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As a rule, anytime anyone claims anything about the desires of "the silent majority", they're employing a dishonest rhetorical tactic in order to make their own

by kibwen 4y ago

As a rule, anytime anyone claims anything about the desires of "the silent majority", they're employing a dishonest rhetorical tactic in order to make their own unpopular desires seem more popular than they really are. In this case, it's transparently obvious that Toyota is regretting wasting the past 30 years foregoing battery research in favor of their hydrogen boondoggle.

PM_me_your_math 4y ago
Such a generalization is a far worse crime. From the perspective of the USA, the fact remains that we are right on the line of consuming more power than we generate, yet we've made building and operating new power generation facilities unfeasible for mercurial reasons. It takes just one winter storm to trigger rolling blackouts. That should not happen in a modern civilization. I fail to see the reasoning behind the EV push, not only from a supply standpoint, but an environmental one, as well. How can we expect the grid to go from handling around 2,000,000 EV to 250,000,000 just in under 10 years? And how much strip mining will nations (mostly China) need to do to create (non-recyclable) EV batteries? When the Gov of CA tells you that you can't buy a ICE vehicle, that only EVs will be allowed to be sold, but then in the next breath, tells you not to charge your EVs, you have to ask yourself if what you're advocating for falls within the realm of sanity or lunacy. Akio Toyoda recognizes this. It is physically impossible without a complete rework of the grid, new power stations, and a network of charging stations that rival the network of gas stations, untold reserves of rare earth minerals, and a host of other concerns managed ...all in under 10 years. The infrastructure isn't there. The money isn't there. The generation isn't there. The rare earth minerals aren't there and we'd have to destroy large parts of earth's surface to find them with no guarantee of success, PLUS use incredible amounts of electricity and diesel fuel to mine, transport, and process those minerals. Terrible priorities and terrible long-term leadership got us here. We're careening head-long into a man-made disaster on a civilization scale.
- falcolas 4y ago
  Our power grids have to do load shedding in both the summer and the winter. It’s fair to say that we’re well past the past that generation/consumption line.
ojr 4y ago
electric cars cost way too much, homeownership is harder than ever, its hard to see an economy where people are buying a lot of expensive electric cars in bulk in the near future
sn0w_crash 4y ago
As a rule, anytime an intellectual attempts to carpet-bomb someone’s argument with “as a rule”, i just stop reading.
goalieca 4y ago
Funny because EV is a losing strategy if everyone tries to get giant long-range batteries. Resourcing that many minerals is quite a problem. Small batteries and hybrid for long trips might be the winner after all. 95% of car trips are already under 30 miles which would be well served by something like the Prius prime which has electric only for that distance.
rospaya 4y ago
> Toyota is regretting wasting the past 30 years foregoing battery research That's true. But EVs have a massive infrastructure problem in developing countries which won't be fixed anytime soon or even ever, and somebody has to make cars for them as well.
- Reason077 4y ago
  > ”EVs have a massive infrastructure problem in developing countries which won't be fixed anytime soon or even ever” Thailand has just gone from near-zero charging infrastructure to nationwide fast charging networks and being the leading country in South-east Asia for EV sales, in about 2 years. It doesn’t take long to turn things around once the right policies and incentives are in place.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- sn0wf1re 4y ago
  I've never understood the infrastructure argument for Hydrogen vs Battery. Electricity is ubiquitous in many places in the world and can be made in situ. One can argue that there will need to be a lot of infrastructure upgrades for the power demand, but that is needed for the slightly less efficient hydrogen electrolysis as well. I see developing countries continue to do what they have already been doing; using smaller, more efficient vehicles including bikes (both motorized and non), and shared transport methods.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  If you saw any of the video's where many of the EV Chargers across the US broke (including a few of the famously reliable Tesla's) due to winter cold I think it is more than just a problem for developing nations. Charging networks in the US need ALOT of work, and it appears the stations can not even properly report there outages as there are countless stories of charging spots being reported by the apps as operational only for the EV driver to find them unusable on arrival. BEV's have a long way to go to build trust with cold weather drivers, and for me this winter has removed any desire I had to buy a BEV in the coming year.
gjsman-1000 4y ago
I’m not so sure. If I was an auto executive, and talked to other auto executives, they are never going to go on-the-record with me without a long arduous legal department review. But if many of them do express doubts, what else can I say? It’s the only thing I can say even if you don’t like the rhetorical appeal.
- hattmall 4y ago
  It's not really that silent though, it's just that for it to be a majority many of them aren't speaking publicly. Power companies are very much sounding the alarm that increased electrical demand generated by the asymmetrical loads of widespread EVs are not reasonably achievable. Car executives are much more reluctant to speak out because there is a lot of near term money and clout in EVs.
- lazide 4y ago
