19 ms·
Toyota to spend 1.5T yen on EV battery development
- kyahuabhai1 5y agoThis is a very interesting change of direction. Considering they and through their lobbying Japanese Govt. were pushing for Hydrogen cars.
- smallerfish 5y agoMaybe it's a "bet on both horses" strategy. Hydrogen cells have some advantages over battery cells (e.g. energy density, refueling time) but if there's no infrastructure they won't sell any significant amount of cars on that platform.
- ryanisnan 5y agoIt does seem like that's the play. Pretty sad that it took them this long to make this investment, but I am excited for what Toyota might bring to the EV market.
- aduitsis 5y agoI live in an urban area in a EU country. Some thoughts: * There is a huge subset of motorized vehicles that are spending a considerable percentage of their daily time on the road. Thinking about taxis, buses, trucks, etc. * A large percentage of private cars are parked on the streets. Those two observations alone make the case for electric vehicles slightly problematic. Of course, a private individual with a garage can get an electric vehicle and use it almost like an ICE one, with a large environmental but also budgetary gain. But for these other classes of vehicles, hydrogen could provide a better alternative. Apologies if I'm missing something, but I cannot think what other zero emission technology could give the solution at this point, for these types of vehicle usage.
- Rapzid 5y agoThere is something to be said about shipping around the energy source for quick refuel. If there is anything to these new electrolytes and shipping them around to "gas" stations, I think they could end up replacing charging stations for sure.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago> There is a huge subset of motorized vehicles that are spending a considerable percentage of their daily time on the road. Thinking about taxis, buses, trucks, etc. Model 3 currently has a range up to 353 miles. At 40MPH city driving that's more than 8 hours. Then you need ~20 minutes at a supercharger. Eventually somebody is going to make an electric SUV with more batteries in it which will then have a >480 mile range when not towing anything, which gets you 12 hours between charges. That's a typical shift for a cab, and they already have the 20 minutes of down time during the shift change to clean the vehicle etc. Trucks and buses will be the same. They'll fit larger batteries and then get enough range to last the full shift. It also wouldn't be surprising to see cities fit main thoroughfares with overhead lines and then have electric buses with pantographs so they can charge while in motion. > A large percentage of private cars are parked on the streets. So as electric vehicles get more common they'll start installing chargers on streets. The more vehicles there are, the more chargers they can justify. The more chargers there are, the more people buy electric vehicles. It doesn't have to go from zero chargers to every urban parking space has a charger overnight, but that's where you end up in a few decades.
- asdff 5y ago>It also wouldn't be surprising to see cities fit main thoroughfares with overhead lines and then have electric buses with pantographs so they can charge while in motion. These are already a thing but not done because Americans complain about things like wires in the sky and public transportation
- skeletal88 5y agoThese are called trolleybuses and they exist.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- emkoemko 5y agohow can trucks work on batteries? and be economical? you do know roads have a load rating you can't go over? so Trucks will have to carry less and we will have to make and use more trucks? driving up the cost of everything.
- glogla 5y ago> * There is a huge subset of motorized vehicles that are spending a considerable percentage of their daily time on the road. Thinking about taxis, buses, trucks, etc. Those also often spend the nights in specialized depots or garages. Moreover, lot of those public transport and utility vehicles spend a lot of time idling (think garbage truck or bus at stop) which makes them especially wasteful if ICE. Around here, bus depots are colocated with tram and train depots so they already have powerful electricity lines. > * A large percentage of private cars are parked on the streets. I'm convinced there's a correlation between "parking on the street near condos" and driving relatively little day to day. The cars that drive the most distance would be the ones owned by people living in suburbs or villages. But people with houses can probably charge at home, right? ... For me specifically, my commute is 15 km one way, so even with something with not much range like Peugeot e-208 I would have to charge it about every two weeks if I'm onsite daily, or about once a month if I'm mostly remote. I'm still not planning to buy one because I'd rather use bike or public transport, but it would work.
- boringg 5y agoAgreed - everyone is trying to frame this as a they are no longer betting on Hydrogen. They are betting on both horses - and moving away from O&G. Smart move since they work across different industries/use-cases and different countries (policy drivers).
- jqpabc123 5y agoReally disappointing to see them go down the hydrogen rabbit hole. I was a Toyota fan but this shook my confidence in the company. They had the lead and squandered it. They are really behind the curve now.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 5y agoThere was an interesting discussion here the other day about what makes a company a tech company. Reading here about R&D investments like this from a company that isn’t considered a ‘tech company,’ I can’t help but think back to that discussion and chuckle.
