50 ms·

“EVs aren't the only answer”: Toyota scientist on the future of cars

35 points by clouddrover 4y ago

dotcoma 4y ago
How about: Cars aren’t the only answer ?
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Indeed lets go back to keeping horses and only the wealthy ones being able to go around dry in chariots, and servants to transport goods by whatever means they have.
  - dotcoma 4y ago
    Servants ARE transporting goods for us. It’s called Doordash, Uber Eats, or Foodora, Glovo, JustEat in Europe etc.
    - pjmlp 4y ago
      For proper servants they need to be happy with food and housing, otherwise they are only exploited employees for the salaries they get. Hey that is what happens when people feel like not joining a union and adopt an each for itself strategy.
- yunohn 4y ago
  Well, you need to replace fossil fuel with electricity/hydrogen for public transport as well. The question is still valid?
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Not only that, for infrastructure reasons public transport outside dense cities is non existent, and paying for taxis for every routes outside the main ones makes it out of budget for many persons. A single taxi ride can pay for quite a few liters of fuel.
  - reocha 4y ago
    Public transport is already more efficient from the get go [1], so less work has to be done to meet emmission targets. It is also probably easier to electrify a countries rail/bus network as opposed to a full population's personal vehicles. Steel on steel also releases less dangerous pollutants like car tyres. [2] Public transport also comes with many other benefits over cars (quieter cities, less deaths from collisions, fitter population). For super low population density locations cars will probably remain the only possible solution, but for most of the population we really need to implement a movement away from car dependence. [1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/984685/transport-and-environment-statistics-2021.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... Page 3 [2] https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/pollution-tyre-wear-worse-exhaust-emissions https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/pollution-tyre-wear-...
    - yunohn 4y ago
      There’s a difference between politically defined emission targets and the reality of fossil fuel usage regardless of public transport efficiency.
      - reocha 4y ago
        Yes, but if public transport is more efficient then there are less emmisssions to reduce in the first place.
- iasay 4y ago
  This is my view. Restructure society around less transport.
  - zx8080 4y ago
    Like paid permits to travel to a city nearby and visas for inter-state travelling? Sounds so 2022.
    - iasay 4y ago
      I'm not sure why everyone defaults to dystopia. Just move things around so people don't have to sit in traffic or commute for 4 hours a day.
  - libertine 4y ago
    That would only work in big cities.
- jeremy_clarkson 4y ago
  Also cars, do not have to be today's cars. Like, the market fucked us all over with this SUV craze. It should be first priority to reverse this madness. Nobody needs to drive around in a 5ton tank. Second, inner city driving should be done in even smaller cars. You do not need a full sized car, designed for seating 5, just for commuting or to go shopping.
  - escalt 4y ago
    Inner city driving should be restricted to service vehicles only. The inner city should be dense enough that shopping is easily done by foot or by bike, and things further away are covered by a tram or bus line within walking distance
    - pjmlp 4y ago
      The joy of being in a full packed bus with the shopping goods and sweaty people without any kind of air-conditioning.
      - escalt 4y ago
        Shopping would optimally happen by foot or by bike. Somewhat impossible with US zoning laws, but in a decent mixed use neighborhood a grocery store would be a <5 minutes walk from home, with actual sidewalks and no highways in between. And overcrowded buses happen in underfunded bus systems with not enough capacity or on peak times. Consider increasing the frequency or upgrading to a tram line if your buses are always full
        r00fus 4y ago
        Yes, visiting France, it's amazing to me how local laws have resulted in shopping that's accessible by most via bike/walk/tram (ie, car not needed). I saw dozens of these folks doing that as an activity with their kids on the weekend (of course, French have lots more vacation too so they can afford to combine exercise + commerce). The captured regulatory system in the US benefits corporations first, and people last.
- jokoon 4y ago
  The solution has always been electric trains. Make transport public, add more public transportation. That's the pill nobody wants to swallow. It's not a technology problem, it's a political one. American auto lobbies destroyed public transport, it's not a secret. Here is france a lot of busses use a LNG/fuel mix. Regional trains have room where you can put a bike. Take a quarter of what is being spent on domestics cars, and allocate it on public transport, instead of subsidizing oil. Unfortunately, making something for the community so it can be collective, is immediately seen as a socialist or communist measure in the US, so it will probably take a revolution. Americans will continue to be one the largest emitter per capita, and will lose the fight on the environment, while countries like china are already building a lot of nuclear power plants.
TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
I really hope we get traction on: • electrification of trunk roads • hydrogen-powered vehicles Batteries are simply too heavy to replace all that petrol and diesel for all use cases.
- blkhawk 4y ago
  nobody argues for using batteries for everything. But as cars go they can pretty much hit 90+%(1) of use cases. As for hydrogen the problem is that you can make a battery car go several times as far on the energy required to produce the hydrogen. That means to fuel it you will have to pay several times as much as the electricity equivalent. Or of course you can relatively cheaply make it from fossil natural gas via steam reformation but that generates lots of CO2 and if you were to just make electricity from the N-gas and use it in battery cars you could again run more of those than you could from the hydrogen you generated. (1) source my ass. just a guesstimate. does not include things like Medium sized Trucks. Its fine not to solve those right now.
robga 4y ago
“Not the only answer” is right. Elsewhere on the internet, BEV vs FCEV arguments descend into typical slanging matches. But it’s not A vs B. The world and market can have A and B and C and D. Many of us will never be able to plug in at home. With ICE cars stopping sales By 2030 in my country, options like fuel cells are totally viable. My local hydrogen station is green, using electrolysis from excess grid energy. The Toyota Mirai is a nice car. There are also promising projects into hydrogen combustion engines. Then you have new tech like Zero Petroleum in early stages. I’d not discount BEVs being the Betamax of the 2020s.
- cssanchez 4y ago