  Using data generally makes sense, or identifying specific reasons. If folks have lots of vague ‘but everyone really just doesn’t like it, but won’t say it’, it’s more generally just grousing about something uncomfortable but perhaps inevitable.
- kibwen 4y ago
  Except that this is a completely information-free statement. I can claim that the silent majority of people are fond of mixing human hair and feces into their tuna casseroles, but they're all too embarrassed to admit it. It's a rhetorical tactic that is deliberately designed to resist any request to provide evidence. It's a hallmark tactic of bullshitters.
  - gjsman-1000 4y ago
    I can also say the silent majority of people think people who don’t brush their teeth this morning are gross. “Silent majority” is often used as a BS tactic because it doesn’t say anything about the truth or falsehood of a claim - yet, the underlying claim could still be true. Don’t make the logical mistake of assuming “silent majority” claims are automatically “likely false.” In which case, perhaps this article could be retitled to the exact same thing but with less use of the “tactic”: Toyota CEO talks to other carmakers, warns many of them are cautious on EVs.
itsoktocry 4y ago
>"As a rule" Uh, okay. That Toyota has no foresight or the belief that they haven't invested billions in the future of the auto industry - hydrogen and EV - sounds like an "unpopular desire" of your own.
- newZWhoDis 4y ago
  I’ve been arguing this online for 15 years at this point and I no longer mince words on this topic: Hydrogen is a fucking scam pushed by the oil industry when they thought EV would never happen, it was a way to delay regulation now because “hydrogen is coming”, when it never really is. They thought they could dangle the hydrogen carrot and just keep riding their oil infra into the ground, and Tesla screwed all that up.
- kibwen 4y ago
  No, hydrogen's failings have been well-documented. Toyota has been working on this since the 90s and snapping up all the parents in the false hope that they can corner a burgeoning market. Unfortunately for them, hydrogen-powered cars are a technological dead end.
hzhsbsbsh 4y ago
There are no EV downsides? EV cars are awful in snow and hanging out at the charger station gets old fast.
- belltaco 4y ago
  >hanging out at the charger station gets old fast On the other hand, a lot of people can charge an EV at home, but you cannot fill gas at home.
  - rascul 4y ago
    You can. You'll need a tank and a pump and a company that will deliver. It's more commonly done (that I've seen) with diesel for farms, but I've come across people who do it for gasoline also. From what I understand, they can get a better price per gallon. I'm sure there's some laws and regulations around it but it is certainly feasible. At least in the USA.
- gaganyaan 4y ago
  Why would you try to spread obvious lies like this? Have you ever actually tried driving an EV in snow? I literally just got home from driving my EV around in the snow and it handled great. I also rarely charge anywhere other than a regular 110V line at home, no need for hanging out at any charger station. Please stop spreading misinformation.
- browningstreet 4y ago
  I live in Tahoe, I charge at home using a regular plug. I road trip pretty regularly. It’s not an issue at all.
- kibwen 4y ago
  This is a straw man. Nobody's claiming EVs don't have downsides. However, the downside of fossil fuels is that they're destroying our biosphere, and the downside of hydrogen is that it's physically infeasible. By all means, forego a car entirely and ride a bike if you can get away with it.
y0ssar1an 4y ago
Toyota is in last place in the EV race. It's going as well for them as the smartphone transition went for Nokia.
groby_b 4y ago
As a rule, research may be appropriate. A quick back-of-the-envelope makes clear that a pure EV future that's structured similarly to what exists today isn't viable. There's ~1.44B cars world wide. Replace them all with EVs, and you and up using something around 130MT of copper just for the cars. Currently commercially viable copper reserves are around ~900MT. Given that you also need a charger infrastructure, and that humanity has a few other uses for copper, that's problematic. Thinking about alternatives besides copper-based cars is simply hedging their bets. And while not all car manufacturers have a hydrogen hedge at hand, they all employ plenty of people who can do the basic math above. EV only is not going to happen without significant shifts either reducing total number of cars by a large number, or reducing the amount of copper needed by a large number. Clearly, car makers don't care about option 1, and there are not that many option 2 alternatives.
- svnt 4y ago
  Your argument is that because initial EV designs haven’t immediately solved all the problems necessary for global replacement of ICEs overnight, it can’t happen? “Not that many” alternative metals? Alloys are everywhere.
  - groby_b 4y ago
    My argument (and that of the car industry, behind closed doors, fwiw) is that we're not going to see an all-EV future any time soon, and that you need to hedge your bets. Also, resource shortages are not a problem you easily engineer yourself out. You need copper. (What do you think is the major component of those alloys?). Conductivity requires copper or silver, and, well, copper is the cheap and plentiful one. Sure, make copper/zinc alloys, but that's not reducing the fundamental need for resources that are scarce at this scale. (Well, scarce when looked at through a commercial viability lens. If we revolutionize copper mining, things look different. But, just in terms of sustainability, what do you think that will look like? And, yes, "asteroid mining". Which will not happen in the next 20 years, either) So, no, within the next few decades, the chances for a global EV future aren't high enough to bet a company on it. You can bet on luxury/status EVs. There's even a good chance a large percentage of freight in industrialized countries might move to EV. But unless you're a boutique car maker, you have a much wider audience than that. And you need to plan for that.