- brianwawok 5y agoWhy? Do you think anything new will come out of this? The market is pretty far past them in battery tech, hard to catch up for the price of 1 tesla battery factory.
- echelon 5y agoThe world isn't instantly switching to batteries. There's no infrastructure where I live and I can't charge an electric vehicle at either of my condos. My mom lives in the suburbs and I see very few Teslas there. Mostly pickup trucks. Cybertruck is not going to appeal to those folks. There is plenty of time for the incumbents to catch up. Especially when Japan will stand behind their car industry. EVs are still in the Virtual Reality phase of the adoption curve. I'm not going to bet against Tesla, but I'd be happy to buy your Toyota shares at a discount.
- Rapzid 5y agoYeah.. It's clear that the incumbents are paying very close attention to trends. Not sure why anyone would bet against them, particularly Japanese auto.. I can guess though haha. Heck, the first EV I would look into if I were in the market ATM would be the Chevy Bolt EV/EUV haha.
- gibolt 5y agoSo you don't have power in those condos? 95% of charging happens at home. Long trips are well served by the Super/destination charger network. You'll be surprised how much availability there is: https://www.tesla.com/findus https://www.tesla.com/findus
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jeffbee 5y agoAs 14 billion US dollars over a decade it sounds less dramatic.
- thehappypm 5y agoThat's still quite a lot, but yeah, trillions are more exciting than tens of billions.
- foobarian 5y agoToo bad they didn't build it in Vietnam paid in their local currency! <mutters at int32 types used for VND prices>
- panick21 5y agoIts not a lot for a car company of that size. Its less then pretty much every other car company of any size has announced. Some have announced more then that up to 2025.
- jtvjan 5y ago1.5T JPY ⩯ 11.5G EUR ⩯ 13.6G USD ⩯ 9.9G GBP ⩯ 18.4G AUD
- tppiotrowski 5y agoG for Giga (10^9)? This confused me. I was expecting Billions (B)
- jtvjan 5y agoOh yeah I assumed the T stood for tera. ~> units '1.5 teraJPY' gigaEUR * 11.511012
- bserge 5y agoYeah, real helpful. Use (B) for billion not whatever G stands for.
- p1mrx 5y agoTera/giga are globally standardized; trillion/billion are ambiguous.
- bserge 5y agoAight, I'll ask my manager to raise my salary by a few kiloeuros. Fucking ridiculous.
- jazzyjackson 5y agono really, billion has different meaning around the world. personally I’m a fan of gigabucks, way shorter to say than “billions of dollars”
- r00fus 5y agoIn France, they use "milliard" for billions.
- slownews45 5y agoThis is a maybe 1.4B per year thing. That's... not huge. What IS incredible is that Toyota HAD the absolute lead in EV. Their hybrid power trains had everything needed, they literally had power mgmt, battery, electric motors etc. Then they went absolutely crazy over hydrogen - which I always hated. The cycle is terrible currently (from production to power on road). The mind boggles a bit to imagine what might have been for them if they had just moved forward on hybrid, plug in hybrid, full EV path. They could have blended that mix more and more until full EV. They had most of the pieces it seems including production capacity.
- bdcravens 5y agoThey also produced 2 generations of RAV4 EV's, the second of which they partnered with Tesla on.
- fnord77 5y agoJapanese govt pushed hydrogen as one "fuel" to rule them all, including household heating and cookin
- reducesuffering 5y agoI believe this is it too. Honda also has the equivalent hydrogen powered car and lack of EV's. Occam's razor says they didn't both come to that unideal scenario by chance.
- 5y ago
- lamnk 5y agoI wonder what make Toyota changes their tone, because Toyota is known to be very reluctant against BEVs as they want to keep their inverstment in hybrids and continue to bet on hydrogen fuel cells.
- jqpabc123 5y agoUnless they know something that the rest of the world doesn't, hydrogen fuels cells is a bad bet. There is not enough time/space to explain all the reasons why; it is a very long list of factors working against hydrogen --- and it starts with the fundamental laws of thermodynamics.
- stcredzero 5y agoIf there's a context where power density is way more important than efficiency, then hydrogen starts looking pretty good. As batteries get better, the number of those shrinks, however.
- ncmncm 5y agoHydrogen -- liquified hydrogen -- makes sense for large aircraft, rockets, and eventually bulk storage, and not much else. The reason hydrogen makes sense for aircraft is the huge advantage of carrying enormously less weight of fuel up to the stratosphere. Add to that, that it will be produced and stored directly at airports from surplus peak electric power, thus obviating need for a great deal of other storage capacity, and of expense extracting, refining, and transporting petroleum. Its downside is it needs much more space on board, thus new airframes with aerogel-insulated tankage somewhere other than in skinny wings. We need a government-led initiative to get major airports outfitted with LH2 production and storage systems, to solve the inherent chicken-and-egg problem and get those new airframes into the pipeline. Any extra storage capacity an airport builds out substitutes for storage elsewhere. Airports could afford to get into the load-balancing business in a big way.