  Hydrogen is not considered a viable fuel alternative for the masses due to the high risk of explosion among many other factors. I wish people would stop mentioning it in these discussions. https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage-challenges https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage-chall...
  - defrost 4y ago
    Leaving aside the niggling inconvenience of explosions, stepping back and looking at the larger climate picture and global carbon balance sheet ... Blue Hydrogen isn't exactly the magic wand that some are green wishing it to be. https://theconversation.com/blue-hydrogen-what-is-it-and-should-it-replace-natural-gas-166053 https://theconversation.com/blue-hydrogen-what-is-it-and-sho...
  - petre 4y ago
    Stop spreading FUD. The risk of explosion is as as high as in gasoline powered cars, only H2 gets ventilated faster and burns without a visible flame.
    - KennyBlanken 4y ago
      The risk of gasoline 'explosion' (neither would be an explosion, it would be a fire) is higher with gasoline because its vapors are heavier than air and tend to pool on the ground and in structures.
jeremy_clarkson 4y ago
I think I share support for this argument and might have even posted it on HN previously. Basically, BEVs need to have huge batteries to sell well. Not because the consumer is actually using this huge battery to its full extent, but because otherwise the consumer will not buy the car due to range anxiety. This huge battery, of which maybe 1/4 or 1/3 is used throughout a day, is a huge inefficiency to manufacture and adds significantly to the CO2 footprint of BEVs. For a lot of people it might therefore make more sense to have a PHEV with a battery big enough for one day of driving, and a range extender, which ideally would not be used in day to day driving. The range extender is an ICE engine or gas turbine, which is made of more common materials. In the future it might even make sense to combine PHEV with synthetic fuels. The argument I heard against this is that people with PHEVs ignore the plug-in functionality and drive it on gas the whole time. But while this might be true, it does not counter the technical argument above. It is a completely other problem.
- otherme123 4y ago
  Prius isn't light either (1500 kg) vs Tesla 3 (1800). Funny how for the last 10 years the main problem for EV was low range, and now the problem is... too much range? Toyota is free to make PHEVs, people is free to buy PHEVs or EVs. We'll see who ends up being the Beta (claimed superior by fans but zero sells) and the VHS.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  > This huge battery, of which maybe 1/4 or 1/3 is used throughout a day, is a huge inefficiency to manufacture and adds significantly to the CO2 footprint of BEVs. No, it doesn't. This myth has been repeated over and over for twenty-plus years, as long as the Prius has been around. The CO2 footprint of the battery is dwarfed by the footprint of the car as a whole, and the in the case of a gasoline vehicle, its manufacturing footprint is dwarfed by its CO2 emissions: https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-a-mid-size-bev-and-ice-vehicle https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-l... A BEV is better for the environment after barely a year of usage: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifetime-carbon-emissions-electric-vehicles-vs-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifeti... There are other reasons for having a larger battery. For one, the larger the pack, the less wear on the pack; a smaller pack would be cycled more, and degrade sooner. Charge/discharge rates are a function of battery capacity. The higher the rate relative to the pack's capacity, the higher the wear on the battery.
_0w8t 4y ago
It is hard to expect a different answer from a person who works for a company heavily invested into hybrid cars. What he does not mention and what the war in Ukraine has shown again is that dependence on foreign oil is just bad. Any engine that consumes petrol or natural gas products prolongs that. A purely electrical car can use electricity from coal that is abundant and much more evenly distributed on the planet than oil and gas. Moreover, when an electrical car use electricity from the modern coal power plant, the end result is less CO2 per distance driven than the corresponding petrol car.
- clouddrover 4y ago
  > What he does not mention and what the war in Ukraine has shown again is that dependence on foreign oil is just bad. Make your own carbon neutral synthetic fuel. You're going to need jet fuel at the very least: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-10/efuel-plant-proposed-for-tasmanias-north-west/101223944 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-10/efuel-plant-proposed-...
  - freemint 4y ago
    Or we will have to travel less or more slowly using solar zeppelins. Or battery powered plains with in the air charging using microwaved renewable battery. Or we need better batteries the necessary energy densities are hypothetically possible with a theoretical limit of 2,700 Wh/kg of Li-S https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsenergylett.9b02574 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsenergylett.9b02574 . Chnages to mission profile with Aerotowing for take-off might also help a lot.
    - clouddrover 4y ago
      It's not "or", it's "and". You can pootle along in the zeppelin. I'll take the jet.
      - Gud 4y ago
        The olden zeppelins hardly “pootled” though. They were doing 120kmh at cruise speed. Im sure with modern technology you could up those numbers to 200kmh+. Considering how bad flying is for the environment, I would gladly make the trade to arrive a bit later for a more comfortable, environmentally friendly ride. This coming from someone who flies 20+ times a year.
eckesicle 4y ago
After reading the headline my immediate reaction was that: "this scientist is going to try to make the case that PHEVs are the better choice". And of course, that's what he does. The fact is that Toyota has made a major misstep in focussing on PHEVs (plugin hybrids) instead of full electric vehicles and they've been spreading FUD about EVs for years now. I'm hardly an expert on this subject matter but just based on the fact that this man is from Toyota casts massive doubts on anything he says. I put exactly zero value to his claims given his obvious and massive conflict of interest.
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  It really can't understated how little Toyota can be trusted here. They've been sending corporate propaganda to schools in what amounts to grooming children: https://electrek.co/2021/11/11/how-toyota-sneakily-spreads-anti-ev-propaganda-in-japan/ https://electrek.co/2021/11/11/how-toyota-sneakily-spreads-a...
  - mavhc 4y ago
    "Self charging hybrid", that's all you need to know
  - charcircuit 4y ago
    That reads as an article from a person who congests propaganda from the other side. Not everything is about not does everyone care about being carbon neutral. BEVs may have just been left out because they are unpopular. It makes sense to teach about common types of cars.
    - KennyBlanken 4y ago