by kibwen 4y ago

PM_me_your_math 4y ago

Such a generalization is a far worse crime. From the perspective of the USA, the fact remains that we are right on the line of consuming more power than we generate, yet we've made building and operating new power generation facilities unfeasible for mercurial reasons. It takes just one winter storm to trigger rolling blackouts. That should not happen in a modern civilization. I fail to see the reasoning behind the EV push, not only from a supply standpoint, but an environmental one, as well. How can we expect the grid to go from handling around 2,000,000 EV to 250,000,000 just in under 10 years? And how much strip mining will nations (mostly China) need to do to create (non-recyclable) EV batteries? When the Gov of CA tells you that you can't buy a ICE vehicle, that only EVs will be allowed to be sold, but then in the next breath, tells you not to charge your EVs, you have to ask yourself if what you're advocating for falls within the realm of sanity or lunacy. Akio Toyoda recognizes this. It is physically impossible without a complete rework of the grid, new power stations, and a network of charging stations that rival the network of gas stations, untold reserves of rare earth minerals, and a host of other concerns managed ...all in under 10 years. The infrastructure isn't there. The money isn't there. The generation isn't there. The rare earth minerals aren't there and we'd have to destroy large parts of earth's surface to find them with no guarantee of success, PLUS use incredible amounts of electricity and diesel fuel to mine, transport, and process those minerals. Terrible priorities and terrible long-term leadership got us here. We're careening head-long into a man-made disaster on a civilization scale.

falcolas 4y ago
Our power grids have to do load shedding in both the summer and the winter. It’s fair to say that we’re well past the past that generation/consumption line.