- scythe 5y agoYou can't simply ignore that liquid hydrogen is stored at 700 bar. That increases the system weight substantially. Direct ammonia fuel cells have competitive system weights even though NH3 is only 17% hydrogen: https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/review19/arpae11_abbasi_2019_p.pdf https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/review19/arpae11_abbasi...
- bryanlarsen 5y agoAccording to Ars, they're aiming for 180-200 GWh annual capacity by 2030. By 2030 Tesla is aiming for 3 TWh and VW is aiming for 2 TWh. It's only about twice what Tesla consumed last year. They're still not serious about EV's. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/09/toyota-finally-gets-serious-about-evs-announces-13-6-billion-battery-plan https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/09/toyota-finally-gets-ser...
- beambot 5y agoFrom March 17th, 2021: "Toyota lobbies US government in its increasingly delusional effort to slow down electric vehicles" https://electrek.co/2021/03/17/toyota-lobbies-us-government-delusional-effort-slow-down-electric-vehicles/ https://electrek.co/2021/03/17/toyota-lobbies-us-government-... Seems like they're late to the party & know it.
- cronix 5y agoIt kind of reminds me of Intel's dismissive attitude throughout the tail end of the '90's and early 2000's about ARM and mobile processing. They completely misjudged it, got dethroned as the best chip manufacturer as a result and are still playing catch-up while paying out the nose trying to do so.
- martythemaniak 5y agoThese are the numbers that matter, and they're not good. They're proudly declaring that they will be producing a bit over 2 million EVs per year by 2030. Tesla is currently shipping at a rate of 1m per year. I'm afraid they're going to use their brand power and customer loyalty to drag everyone else down.
- Retric 5y agoWe are still talking 8 years at this point. Toyota is going to respond to actual sales not just what they think sales are going to be. Assuming they produce a desirable EV they could still ramp up production well past that by 2030. It’s one thing not to be the company on a new technology, it’s another not to ramp up production when your selling out month after month.
- jseliger 5y agoBetter late than never, it would seem: Toyota pioneering hybrid systems and then ignoring electrification seems strange. Even the "Prius Prime" today only has what appears to be an 8.8 kWh battery in it, for about $30K (Toyota says it gets about 25 electric miles), and the regular Prius only has a .8 kWh battery. The first-generation Chevy Volt had a 16 kWh battery back in 2011—ten years ago!—and the second generation 18.4 kWh. Battery costs have fallen by 90% or more over the last ten years. Where's the higher range and/or lower cost Prius? The $30K Prius Prime is in the same price range as a new Chevy Bolt, which gets 259 miles of range.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jazzyjackson 5y agoI drive a prius prime: problem is where to put the battery. The 8.8kwH takes up considerable space in the rear cargo area (no room for a spare tire, you are left with a fix a flat kit) Throwing out the gasoline motor in a full redesign will be great to see (ev mode almost feels sporty already), but in the meantime I’m enjoying my 550mi range on a 10 gallon tank + never using gas on days I don’t leave town.
- rconti 5y agoTo be fair, I have 3 cars, none of which have spare tires. Teslas don't have spares, either.
- nomoreplease 5y agoAre other auto companies pursuing in-home batteries like Tesla? I’m hoping for more competition in the Powerwall space
- davedx 5y agoGenerac and Enphase are in that space, I’m pretty sure there are more too
- la_oveja 5y agoI'm really hyped to see their hydrogen "combustion" engines <3
- thehappypm 5y agoWhy? I'm way more excited to get an EV -- no oil changes, transmission problems, way better acceleration, quieter, etc. Combustion is going to be obsolete soon.
- panick21 5y agoWhy? Hydrogen combustion engines are about the worst combination of fuel and engine. Convert the hydrogen to methanol and just use that if you really want to use ICE.
- clipradiowallet 5y agoFYI, 1.5 trillion yen equates to 13,607,664,000.00 USD.
- jhgb 5y agoI thought it was just one yen, but one that was highly magnetic.
- gplusnews 5y agoToyota sounds more like blackberry these days!
- genericone 5y agoWas there a new innovation or discovery that triggered this direction change, information the public at large is not yet aware of? I hate to see this move as subject to the whims of the leadership, a decision that could change 5 years from now... If this change has, as a foundation, a scientific / engineering basis, I would feel a lot more assured in Toyota's EV aspirations.