      Yeah, I'm sure it's a total coincidence that Toyota is sending information pamphlets clearly targeting children, to schools, that mention every type of vehicle except BEVs, which Toyota is known to have lobbied against, in Japan, the US, and EU. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/toyota-lobbying-against-ev-adoption-151034380.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/toyota-lobbying-against-ev-ad... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/25/climate/toyota-electric-hydrogen.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/25/climate/toyota-electric-h... https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/07/toyota-bet-wrong-on-evs-so-now-its-lobbying-to-slow-the-transition/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/07/toyota-bet-wrong-on-evs... 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-... https://www.teslarati.com/toyota-slammed-european-funds-anti-ev-lobbying-efforts/ https://www.teslarati.com/toyota-slammed-european-funds-anti...
wokwokwok 4y ago
> So do you think the UK’s plan to end ICE sales in 2030 is too soon? > “I’m not sure. Of course, Toyota will comply with the law. But is the proposal the best way to reduce carbon? > I don’t know. Maybe in 15 and certainly in 20 years’ time, it could make sense. But in eight? I’m not so sure. Oh spare me. Yes, wouldn't it be nice if this could be someone else's problem in 20 years instead of my problem in 5. I get it, it's hard. Things are hard. Drastic action is hard. Doing mostly nothing for a long time while we slowly embrace change is very modest, thoughtful and relatively cheap and unrisky. Of course that's what he wants. It's his job to want that, and advocate for it. Let's wait. > the truth is that we don’t know what technologies are going to get us to the best way to rid ourselves of that CO2. Maybe someone will come up with technology to solve it. It's not impossible... and, it saves doing hard, risky work now. The question we should be asking isn't 'is it too soon?', it should be: Given that climate change seems to be rather catastrophic, what do you propose to do about it? Wait for someone else to solve the problem? No, I don't think that's an acceptable answer from the Toyota Research Institute CEO. EV's aren't a silver bullet... but I tell you what does not the fix the problem: making it someone else's problem. Suck it up. You work for Toyota ffs; ICE vehicles are what, 25% of emissions? It's not going to completely fix things, but hey, it'll help right? That's good right? Even if it's complicated, hard and risky? Yes. It is.
- tim333 4y ago
  I'm a Brit and I think it's too soon. This won't affect Toyota that much - some countries may ban ICEs and some not. But it'll be an expensive pain for us Brits if it happens. If you really want less emissions you should tax emissions and let the market figure the best way to achieve that rather than enforcing iffy tech choices.
wheybags 4y ago
The article completely fails to mention the issue of air quality in cities. One of the things I'm most looking forward to is walking around the city centre without getting diesel fumes blasted in my face.
- ndsipa_pomu 4y ago
  EVs aren't completely pollution free either. Their pollution comes from tyre wear and brake dust which is increased (compared to ICE vehicles) due to their increased weight. It might not be as immediately noticeable, but they're still turning the air dangerous. Edit: I hadn't thought about their use of regenerative braking which certainly reduces the amount of brake dust particulates. Found this literature review (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S135223101630187X?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13522...) that uses an estimate of zero braking for EVs and yet the increased tyre and road wear still makes the particulate pollution similar to ICE vehicles: By analysing the existing literature on non-exhaust emissions of different vehicle categories, this review found that there is a positive relationship between weight and non-exhaust PM emission factors. In addition, electric vehicles (EVs) were found to be 24% heavier than equivalent internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). As a result, total PM10 emissions from EVs were found to be equal to those of modern ICEVs. PM2.5 emissions were only 1–3% lower for EVs compared to modern ICEVs. Therefore, it could be concluded that the increased popularity of electric vehicles will likely not have a great effect on PM levels. Non-exhaust emissions already account for over 90% of PM10 and 85% of PM2.5 emissions from traffic. These proportions will continue to increase as exhaust standards improve and average vehicle weight increases. Future policy should consequently focus on setting standards for non-exhaust emissions and encouraging weight reduction of all vehicles to significantly reduce PM emissions from traffic.
  - ben-schaaf 4y ago
    Brake dust is vastly descreased due to use of regenerative braking. Hence why brakes last longer on EVs.
  - tcfhgj 4y ago
    EVs don't break often with their break disks (if even available), because they can break with the motors and generate electricity. Though you're right, they aren't emission free
sk8terboi 4y ago
KingOfCoders 4y ago
EVs are the only answer because they are the most convenient ones. For commute with charging at home and at the office or shopping (charging at shopping center), no more trip to the gas station. Convenience always wins.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Assuming one lives at a home with proper parking place, and work does provide parking facilities.
speedgoose 4y ago
Can we trust scientists paid by a corporation to be neutral? Especially when they say exactly the propaganda of the corporation?
mangecoeur 4y ago
I’m going with ‘figure 6’ of the discourses of climate delay : https://www.leolinne.com/?portfolio=discourses-of-climate-delay https://www.leolinne.com/?portfolio=discourses-of-climate-de...
- 2sk21 4y ago
  Love this!
mattlondon 4y ago
They've been talking about hydrogen vehicles for ages. I remember stuff from the late 80s early 90s suggesting this is the future. Yet now I can think of only a single hydrogen fuel station in London (there are likely more but I am only aware of one), yet there are literally countless electric charging points all over the place now, and are starting to appear on on-street lamp posts now (see ubitricity et al), at least in London. It seems like hydrogen has an unassailable infrastructure issue, while EVs are getting increasingly more viable. I appreciate that lithium batteries are not especially eco friendly, but there is scope for new chemistries in the future so I would be reluctant to say that BEVs are "not the answer" because lithium.
theplumber 4y ago
This guy just is just a PR for Toyota PHEV/ICE engines. He talks about lack pf infrastucture and range anxiety like a reason to postpone the transition. Toyota still lives in denial. It's like they don't know Tesla and VW are manufacturing mass market EVs.
SyzygistSix 4y ago
I agree that PHEVs are an important part of the transition away from gasoline, especially in the short term. But it seems if Toyota really believed this, their PHEV Rav4 would be produced in a lot higher numbers. I'm pretty sure they could sell far more of those than they do. Availability is limited to two US states and even within those is quite limited. And we're still waiting on a hybrid 4Runner or Tacoma.
