refuel' completely in a couple of minutes, going 100% electric is just not feasible. There is no way most governments will be able to provide suitable infrastructure in the near future.
  • tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    You could incentivise employers to provide charging at work, that would solve the problem for the majority.
  • chipsa 5y ago
    It doesn't need to be in a couple minutes if the chargers are where people tend to stay for a while anyways. Stick a fast charger at McDonald's and Chipotle and Target and Safeway, then people will be able to charge while doing the things they already would be. It doesn't even have to be especially fast. It just needs to give a reasonable amount of charge for the time that people would be at the location. If I'm going to be spending an hour at a restaurant, I don't need to have it be done charging in 20 minutes.
• olivermarks 5y ago
  'According to the US Department of Energy, less than 5 per cent of lithium-ion batteries — demand for which is set to boom as carmakers such as Mercedes lay out goals to go “all-electric” — are currently recycled.' https://www.ft.com/content/771498b8-9457-462f-aee0-e32db14eea49 https://www.ft.com/content/771498b8-9457-462f-aee0-e32db14ee... Unless battery reuse is made viable there is no path forward for any future mass market in EV's. https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-World-Will-Run-Out-Of-EV-Batteries-By-2025.html https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-World-Will-Ru... Given that gasoline continues to easily provide the most bang for the buck/weight/volume IMO hybrids are the logical way forward until grids are recreated to cater to Small Nuclear Reactors and rewired to handle volume electrical delivery. https://youtu.be/Hatav_Rdnno https://youtu.be/Hatav_Rdnno
  • toomuchtodo 5y ago
    https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/ https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/ (founded by JB Straubel [1], previously CTO of Tesla) Hybrids are the worst of both electric and combustion powertrains, their time has passed. Small nuclear reactors aren't ever going to happen (can't compete economically with solar/wind backed by batteries). [1] https://energy.stanford.edu/people/jb-straubel https://energy.stanford.edu/people/jb-straubel
    • olivermarks 5y ago
      The FT article I linked is about redwoodmaterials massive infusion of backing. Solar/wind has serious shortcomings and are not at this point able to store energy 'in batteries' in any volume. Hawaii is making progress here
      • toomuchtodo 5y ago
        Don't have a FT subscription currently, my apologies for not reviewing it prior to commenting!
• xyzelement 5y ago
  CivBase had a good comment below about why this article may not be properly balanced, and I wanted to add this: I see two things that can stall EV growth: (1) Grid capacity. The US has been taking down nuclear power plants and replacing them with renewables has caused problems in both availability, cost and carbon impact. Ideally we would be able to build clean nuclear power as our grid demands growth from EVs, but it's questionable whether we can. Playing this forward, if the nation starts to have brown-outs or the cost of electricity goes up for this reason, people will not buy EVs obviously. (2) There's a risk factor that we need to think about as a country. We rely on our vehicles for a lot of really important things - eg emergency services, commuting, business, etc. We have developed fairly robust gasoline supply infrastructure, and it's pretty good to know that even if my house/town loses electricity, I can still get fuel for my car, get around, travel elsewhere, etc. If we get into a place where our transportation is tightly dependent on our power grid, just as our grid is aging/overloading/etc, that could be a risk on the personal and national level. These are solvable problems but we need to be solving them. Otherwise, EVs will plateau as more people start to recognize these factors.