- ncmncm 5y agoIt's not a direction change. They are just hedging.
- ffggvv 5y agoweird how everyone is an "expert" about hydrogen vs EV and knows more than the biggest car company in the world.
- reducesuffering 5y agoThe results speak for themselves. For years Toyota and Honda have been playing around with Hydrogen cars in tiny production numbers, lease-only, and with little progress, while Tesla is increasingly shipping more and more cars, 400x the Toyota Mirai numbers, to almost limitless demand.
- ffggvv 5y agodidn't know the competition was over. We're still at less than 1% adoption. Thats like saying that the results speak for themselves about AOL winning the ISP wars in the 90s.
- Hypx_ 5y agoThis. Electric cars are currently at the dialup internet phase of adoption. It's unlikely the current leaders will be the future leaders. Nor will the current technology be the stuff we will use in the future.
- greenonions 5y agoSure, but I reckon the leader is even less likely to be Toyota than Tesla.
- Hypx_ 5y agoToyota is much more likely to be a major player in the future than Tesla. I don't think Toyota plans on being a leader of anything.
- panick21 5y agoIn some market, specially high tech rich markets, the adoption is already far, far higher. The car industry is not the same as the internet. Its not new industry, its a technology shift inside the existing industry. And plans have to be made 5 years ahead or more, and we know that pretty much every major player is going for EV and most of them have basically stopped working on hydrogen. The idea that we are are stupid and Toyota is smart ignore all the other companies that together are far larger then Toyota have picked differently. That why I hate the 'oh random guy thinks he knows more then X company'. You literally can not have an opinion without disagreeing with either Toyota or VW. We see basically no growth in hydrogen vehicles or hydrogen fuel stations, not even announcements of new cars or infrastructure. Building the need infrastructure is a decade long heavy investment project, it doesn't just come out of nowhere.
- kipchak 5y agoI wonder if there's a bit of a late mover advantage here. If Company A spends $10B on from 2010 to 2020, and $10B from 2020 to 2030 and Company B spends 0B from 2010 to 2020 and 20B from 2020 to 2030, how much can company B copy company A's homework? One potential advantage Toyota might have is their use of modular platforms - TNGA-K is used for a sedan, minivan, suv and luxury car, e-TNGA will likely be a similar story.
- bluGill 5y ago> how much can company B copy company A's homework? Patent lifespan is 14-20 years, depending on the type of patent, and which country issued it (there are probably outliers that have longer/shorter time-spans, though most countries now are unified). The question is there anything useful in patents that are expire, but if so there is copying about it. Most car companies have weird cross licensing agreements (weird in part because there are anti-monopoly laws in place to work around) so to some extent they can.
- panick21 5y ago> One potential advantage Toyota might have is their use of modular platforms Literally everybody does that.
- kipchak 5y agoYes, though my understanding is Toyota has been one of several mfgs particularly aggressive in going to modular with TNGA/going towards a modular and global architectures. https://europe.autonews.com/article/20141103/ANE/141109996/vw-renault-gm-others-bet-big-on-megaplatforms https://europe.autonews.com/article/20141103/ANE/141109996/v...
- yobbo 5y ago> how much can company B copy company A's homework? Not only this, but company B is buying fresh new machines that manufacturers have been competing to optimize for at least one tech-generation. They can build new factories optimized for 10x volume, which took the market years to reach and would have been insane ten years earlier. They can skip compromises in products that were necessary due to immature tech. Earlier-mover gave tesla brand recognition, but no other lock-in.
- micah63 5y agoI think it's too little too late. It's so much more than EV now, it's about FSD, AI, data collection, charging networks, owning mass battery production, automation of manufacturing, remote software updates, the center screen interface, service to the home networks, direct to customer sales infrastructure, solar panels on your home to charge your car, etc... I believe every car company is 10 years late responding and Tesla will destroy them like Apple iPhone destroyed Blackberry, Nokia, etc... If Ford can mass produce the electric F-150 before cybertruck hits, they may stand a chance (#1 selling vehicle in NA), but again, they are behind on so many of the other factors. I think Tesla will do it in a more streamlined way, more profitability and are ultimately heading towards a robo taxi network which isn't even in the competitors' visions.
- specialist 5y agoYes and: Tesla is integrating vertically, like mining lithium. Both as hedge against supply disruptions and to squeeze efficiency. > ...like Apple iPhone destroyed... Also copying Apple's monopsony playbook. Tesla bought booked the production of "gigacasting" gear. Just like Apple bought all the CNC machines (for making unibody cases) and miniature harddrives (for iPod) and... So competitors can't emulate, even if they wanted to and had the capital.