- silverspoonin 4y ago
  The PHEV Chrysler Pacifica & PHEV Mitsubishi Outlander came out 5 years ago, and the PHEV Volvo XC90 has been out 7 years. Meanwhile I'm still waiting for Toyota to sell a PHEV 3-row anything (Sienna, Highlander, whatever) in the US.
TedShiller 4y ago
Elons carbon footprint is huge
vkou 4y ago
He is correct. The answer to climate change is not the EV, it is the electric trolley, the electric train, the electric bus, the electric scooter, the electric bicycle. The EV, despite its many advantages over the ICE is still an incredibly resource, dollar, and space-intensive form of personal transportation.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
How can this guy sleep at night. The way he dances around the point clearly demonstrates he knows the argument well enough to know he's lying.
numpad0 4y ago
I don't understand why Toyota don't understand what it is about: the customers hate Toyota Prius. Customers and industries worldwide downplay and resist hybridization, and now electrification. Prius being a tangible bad experience explains huge bulk of it. My speculation is that they use negative sentiments associated with products to even out sales figures over generations, but that type of ignorance and arrogance were what led to complete destruction of Japanese flip phone hardware industry. iPhone don't dominate the current market because of its Unix-derived kernel for the operating system, nor because they integrate advanced linear actuators for haptic feedbacks. The way Toyota is thinking cars is the latter ways; they are gauging interest in parts it uses where customers have been moving away from its products. This might be a bad analogy but when the majority starts moving towards organic foods over engineered industrial foodstuffs, there must be something going wrong with the class of products at scale.
adev_ 4y ago
It is easy to fire on Toyota for defending their PHEV strategy... But that said: they are not fundamentally wrong. BEVs is not the unique magic solution to every transport problem (sorry Elon). Like usual, the reality is more complex than that. A French think tank named The shift project, also came to the conclusion that the fastest way to decarbonize and meet emission targets would currently not be BEV currently but switching globally to super-light ICE vehicle with very small engine and optimized consumption (consumption of less than 2.5L/100 km, meaning > 100mpg). A bit like Japanese Kei car. [1] And when you think about it, this is not crazy. BEV makes perfect sense in country like Norway, France, Switzerland or Canada where electricity is already very low carbon [2]. It does not if you consider most of the world: Poland, Australia, India, most of Africa and Japan has an electricity still running massively on coal, petrol and gas. It will takes several decade to change that and this is more than the lifetime of a car. Without even considering that many countries, including Japan, country of Toyota, do not have a power grid design to reload EV in individual home (100V, single phase low power network). That would take massive effort and an other few decades to change that. [3] Like always: There is clean and nice solutions on paper... And there is the reality kicking in the face Disclaimer: I do own an BEV because I do live in a country where electricity is low carbon. [1] https://theshiftproject.org/category/thematiques/transport/ https://theshiftproject.org/category/thematiques/transport/ [2] https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/CA-QC https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/CA-QC [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan
jqpabc123 4y ago
His opinion is built around one assumption --- that battery technology will remain stagnant and not advance much beyond lithium ion for the forseeable future. Assume otherwise and he starts to look more like an apologist for a company that is trying to recover from some bad marketing decisions. Toyota, I feel your pain but your place in the future is not a given. You have to earn it.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Once upon a time Moore's law was also expect to never end, until it did.
  - jqpabc123 4y ago
    Yes and just imagine where computing (and Intel) would be today if they had spent the last 50 years trying to slow progress instead of creating it --- because it might not be good for them. I wish Toyota well but the future doesn't wait for anyone. Either help create it or be crushed by it --- these are your options.
    - pjmlp 4y ago
      Wishful thinking doesn't make technology happen out of nowhere.
      - jqpabc123 4y ago
        No, it doesn't. This is why extensive, high stakes research into battery technology is going on all around the world. Whoever comes up with a lighter, cheaper, safer battery will own a big chunk of the future --- and the auto industry in particular. Apparently, Toyota has decided it won't be them. The fun fact about the future is everyone gets to choose how they want to play it.
        pjmlp 4y ago
        Keep wishing, it might turn into reality.
alex_young 4y ago
Lithium ion batteries aren’t without consequence. They’re made using rare, mined materials – in contrast, an engine is made using more common materials – and weigh a lot. This is pure BS. Lithium is extracted from water and it’s extraction process has about the environmental impact of turning topsoil. The rare earth metals in your catalytic converter alone have orders of magnitude greater impact. They rely on open pit mining in third world countries and directly pollute ground water and have very poor disposal options.
orwin 4y ago
Ok, so i was living in the countryside (in europe, so smaller farms and more density than the US), and managed to go without car for a bit more than year. I took the bus or biked to a small train station (45 minute bike ride) when i wanted to go visit friends living in "big cities" or to the beach, and went to the farm cooperative store to buy food (5 to 10 minutes by bike, 30 minutes by foot). If i get a full remote gig next year, i think i will go back there and invest in a kayak, i know there is no dam between that place and the village's country store. So yes, EV aren't the only answer. I don't think i need to ever buy a car.
jliptzin 4y ago
This guy is knocking EVs because they may draw power from a dirty grid in some parts of the world, therefore we should be selling more PHEVs? What a ridiculous argument. Of course he conveniently leaves out the trajectory we’re heading in, in most places the grid is becoming more green over time. Why not attack the dirty parts of the grid itself and advocate for more green power production there instead of EVs. This guy is just embarrassing himself. Also, Lithium is not rare, it is the first metal in the periodic table. It’s just a matter of scaling up mining/production to meet demand. And you don’t even need cobalt anymore, Tesla’s new 4680s don’t use any. This guy should know all that. He also talks about range anxiety which was a thing a few years ago but with so many charging stations all over the place and more coming online every day, and cars with higher range and fast charging. it’s not really a concern anymore and will be even less of a concern in the future.
fit2rule 4y ago