ojr 4y ago

electric cars cost way too much, homeownership is harder than ever, its hard to see an economy where people are buying a lot of expensive electric cars in bulk in the near future

sn0w_crash 4y ago

As a rule, anytime an intellectual attempts to carpet-bomb someone’s argument with “as a rule”, i just stop reading.

goalieca 4y ago

Funny because EV is a losing strategy if everyone tries to get giant long-range batteries. Resourcing that many minerals is quite a problem. Small batteries and hybrid for long trips might be the winner after all. 95% of car trips are already under 30 miles which would be well served by something like the Prius prime which has electric only for that distance.

rospaya 4y ago

> Toyota is regretting wasting the past 30 years foregoing battery research That's true. But EVs have a massive infrastructure problem in developing countries which won't be fixed anytime soon or even ever, and somebody has to make cars for them as well.

Reason077 4y ago
> ”EVs have a massive infrastructure problem in developing countries which won't be fixed anytime soon or even ever” Thailand has just gone from near-zero charging infrastructure to nationwide fast charging networks and being the leading country in South-east Asia for EV sales, in about 2 years. It doesn’t take long to turn things around once the right policies and incentives are in place.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
sn0wf1re 4y ago
I've never understood the infrastructure argument for Hydrogen vs Battery. Electricity is ubiquitous in many places in the world and can be made in situ. One can argue that there will need to be a lot of infrastructure upgrades for the power demand, but that is needed for the slightly less efficient hydrogen electrolysis as well. I see developing countries continue to do what they have already been doing; using smaller, more efficient vehicles including bikes (both motorized and non), and shared transport methods.
phpisthebest 4y ago
If you saw any of the video's where many of the EV Chargers across the US broke (including a few of the famously reliable Tesla's) due to winter cold I think it is more than just a problem for developing nations. Charging networks in the US need ALOT of work, and it appears the stations can not even properly report there outages as there are countless stories of charging spots being reported by the apps as operational only for the EV driver to find them unusable on arrival. BEV's have a long way to go to build trust with cold weather drivers, and for me this winter has removed any desire I had to buy a BEV in the coming year.

gjsman-1000 4y ago

I’m not so sure. If I was an auto executive, and talked to other auto executives, they are never going to go on-the-record with me without a long arduous legal department review. But if many of them do express doubts, what else can I say? It’s the only thing I can say even if you don’t like the rhetorical appeal.

hattmall 4y ago
It's not really that silent though, it's just that for it to be a majority many of them aren't speaking publicly. Power companies are very much sounding the alarm that increased electrical demand generated by the asymmetrical loads of widespread EVs are not reasonably achievable. Car executives are much more reluctant to speak out because there is a lot of near term money and clout in EVs.
lazide 4y ago
Using data generally makes sense, or identifying specific reasons. If folks have lots of vague ‘but everyone really just doesn’t like it, but won’t say it’, it’s more generally just grousing about something uncomfortable but perhaps inevitable.
kibwen 4y ago
Except that this is a completely information-free statement. I can claim that the silent majority of people are fond of mixing human hair and feces into their tuna casseroles, but they're all too embarrassed to admit it. It's a rhetorical tactic that is deliberately designed to resist any request to provide evidence. It's a hallmark tactic of bullshitters.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  I can also say the silent majority of people think people who don’t brush their teeth this morning are gross. “Silent majority” is often used as a BS tactic because it doesn’t say anything about the truth or falsehood of a claim - yet, the underlying claim could still be true. Don’t make the logical mistake of assuming “silent majority” claims are automatically “likely false.” In which case, perhaps this article could be retitled to the exact same thing but with less use of the “tactic”: Toyota CEO talks to other carmakers, warns many of them are cautious on EVs.

itsoktocry 4y ago

>"As a rule" Uh, okay. That Toyota has no foresight or the belief that they haven't invested billions in the future of the auto industry - hydrogen and EV - sounds like an "unpopular desire" of your own.

