3 ms·

> Hybrids are not EVs. My statement that Toyota had EVs on the road before Tesla was born is not based on any degree of confusion between hybrids and EVs. htt

> Hybrids are not EVs. My statement that Toyota had EVs on the road before Tesla was born is not based on any degree of confusion between hybrids and EVs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV You can argue about specific capabilities, you could even argue about what it means that Toyota worked with Tesla on models in the 2010s. But whatever you think of Toyota's strategy since 1997, it was a choice, not a lack of capability, not ignoring the capacities of pure EV tech. As for whether they "screwed up," well, hybrids proved to be pretty popular, probably around twice as many of them sold as EVs through 2020ish, and Toyota dominated if not outright made that market. Even if hybrids eventually decline, that kind of win over two decades is something most businesses would take gladly, and my bet would be that hybrids will remain a non-trivial portion of the market even as EVs grow. There's going to be markets/applications where charging is inconvenient or unreliable for a while yet. Meanwhile, since (a) pure EVs are easier from an engineering standpoint and (b) Toyota has been making investments in the fundamental tech and engineering capacity for 25 years and (c) they're over a decade into plug-in hybrid territory (where the difference between hybrids and EVs gets especially narrow) and (d) their public roadmap has them ramping up ... I don't think the game they're playing is best described as "catch up" so much as "good timing." But hey, you want to bet on Tesla, be my guest. I thought it was a good bet myself 12 years ago, not sorry. Less so since 2020.

fallingknife 4y ago
They just got this one wrong. It's not complicated. https://electrek.co/2019/11/25/interview-toyotas-sales-and-marketing-chief-says-theres-no-demand-for-evs/ https://electrek.co/2019/11/25/interview-toyotas-sales-and-m...
- wwweston 4y ago
  Nothing in the link you provided contradicts anything I've claimed. Some of it contradicts your claims, though. It confirms that Toyota has been working on EVs, plugin, and hybrid simultaneously over the last 25-30 years but they thought hybrid was the correct strategy to lead with, and again, it made them a market, and nobody has any idea why you think that was somehow a bad plan for the two decades it sold them a lot of cars. And if you wanted to support some not-complicated just-wrong point, you should have picked something else, because Hollis is correct about many of their points in that article. Definitely regarding practical concerns surrounding refueling for many use cases / markets on a 2019-2024 horizon. And the author's closing paragraph where he basically insists the charge-at-night what-else-is-there-to-think-about use profile fixes all concerns makes him look as narrow as someone insisting fuel cells really should be taking off now any day now. Hollis's statements about EV demand are also essentially correct circa 2019. "No demand" overstates the point, but he's entirely accurate for his market when he says "demand for electric is less than it is on hybrid." 2018 and 2019 were the first years EVs really started to look competitive domestically and they were still lagging hybrid sales substantially (we're only now getting to the point where EVs sold are basically at parity with hybrids). And even there he's openly saying EVs are part of their roadmap but that they intend to follow demand, not try to lead it. If there's something Toyota was wrong about demonstrated by the article, it was their bet they could lead the market to pick up on the advantages of fuel cells like they led the market to gas-electric hybrids. I'm not even sure they were wrong about the advantages, but clearly they weren't able get the market to follow them. If that's what "they just got this one wrong, it's not complicated" really looks like to you, tell me some more areas in which I can bet against you.

fallingknife 4y ago

They just got this one wrong. It's not complicated. https://electrek.co/2019/11/25/interview-toyotas-sales-and-marketing-chief-says-theres-no-demand-for-evs/ https://electrek.co/2019/11/25/interview-toyotas-sales-and-m...

wwweston 4y ago
Nothing in the link you provided contradicts anything I've claimed. Some of it contradicts your claims, though. It confirms that Toyota has been working on EVs, plugin, and hybrid simultaneously over the last 25-30 years but they thought hybrid was the correct strategy to lead with, and again, it made them a market, and nobody has any idea why you think that was somehow a bad plan for the two decades it sold them a lot of cars. And if you wanted to support some not-complicated just-wrong point, you should have picked something else, because Hollis is correct about many of their points in that article. Definitely regarding practical concerns surrounding refueling for many use cases / markets on a 2019-2024 horizon. And the author's closing paragraph where he basically insists the charge-at-night what-else-is-there-to-think-about use profile fixes all concerns makes him look as narrow as someone insisting fuel cells really should be taking off now any day now. Hollis's statements about EV demand are also essentially correct circa 2019. "No demand" overstates the point, but he's entirely accurate for his market when he says "demand for electric is less than it is on hybrid." 2018 and 2019 were the first years EVs really started to look competitive domestically and they were still lagging hybrid sales substantially (we're only now getting to the point where EVs sold are basically at parity with hybrids). And even there he's openly saying EVs are part of their roadmap but that they intend to follow demand, not try to lead it. If there's something Toyota was wrong about demonstrated by the article, it was their bet they could lead the market to pick up on the advantages of fuel cells like they led the market to gas-electric hybrids. I'm not even sure they were wrong about the advantages, but clearly they weren't able get the market to follow them. If that's what "they just got this one wrong, it's not complicated" really looks like to you, tell me some more areas in which I can bet against you.