35 points by clouddrover 4y ago

dotcoma 4y ago

How about: Cars aren’t the only answer ?

pjmlp 4y ago
Indeed lets go back to keeping horses and only the wealthy ones being able to go around dry in chariots, and servants to transport goods by whatever means they have.
- dotcoma 4y ago
  Servants ARE transporting goods for us. It’s called Doordash, Uber Eats, or Foodora, Glovo, JustEat in Europe etc.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    For proper servants they need to be happy with food and housing, otherwise they are only exploited employees for the salaries they get. Hey that is what happens when people feel like not joining a union and adopt an each for itself strategy.
yunohn 4y ago
Well, you need to replace fossil fuel with electricity/hydrogen for public transport as well. The question is still valid?
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Not only that, for infrastructure reasons public transport outside dense cities is non existent, and paying for taxis for every routes outside the main ones makes it out of budget for many persons. A single taxi ride can pay for quite a few liters of fuel.
- reocha 4y ago
  Public transport is already more efficient from the get go [1], so less work has to be done to meet emmission targets. It is also probably easier to electrify a countries rail/bus network as opposed to a full population's personal vehicles. Steel on steel also releases less dangerous pollutants like car tyres. [2] Public transport also comes with many other benefits over cars (quieter cities, less deaths from collisions, fitter population). For super low population density locations cars will probably remain the only possible solution, but for most of the population we really need to implement a movement away from car dependence. [1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/984685/transport-and-environment-statistics-2021.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... Page 3 [2] https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/pollution-tyre-wear-worse-exhaust-emissions https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/pollution-tyre-wear-...
  - yunohn 4y ago
    There’s a difference between politically defined emission targets and the reality of fossil fuel usage regardless of public transport efficiency.
    - reocha 4y ago
      Yes, but if public transport is more efficient then there are less emmisssions to reduce in the first place.
iasay 4y ago
This is my view. Restructure society around less transport.
- zx8080 4y ago
  Like paid permits to travel to a city nearby and visas for inter-state travelling? Sounds so 2022.
  - iasay 4y ago
    I'm not sure why everyone defaults to dystopia. Just move things around so people don't have to sit in traffic or commute for 4 hours a day.
- libertine 4y ago
  That would only work in big cities.
jeremy_clarkson 4y ago
Also cars, do not have to be today's cars. Like, the market fucked us all over with this SUV craze. It should be first priority to reverse this madness. Nobody needs to drive around in a 5ton tank. Second, inner city driving should be done in even smaller cars. You do not need a full sized car, designed for seating 5, just for commuting or to go shopping.
- escalt 4y ago
  Inner city driving should be restricted to service vehicles only. The inner city should be dense enough that shopping is easily done by foot or by bike, and things further away are covered by a tram or bus line within walking distance
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    The joy of being in a full packed bus with the shopping goods and sweaty people without any kind of air-conditioning.
    - escalt 4y ago
      Shopping would optimally happen by foot or by bike. Somewhat impossible with US zoning laws, but in a decent mixed use neighborhood a grocery store would be a <5 minutes walk from home, with actual sidewalks and no highways in between. And overcrowded buses happen in underfunded bus systems with not enough capacity or on peak times. Consider increasing the frequency or upgrading to a tram line if your buses are always full
      - r00fus 4y ago
        Yes, visiting France, it's amazing to me how local laws have resulted in shopping that's accessible by most via bike/walk/tram (ie, car not needed). I saw dozens of these folks doing that as an activity with their kids on the weekend (of course, French have lots more vacation too so they can afford to combine exercise + commerce). The captured regulatory system in the US benefits corporations first, and people last.
jokoon 4y ago
The solution has always been electric trains. Make transport public, add more public transportation. That's the pill nobody wants to swallow. It's not a technology problem, it's a political one. American auto lobbies destroyed public transport, it's not a secret. Here is france a lot of busses use a LNG/fuel mix. Regional trains have room where you can put a bike. Take a quarter of what is being spent on domestics cars, and allocate it on public transport, instead of subsidizing oil. Unfortunately, making something for the community so it can be collective, is immediately seen as a socialist or communist measure in the US, so it will probably take a revolution. Americans will continue to be one the largest emitter per capita, and will lose the fight on the environment, while countries like china are already building a lot of nuclear power plants.

TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago

I really hope we get traction on: • electrification of trunk roads • hydrogen-powered vehicles Batteries are simply too heavy to replace all that petrol and diesel for all use cases.

blkhawk 4y ago
nobody argues for using batteries for everything. But as cars go they can pretty much hit 90+%(1) of use cases. As for hydrogen the problem is that you can make a battery car go several times as far on the energy required to produce the hydrogen. That means to fuel it you will have to pay several times as much as the electricity equivalent. Or of course you can relatively cheaply make it from fossil natural gas via steam reformation but that generates lots of CO2 and if you were to just make electricity from the N-gas and use it in battery cars you could again run more of those than you could from the hydrogen you generated. (1) source my ass. just a guesstimate. does not include things like Medium sized Trucks. Its fine not to solve those right now.

robga 4y ago

“Not the only answer” is right. Elsewhere on the internet, BEV vs FCEV arguments descend into typical slanging matches. But it’s not A vs B. The world and market can have A and B and C and D. Many of us will never be able to plug in at home. With ICE cars stopping sales By 2030 in my country, options like fuel cells are totally viable. My local hydrogen station is green, using electrolysis from excess grid energy. The Toyota Mirai is a nice car. There are also promising projects into hydrogen combustion engines. Then you have new tech like Zero Petroleum in early stages. I’d not discount BEVs being the Betamax of the 2020s.