newZWhoDis 4y ago
I’ve been arguing this online for 15 years at this point and I no longer mince words on this topic: Hydrogen is a fucking scam pushed by the oil industry when they thought EV would never happen, it was a way to delay regulation now because “hydrogen is coming”, when it never really is. They thought they could dangle the hydrogen carrot and just keep riding their oil infra into the ground, and Tesla screwed all that up.
kibwen 4y ago
No, hydrogen's failings have been well-documented. Toyota has been working on this since the 90s and snapping up all the parents in the false hope that they can corner a burgeoning market. Unfortunately for them, hydrogen-powered cars are a technological dead end.

hzhsbsbsh 4y ago

There are no EV downsides? EV cars are awful in snow and hanging out at the charger station gets old fast.

belltaco 4y ago
>hanging out at the charger station gets old fast On the other hand, a lot of people can charge an EV at home, but you cannot fill gas at home.
- rascul 4y ago
  You can. You'll need a tank and a pump and a company that will deliver. It's more commonly done (that I've seen) with diesel for farms, but I've come across people who do it for gasoline also. From what I understand, they can get a better price per gallon. I'm sure there's some laws and regulations around it but it is certainly feasible. At least in the USA.
gaganyaan 4y ago
Why would you try to spread obvious lies like this? Have you ever actually tried driving an EV in snow? I literally just got home from driving my EV around in the snow and it handled great. I also rarely charge anywhere other than a regular 110V line at home, no need for hanging out at any charger station. Please stop spreading misinformation.
browningstreet 4y ago
I live in Tahoe, I charge at home using a regular plug. I road trip pretty regularly. It’s not an issue at all.
kibwen 4y ago
This is a straw man. Nobody's claiming EVs don't have downsides. However, the downside of fossil fuels is that they're destroying our biosphere, and the downside of hydrogen is that it's physically infeasible. By all means, forego a car entirely and ride a bike if you can get away with it.

y0ssar1an 4y ago

Toyota is in last place in the EV race. It's going as well for them as the smartphone transition went for Nokia.

groby_b 4y ago

As a rule, research may be appropriate. A quick back-of-the-envelope makes clear that a pure EV future that's structured similarly to what exists today isn't viable. There's ~1.44B cars world wide. Replace them all with EVs, and you and up using something around 130MT of copper just for the cars. Currently commercially viable copper reserves are around ~900MT. Given that you also need a charger infrastructure, and that humanity has a few other uses for copper, that's problematic. Thinking about alternatives besides copper-based cars is simply hedging their bets. And while not all car manufacturers have a hydrogen hedge at hand, they all employ plenty of people who can do the basic math above. EV only is not going to happen without significant shifts either reducing total number of cars by a large number, or reducing the amount of copper needed by a large number. Clearly, car makers don't care about option 1, and there are not that many option 2 alternatives.

svnt 4y ago
Your argument is that because initial EV designs haven’t immediately solved all the problems necessary for global replacement of ICEs overnight, it can’t happen? “Not that many” alternative metals? Alloys are everywhere.
- groby_b 4y ago
  My argument (and that of the car industry, behind closed doors, fwiw) is that we're not going to see an all-EV future any time soon, and that you need to hedge your bets. Also, resource shortages are not a problem you easily engineer yourself out. You need copper. (What do you think is the major component of those alloys?). Conductivity requires copper or silver, and, well, copper is the cheap and plentiful one. Sure, make copper/zinc alloys, but that's not reducing the fundamental need for resources that are scarce at this scale. (Well, scarce when looked at through a commercial viability lens. If we revolutionize copper mining, things look different. But, just in terms of sustainability, what do you think that will look like? And, yes, "asteroid mining". Which will not happen in the next 20 years, either) So, no, within the next few decades, the chances for a global EV future aren't high enough to bet a company on it. You can bet on luxury/status EVs. There's even a good chance a large percentage of freight in industrialized countries might move to EV. But unless you're a boutique car maker, you have a much wider audience than that. And you need to plan for that.