- emkoemko 5y agoyou seem to be a little too biased towards Tesla? are you invested? some of your points make no sense and "robo taxi network which isn't even in the competitors' visions." and yet Waymo has already done exactly this... Tesla can't even navigate in a closed loop tunnel...
- bluGill 5y agoVertical integration like that sounds good, but often ends up a distraction. Toyota tends to be more of we do the Engine and frame, and outsource the rest.
- tsjq 5y agoHow many million USD is that?
- boboche 5y agoEx Corrola and Celica owner, and ex Toyota fanboy. I was on the market and considering a Supra once the car craze would settle. After seeing all the lobby money against right to repair, trying slowing down Tesla with congress and all, I decided I would not contribute to a brand that used to be a leader in quality and innovation, but now acts as a desperate trainwreck and instead of focussing on improving seriously, they are playing games with numbers (and not being any better than Bezos with SpaceX on the political side) Shame. Must hurt them bad having sold those TSLA shares when they were worth a fraction of today’s price. I hope they bounce back, drop the attitude and become competitive again. They made the mistake of being overconfident without acknowledging the competition or (ex) partners, clean competition is always good. Especially in this segment for our planet’s sake.
- ArtemZ 5y agoSorry, but as someone who knows little about U.S politics and lobbying there, I don't understand how you are putting Tesla and "the right to repair" in a single sentence. What will you do if the electronics in Tesla fails? What will you do if the motor fails? Battery? You won't be able to fix that on your own. Teslas can be only repaired in a professional shop, whereas Toyotas can be fixed by a moderately skilled individual in a private garage. You can order all the parts for Toyota online and do everything from engine rebuild to any kind of maintenance.
- boboche 5y agoSimple, 2 separate issues tickling me. Not saying Tesla are not terrible at RTR, they are. But they are also accelerating electrification and catching everybody off guard. Including auto repair shops. Some are actually starting to be the Rossman of teslas and I beleive the momentum RTR is getting will naturally creep in and bite them too soon or later. For now I can just agree and its one of the reasons I won’t buy a Tesla as I like to keep my cars until they completely die (usually rusted beyond repair with 300kkm+) while keeping my repair costs down. Toyota was pointed as a major lobyist against right to repair and financed FUD ads in the US on ballot initiatives btw, Tesla was not in that group.
- 5y ago
- wazoox 5y agoIt's about time. At the current Munich Auto Show, I don't think there's even one single old-style oil burning car presented. In Europe (and China), it's complete game over starting now.
- nose 5y agoThis also indirectly signals an exit from the consumer hydrogen fuel cell cars.
- krosaen 5y agoAnyone wishing to steel-man Toyota's strategy should read their chief scientist's (and former head of DARPA) Gill Pratt's posts: https://medium.com/toyotaresearch/carbon-is-our-enemy-lets-use-everything-we-ve-got-to-fight-it-b38bfbc1f16 https://medium.com/toyotaresearch/carbon-is-our-enemy-lets-u... https://medium.com/toyotaresearch/more-straight-talk-about-toyotas-electric-vehicle-strategy-f0aba4be40 https://medium.com/toyotaresearch/more-straight-talk-about-t... > Maximizing the benefit of every battery cell produced requires that we distribute them smartly. > This means putting them into a greater number of “right sized” electrified vehicles, including HEVs and PHEVs, instead of placing them all into a fewer number of long-range BEVs, like my model X. This is particularly important because presently it is difficult to recycle the kinds of batteries used in BEVs. If we are to achieve carbon neutrality, we must pay attention to all parts of the “3R” process — Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. > For example, we hardly ever put gas into our RAV4 Prime PHEV, which has a battery ⅙ as large as our Model X BEV. For the same investment in batteries as our single Model X, five other RAV4 Prime customers could reduce their carbon footprint too.
- LeegleechN 5y agoThanks for the links. This is a really well written case which relies on an easily swallowed fallacy. The argument is that the main limiter to improvement of batteries is research which needs time, so we shouldn't quickly scale up battery production and end up with suboptimal batteries. Of course the main way to improve batteries at this point is to make them cheaper, which comes directly from production scale (look at what happened with solar panels). And even if that wasn't the case, while we wait for improved tech before we scale up battery production, we're continuing to dig up and burn fossil fuels. This reminds me of some of the propaganda spread by fossil fuel companies decades ago. They position themselves as being on the side of environment, and yet the conclusion is always to delay, do more research, and continue with the status quo.
- VectorLock 5y agoHmm, what about BEVs make them more difficult to recycle? Tesla batteries are made out of individual cells - pretty much ripe for the Reuse in the 3R process.