cssanchez 4y ago
Hydrogen is not considered a viable fuel alternative for the masses due to the high risk of explosion among many other factors. I wish people would stop mentioning it in these discussions. https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage-challenges https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage-chall...
- defrost 4y ago
  Leaving aside the niggling inconvenience of explosions, stepping back and looking at the larger climate picture and global carbon balance sheet ... Blue Hydrogen isn't exactly the magic wand that some are green wishing it to be. https://theconversation.com/blue-hydrogen-what-is-it-and-should-it-replace-natural-gas-166053 https://theconversation.com/blue-hydrogen-what-is-it-and-sho...
- petre 4y ago
  Stop spreading FUD. The risk of explosion is as as high as in gasoline powered cars, only H2 gets ventilated faster and burns without a visible flame.
  - KennyBlanken 4y ago
    The risk of gasoline 'explosion' (neither would be an explosion, it would be a fire) is higher with gasoline because its vapors are heavier than air and tend to pool on the ground and in structures.

jeremy_clarkson 4y ago

I think I share support for this argument and might have even posted it on HN previously. Basically, BEVs need to have huge batteries to sell well. Not because the consumer is actually using this huge battery to its full extent, but because otherwise the consumer will not buy the car due to range anxiety. This huge battery, of which maybe 1/4 or 1/3 is used throughout a day, is a huge inefficiency to manufacture and adds significantly to the CO2 footprint of BEVs. For a lot of people it might therefore make more sense to have a PHEV with a battery big enough for one day of driving, and a range extender, which ideally would not be used in day to day driving. The range extender is an ICE engine or gas turbine, which is made of more common materials. In the future it might even make sense to combine PHEV with synthetic fuels. The argument I heard against this is that people with PHEVs ignore the plug-in functionality and drive it on gas the whole time. But while this might be true, it does not counter the technical argument above. It is a completely other problem.

otherme123 4y ago
Prius isn't light either (1500 kg) vs Tesla 3 (1800). Funny how for the last 10 years the main problem for EV was low range, and now the problem is... too much range? Toyota is free to make PHEVs, people is free to buy PHEVs or EVs. We'll see who ends up being the Beta (claimed superior by fans but zero sells) and the VHS.
KennyBlanken 4y ago
> This huge battery, of which maybe 1/4 or 1/3 is used throughout a day, is a huge inefficiency to manufacture and adds significantly to the CO2 footprint of BEVs. No, it doesn't. This myth has been repeated over and over for twenty-plus years, as long as the Prius has been around. The CO2 footprint of the battery is dwarfed by the footprint of the car as a whole, and the in the case of a gasoline vehicle, its manufacturing footprint is dwarfed by its CO2 emissions: https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-a-mid-size-bev-and-ice-vehicle https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-l... A BEV is better for the environment after barely a year of usage: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifetime-carbon-emissions-electric-vehicles-vs-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/lifeti... There are other reasons for having a larger battery. For one, the larger the pack, the less wear on the pack; a smaller pack would be cycled more, and degrade sooner. Charge/discharge rates are a function of battery capacity. The higher the rate relative to the pack's capacity, the higher the wear on the battery.

_0w8t 4y ago

It is hard to expect a different answer from a person who works for a company heavily invested into hybrid cars. What he does not mention and what the war in Ukraine has shown again is that dependence on foreign oil is just bad. Any engine that consumes petrol or natural gas products prolongs that. A purely electrical car can use electricity from coal that is abundant and much more evenly distributed on the planet than oil and gas. Moreover, when an electrical car use electricity from the modern coal power plant, the end result is less CO2 per distance driven than the corresponding petrol car.

clouddrover 4y ago
> What he does not mention and what the war in Ukraine has shown again is that dependence on foreign oil is just bad. Make your own carbon neutral synthetic fuel. You're going to need jet fuel at the very least: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-10/efuel-plant-proposed-for-tasmanias-north-west/101223944 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-10/efuel-plant-proposed-...
- freemint 4y ago
  Or we will have to travel less or more slowly using solar zeppelins. Or battery powered plains with in the air charging using microwaved renewable battery. Or we need better batteries the necessary energy densities are hypothetically possible with a theoretical limit of 2,700 Wh/kg of Li-S https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsenergylett.9b02574 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsenergylett.9b02574 . Chnages to mission profile with Aerotowing for take-off might also help a lot.
  - clouddrover 4y ago
    It's not "or", it's "and". You can pootle along in the zeppelin. I'll take the jet.
    - Gud 4y ago
      The olden zeppelins hardly “pootled” though. They were doing 120kmh at cruise speed. Im sure with modern technology you could up those numbers to 200kmh+. Considering how bad flying is for the environment, I would gladly make the trade to arrive a bit later for a more comfortable, environmentally friendly ride. This coming from someone who flies 20+ times a year.

eckesicle 4y ago

After reading the headline my immediate reaction was that: "this scientist is going to try to make the case that PHEVs are the better choice". And of course, that's what he does. The fact is that Toyota has made a major misstep in focussing on PHEVs (plugin hybrids) instead of full electric vehicles and they've been spreading FUD about EVs for years now. I'm hardly an expert on this subject matter but just based on the fact that this man is from Toyota casts massive doubts on anything he says. I put exactly zero value to his claims given his obvious and massive conflict of interest.

KennyBlanken 4y ago
It really can't understated how little Toyota can be trusted here. They've been sending corporate propaganda to schools in what amounts to grooming children: https://electrek.co/2021/11/11/how-toyota-sneakily-spreads-anti-ev-propaganda-in-japan/ https://electrek.co/2021/11/11/how-toyota-sneakily-spreads-a...
- mavhc 4y ago
  "Self charging hybrid", that's all you need to know
- charcircuit 4y ago
  That reads as an article from a person who congests propaganda from the other side. Not everything is about not does everyone care about being carbon neutral. BEVs may have just been left out because they are unpopular. It makes sense to teach about common types of cars.
  - KennyBlanken 4y ago
    Yeah, I'm sure it's a total coincidence that Toyota is sending information pamphlets clearly targeting children, to schools, that mention every type of vehicle except BEVs, which Toyota is known to have lobbied against, in Japan, the US, and EU. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/toyota-lobbying-against-ev-adoption-151034380.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/toyota-lobbying-against-ev-ad... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/25/climate/toyota-electric-hydrogen.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/25/climate/toyota-electric-h... https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/07/toyota-bet-wrong-on-evs-so-now-its-lobbying-to-slow-the-transition/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/07/toyota-bet-wrong-on-evs... 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-... https://www.teslarati.com/toyota-slammed-european-funds-anti-ev-lobbying-efforts/ https://www.teslarati.com/toyota-slammed-european-funds-anti...