  • jillesvangurp 5y ago
    Grid capacity will keep up with steady growth in demand over the next decades. It's not a problem now it won't likely become a problem. There won't be an overnight spike in growth, just an steadily increasing pace in the roll out of charging infrastructure. Which is typically powered by renewables indeed. Because that's just the cheapest and fastest way to do it. Some grid companies will fail due to years of mismanagement and lack of investment. Some states like Texas might have to swallow their pride and actually connect their grid to the rest of the country (which BTW. would also enable them to export renewable power, of which they have plenty). Generally, the grid will need to grow a little bit in capacity long term but actually not that much. We're talking 1.x not 2 x or more. And more like 1.2 x than 1.8x. The biggest issues are with the last mile rather than the amount of power. All solvable; just means a lot of work that people will pay for to get done. E.g. solar panels and EVs are a popular combo you see a lot in many suburbs. It makes economic sense to do it. Those EVs are not a burden on the grid and those households are probably net electricity suppliers even. Having a few tens of GWH of driving batteries on the road could actually help soak up a lot of excess renewable power off peak. In many places this is already something that grid suppliers incentivize and a great easy way to balance the grid. In some cases there are even negative tariffs (i.e. you earn money by charging your car). A virtual power plant based on millions of EVs would dwarf any nuclear plant in terms of instantly available GW and would actually be able to provide power to the grid in case of spikes. One of Tesla's little side businesses that might actually work out. E.g. 1 KW times a million cars would be a about a GW of power. Realistically, you'd probably provide power at the same rate you charge. So something like 5 to 10 KW at home. Millions of cars plugged in when they are not driving (i.e. most of the time) would actually be a pretty awesome virtual power plant. The only snag might be that demand for that power might not be there most of the time because as argued capacity won't need to grow that much. Mostly it's just about stabilizing the grid. Regarding your second point, recent hurricanes and other natural disasters have quite convincingly shown that gasoline infrastructure is actually not that robust and typically starts failing when these events happen. The added demand for things like generators typically does not help. Basically fuel stations need electricity and when the power goes, they also stop working even when they haven't run out yet. And that's aside from supply issues which typically also become a thing. EVs are pretty easy to charge. You don't even need the grid for that. E.g. Solar panels on people's houses work fine when the grid fails for example. Many charging stations have solar panels or wind nearby (and batteries). Other EVs can be used for charging as well if the need arises. In emergencies you can even put up mobile charging points powered using batteries or fuel cells. And you can run your house off them as well during a power outage. As EVs become more popular, petrol infrastructure will go in decline and become less reliable. Some petrol stations will close, the remaining ones will sell less fuel. Etc. Especially, remote areas will likely to have more supply issues as that happens.
• morpheos137 5y ago
  EVs are dumber than liquid or gaseous fuels outside of niche uses. We had EVs 120 years ago too. The fundamental problem has not changed. Batteries and motors are less efficient at converting chemical energy into motion than heat engines, especially when energy density per weight and space are considered.
• Robotbeat 5y ago
  The reality is that hydrogen cars are terrible for consumers. Typical price per kg of hydrogen (roughly the same energy as a gallon of gasoline) in California is like $15/kg (although you do get like 50-60 miles of range per kg). There are very few fueling stations, they are specialized (need special permits due to explosive nature of the fuel, like gasoline… plus you need a cryogenic cooler) and expensive (like $1-2million dollars apiece), rely on truck delivered fuel (on-site electrolysis is rare and generally much more expensive), and you’re limited to basically one state in the US. Industrial hydrogen is cheaper, but that’s partly because it’s OVERWHELMINGLY made by steam reforming of fossil fuels. Hybrids are super easily coopted to just reinforce the status quo fossil fuel centric energy system. They’re somewhat more efficient, sure, but it’s an almost insultingly small improvement compared to BEVs and what we need to actually achieve. It would keep the same dynamic we have today where politicians are hesitant to include a carbon tax or increase fuel taxes. So how about a compromise: every new vehicle sold must have a plug, be capable of traveling at highway speeds in pure electric, and a 40-50 mile electric range. Including hydrogen cars (which, after all, already are hybrid electric vehicles incorporating a significant lithium ion battery to provide peak power). This would provide a natural consumer pull for electric vehicle charging infrastructure to be standard in places like apartments and houses and on street parking without hurting anyone’s current use case. It’s enough electric range so that vast majority of people could do it good 80% of the driving on pure electric. Even if you think everyone will have hydrogen cars, this reduces the number of hydrogen fueling stations needed by about a factor of 10. Major car manufacturers have been able to produce decent plug-in hybrids like this for a decade now. And it’s enough range that you could run the car purely electric if you had some reason that you had to do so, like in tunnels or city centers (although some mechanism to enforce this would be needed). It also reduces the total amount of lithium batteries needed by a good factor of five compared to all-battery, which is important in the near term as we ramp up. And the extra 10-15kWh or so of battery is fairly trivial if you already have an electric powertrain (which HEVs and Hydrogen fuel cell cars do). At automotive volumes, that’s only an extra $1000-2000 or so of lithium ion cells and a vast reduction (>$10,000-20,000) in operating costs over the entire vehicle’s lifespan. (And actually, fuel cells have a limited lifespan, worse than large battery EVs, so making them plug in hybrids would stretch that significantly.) I just don’t trust Toyota on this. Non-plug in hybrids and hydrogen cars just aren’t sufficient or low cost enough to operate.