wokwokwok 4y ago

> So do you think the UK’s plan to end ICE sales in 2030 is too soon? > “I’m not sure. Of course, Toyota will comply with the law. But is the proposal the best way to reduce carbon? > I don’t know. Maybe in 15 and certainly in 20 years’ time, it could make sense. But in eight? I’m not so sure. Oh spare me. Yes, wouldn't it be nice if this could be someone else's problem in 20 years instead of my problem in 5. I get it, it's hard. Things are hard. Drastic action is hard. Doing mostly nothing for a long time while we slowly embrace change is very modest, thoughtful and relatively cheap and unrisky. Of course that's what he wants. It's his job to want that, and advocate for it. Let's wait. > the truth is that we don’t know what technologies are going to get us to the best way to rid ourselves of that CO2. Maybe someone will come up with technology to solve it. It's not impossible... and, it saves doing hard, risky work now. The question we should be asking isn't 'is it too soon?', it should be: Given that climate change seems to be rather catastrophic, what do you propose to do about it? Wait for someone else to solve the problem? No, I don't think that's an acceptable answer from the Toyota Research Institute CEO. EV's aren't a silver bullet... but I tell you what does not the fix the problem: making it someone else's problem. Suck it up. You work for Toyota ffs; ICE vehicles are what, 25% of emissions? It's not going to completely fix things, but hey, it'll help right? That's good right? Even if it's complicated, hard and risky? Yes. It is.

tim333 4y ago
I'm a Brit and I think it's too soon. This won't affect Toyota that much - some countries may ban ICEs and some not. But it'll be an expensive pain for us Brits if it happens. If you really want less emissions you should tax emissions and let the market figure the best way to achieve that rather than enforcing iffy tech choices.

wheybags 4y ago

The article completely fails to mention the issue of air quality in cities. One of the things I'm most looking forward to is walking around the city centre without getting diesel fumes blasted in my face.

ndsipa_pomu 4y ago
EVs aren't completely pollution free either. Their pollution comes from tyre wear and brake dust which is increased (compared to ICE vehicles) due to their increased weight. It might not be as immediately noticeable, but they're still turning the air dangerous. Edit: I hadn't thought about their use of regenerative braking which certainly reduces the amount of brake dust particulates. Found this literature review (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S135223101630187X?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13522...) that uses an estimate of zero braking for EVs and yet the increased tyre and road wear still makes the particulate pollution similar to ICE vehicles: By analysing the existing literature on non-exhaust emissions of different vehicle categories, this review found that there is a positive relationship between weight and non-exhaust PM emission factors. In addition, electric vehicles (EVs) were found to be 24% heavier than equivalent internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs). As a result, total PM10 emissions from EVs were found to be equal to those of modern ICEVs. PM2.5 emissions were only 1–3% lower for EVs compared to modern ICEVs. Therefore, it could be concluded that the increased popularity of electric vehicles will likely not have a great effect on PM levels. Non-exhaust emissions already account for over 90% of PM10 and 85% of PM2.5 emissions from traffic. These proportions will continue to increase as exhaust standards improve and average vehicle weight increases. Future policy should consequently focus on setting standards for non-exhaust emissions and encouraging weight reduction of all vehicles to significantly reduce PM emissions from traffic.
- ben-schaaf 4y ago
  Brake dust is vastly descreased due to use of regenerative braking. Hence why brakes last longer on EVs.
- tcfhgj 4y ago
  EVs don't break often with their break disks (if even available), because they can break with the motors and generate electricity. Though you're right, they aren't emission free

sk8terboi 4y ago

KingOfCoders 4y ago

EVs are the only answer because they are the most convenient ones. For commute with charging at home and at the office or shopping (charging at shopping center), no more trip to the gas station. Convenience always wins.

pjmlp 4y ago
Assuming one lives at a home with proper parking place, and work does provide parking facilities.

speedgoose 4y ago

Can we trust scientists paid by a corporation to be neutral? Especially when they say exactly the propaganda of the corporation?

mangecoeur 4y ago

I’m going with ‘figure 6’ of the discourses of climate delay : https://www.leolinne.com/?portfolio=discourses-of-climate-delay https://www.leolinne.com/?portfolio=discourses-of-climate-de...

2sk21 4y ago
Love this!

mattlondon 4y ago

They've been talking about hydrogen vehicles for ages. I remember stuff from the late 80s early 90s suggesting this is the future. Yet now I can think of only a single hydrogen fuel station in London (there are likely more but I am only aware of one), yet there are literally countless electric charging points all over the place now, and are starting to appear on on-street lamp posts now (see ubitricity et al), at least in London. It seems like hydrogen has an unassailable infrastructure issue, while EVs are getting increasingly more viable. I appreciate that lithium batteries are not especially eco friendly, but there is scope for new chemistries in the future so I would be reluctant to say that BEVs are "not the answer" because lithium.

theplumber 4y ago

This guy just is just a PR for Toyota PHEV/ICE engines. He talks about lack pf infrastucture and range anxiety like a reason to postpone the transition. Toyota still lives in denial. It's like they don't know Tesla and VW are manufacturing mass market EVs.

SyzygistSix 4y ago

I agree that PHEVs are an important part of the transition away from gasoline, especially in the short term. But it seems if Toyota really believed this, their PHEV Rav4 would be produced in a lot higher numbers. I'm pretty sure they could sell far more of those than they do. Availability is limited to two US states and even within those is quite limited. And we're still waiting on a hybrid 4Runner or Tacoma.

silverspoonin 4y ago
The PHEV Chrysler Pacifica & PHEV Mitsubishi Outlander came out 5 years ago, and the PHEV Volvo XC90 has been out 7 years. Meanwhile I'm still waiting for Toyota to sell a PHEV 3-row anything (Sienna, Highlander, whatever) in the US.

TedShiller 4y ago

Elons carbon footprint is huge

vkou 4y ago

He is correct. The answer to climate change is not the EV, it is the electric trolley, the electric train, the electric bus, the electric scooter, the electric bicycle. The EV, despite its many advantages over the ICE is still an incredibly resource, dollar, and space-intensive form of personal transportation.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

How can this guy sleep at night. The way he dances around the point clearly demonstrates he knows the argument well enough to know he's lying.

numpad0 4y ago

I don't understand why Toyota don't understand what it is about: the customers hate Toyota Prius. Customers and industries worldwide downplay and resist hybridization, and now electrification. Prius being a tangible bad experience explains huge bulk of it. My speculation is that they use negative sentiments associated with products to even out sales figures over generations, but that type of ignorance and arrogance were what led to complete destruction of Japanese flip phone hardware industry. iPhone don't dominate the current market because of its Unix-derived kernel for the operating system, nor because they integrate advanced linear actuators for haptic feedbacks. The way Toyota is thinking cars is the latter ways; they are gauging interest in parts it uses where customers have been moving away from its products. This might be a bad analogy but when the majority starts moving towards organic foods over engineered industrial foodstuffs, there must be something going wrong with the class of products at scale.

adev_ 4y ago

It is easy to fire on Toyota for defending their PHEV strategy... But that said: they are not fundamentally wrong. BEVs is not the unique magic solution to every transport problem (sorry Elon). Like usual, the reality is more complex than that. A French think tank named The shift project, also came to the conclusion that the fastest way to decarbonize and meet emission targets would currently not be BEV currently but switching globally to super-light ICE vehicle with very small engine and optimized consumption (consumption of less than 2.5L/100 km, meaning > 100mpg). A bit like Japanese Kei car. [1] And when you think about it, this is not crazy. BEV makes perfect sense in country like Norway, France, Switzerland or Canada where electricity is already very low carbon [2]. It does not if you consider most of the world: Poland, Australia, India, most of Africa and Japan has an electricity still running massively on coal, petrol and gas. It will takes several decade to change that and this is more than the lifetime of a car. Without even considering that many countries, including Japan, country of Toyota, do not have a power grid design to reload EV in individual home (100V, single phase low power network). That would take massive effort and an other few decades to change that. [3] Like always: There is clean and nice solutions on paper... And there is the reality kicking in the face Disclaimer: I do own an BEV because I do live in a country where electricity is low carbon. [1] https://theshiftproject.org/category/thematiques/transport/ https://theshiftproject.org/category/thematiques/transport/ [2] https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/CA-QC https://app.electricitymap.org/zone/CA-QC [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan

jqpabc123 4y ago

His opinion is built around one assumption --- that battery technology will remain stagnant and not advance much beyond lithium ion for the forseeable future. Assume otherwise and he starts to look more like an apologist for a company that is trying to recover from some bad marketing decisions. Toyota, I feel your pain but your place in the future is not a given. You have to earn it.

pjmlp 4y ago
Once upon a time Moore's law was also expect to never end, until it did.
- jqpabc123 4y ago
  Yes and just imagine where computing (and Intel) would be today if they had spent the last 50 years trying to slow progress instead of creating it --- because it might not be good for them. I wish Toyota well but the future doesn't wait for anyone. Either help create it or be crushed by it --- these are your options.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    Wishful thinking doesn't make technology happen out of nowhere.
    - jqpabc123 4y ago
      No, it doesn't. This is why extensive, high stakes research into battery technology is going on all around the world. Whoever comes up with a lighter, cheaper, safer battery will own a big chunk of the future --- and the auto industry in particular. Apparently, Toyota has decided it won't be them. The fun fact about the future is everyone gets to choose how they want to play it.
      - pjmlp 4y ago
        Keep wishing, it might turn into reality.

alex_young 4y ago

Lithium ion batteries aren’t without consequence. They’re made using rare, mined materials – in contrast, an engine is made using more common materials – and weigh a lot. This is pure BS. Lithium is extracted from water and it’s extraction process has about the environmental impact of turning topsoil. The rare earth metals in your catalytic converter alone have orders of magnitude greater impact. They rely on open pit mining in third world countries and directly pollute ground water and have very poor disposal options.

orwin 4y ago

Ok, so i was living in the countryside (in europe, so smaller farms and more density than the US), and managed to go without car for a bit more than year. I took the bus or biked to a small train station (45 minute bike ride) when i wanted to go visit friends living in "big cities" or to the beach, and went to the farm cooperative store to buy food (5 to 10 minutes by bike, 30 minutes by foot). If i get a full remote gig next year, i think i will go back there and invest in a kayak, i know there is no dam between that place and the village's country store. So yes, EV aren't the only answer. I don't think i need to ever buy a car.

jliptzin 4y ago

This guy is knocking EVs because they may draw power from a dirty grid in some parts of the world, therefore we should be selling more PHEVs? What a ridiculous argument. Of course he conveniently leaves out the trajectory we’re heading in, in most places the grid is becoming more green over time. Why not attack the dirty parts of the grid itself and advocate for more green power production there instead of EVs. This guy is just embarrassing himself. Also, Lithium is not rare, it is the first metal in the periodic table. It’s just a matter of scaling up mining/production to meet demand. And you don’t even need cobalt anymore, Tesla’s new 4680s don’t use any. This guy should know all that. He also talks about range anxiety which was a thing a few years ago but with so many charging stations all over the place and more coming online every day, and cars with higher range and fast charging. it’s not really a concern anymore and will be even less of a concern in the future.

fit2rule 4y ago