• 908B64B197 5y ago
  A new Prius is basically as expensive as a Model 3. It was great tech 10 years ago but today outside of Ubers I don't see the reason to get it as opposed to a full EV.
  • thekyle 5y ago
    A new Prius MSRPs for $25k and a Model 3 MSRPs for $40k. I don't see how you can say $25k and $40k are basically the same price.
• mikem170 5y ago
  > Toyota has stepped up lobbying to preserve its investments in hybrids, hydrogen Am I the only one who thinks it is 100% wrong that companies can give politicians hundreds of millions of dollars? Politicians are supposed to represent people. Real breathing people. Sampling a handful of other countries, like Canada, Germany, Japan, etc. I found that they all pretty much banned (or drastically curtailed) donations form companies, unions, and trade associations. Most of them had some combination of publically funded campaigns and incentives and limits for personal donations. In a couple of the countries I looked at there were limits on how long campaigns lasted. The corporate lobbying that goes on in the U.S. would be illegal in many other countries and counted against them in corruption indexes. We need an amendment to reverse the supreme court on this. Once we get rid of corporate money from politics we might have a shot at fixing a lot of other problems.
  • ppp_qqq 5y ago
    There is an argument that can be made (whether good or not, not sure) that politicians represent the interest of people including whether they want Toyota to flourish or not, and represent the employee of Toyota, etc. Banning giving money to politicians is fixing a symptom rather than the root cause. Better is ban government from directing market competition. Why is the gov telling people and companies what to make when? People should do that by their choices. Tesla is a good example of something good is happening by the market. It motivated other companies to innovate in the space.
    • mikem170 5y ago
      > There is an argument that can be made (whether good or not, not sure) that politicians represent the interest of people including whether they want Toyota to flourish or not, and represent the employee of Toyota, etc. We supposedly live in a democracy, where the people are supposed to be in charge, not abstract constructs like companies, unions, or trade associations. People vote, not companies. People should be funding political campaigns, not companies. Why should a CEO or small group of people get to decide how to deploy enormous resources to influence politician's so that they do things that run counter to the public good, just so they can make more money? This is what corporations are legally obligated to do, right? Make more money. > Better is ban government from directing market competition. Why is the gov telling people and companies what to make when? People should do that by their choices. Tesla is a good example of something good is happening by the market. It motivated other companies to innovate in the space. Your comment above seems to imply that people should accept that they fund companies through their purchases and these companies will then fund politicians? That seems contrary to the spirit of the constitution. Or maybe I'm not following the connection you're making between campaign financing and market competition. To my way of thinking the government should be run by the people, and if the people want market competition among companies then that should be the rule. People should be deciding this, not politicians who feel they are dependent on corporate campaign donations for their ego boosting careers. It seems like such a flaw in our system. I looked at a handful of other civilized countries and I haven't found one yet that allows this stuff like in the U.S. Time and time again in the news I see companies having their way with our government.