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What sort of a mega pack business does Toyota have? What are the long term prospects for their Robot? What tech is Toyota going to sell to other car companies t

What sort of a mega pack business does Toyota have? What are the long term prospects for their Robot? What tech is Toyota going to sell to other car companies to make money? Why is Toyota investing in hydrogen when it makes no sense? What is Toyota going to do about it's massive debt. These are some of the reasons Tesla is valued at what it is and Toyota is what IT is. Toyota has nothing exciting on the horizon that is going to dramatically change things for them. Not to mention they make a pittance per car compared to Tesla.

_hypx 3y ago
Hydrogen is a fundamental superior technology compared to batteries. If anything, Toyota is decades ahead of Tesla. Everything Tesla is aiming to do is just a pale imitation of what Toyota is already achieving.
- kelnos 3y ago
  And yet I've seen at most a handful of hydrogen-powered cars since they've been available commercially, and I've only once seen a refueling station for them. Superior technology -- assuming it is; I have no idea -- often doesn't win.
  - _hypx 3y ago
    The problem with that thinking is that BEVs are guaranteed to be more expensive in the long run. A hydrogen car is basically an EV minus the most expensive part. That is going to be a decisive advantage.
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  It's not fundamentally superior due to the challenge of storing hydrogen at high densities. It's superior in some cases where you have an existing pipeline network.
  - _hypx 3y ago
    Hydrogen storage has a higher density than li-ion batteries.
svnt 3y ago
Others discussed hydrogen. Frankly it seems to me to be a bad bet by Toyota. I assume they have better information than I do, but they also may have been prevented from a reasonable position on battery vs hydrogen by some internal politics or other dynamics. The robot: Tesla seems to have approximately reproduced the state of Japanese robotics in 2000 (Honda Asimo) using technology that has seriously advanced in twenty years. I am not qualified to say what the future value of that is, or why battery packs are a competitive advantage to something that never leaves the home. Tech to sell to other car companies: Humans run the other car companies. What will they do if they recognize a competitive threat with a technology advantage? Will they say “great, let’s buy that from our competitor since they’re clearly superior”? Or are they more likely to say something like “let’s figure out a way to neutralize or eliminate this advantage” and then go about doing it (even as a collective)? Tesla hired Toyota execs to build their manufacturing line. There is little chance that Toyota could not, if it could get out of its own way, do what Telsa is doing from a manufacturing and technology perspective. This to me suggests that others will, even if Toyota culturally cannot make it happen. The profit per vehicle available is primarily indicative of competition. Toyota is a mature company in a mature segment with a lot of competition. Tesla is entitled to those numbers as long as they can maintain them and stave off competition. Some people think they will be able to do that for a long time. I’m not one of them. Tesla’s barrier in justifying their market cap is not only the other car companies, of whom there are roughly a dozen with similar revenue or higher. In the process of capturing the value they are talking about, their competition becomes major portions of the structure of global markets in the energy and transportation sectors, at least.
- _hypx 3y ago
  Hydrogen is a fundamentally superior technology to batteries. It is Tesla that will eventually have to move on to fuel cell cars, not Toyota doing the other way around.
  - svnt 3y ago
    To which fundamentals are you referring? If you factor in production, transmission, and combustion, tank cycling, and failure modes, is it still superior?
FireBeyond 3y ago
> What tech is Toyota going to sell to other car companies to make money? What tech is Tesla going to sell to other car companies? Beyond allowing access to a charging network? Other manufacturers want as little to do with Tesla tech as possible.

_hypx 3y ago

Hydrogen is a fundamental superior technology compared to batteries. If anything, Toyota is decades ahead of Tesla. Everything Tesla is aiming to do is just a pale imitation of what Toyota is already achieving.

kelnos 3y ago
And yet I've seen at most a handful of hydrogen-powered cars since they've been available commercially, and I've only once seen a refueling station for them. Superior technology -- assuming it is; I have no idea -- often doesn't win.
- _hypx 3y ago
  The problem with that thinking is that BEVs are guaranteed to be more expensive in the long run. A hydrogen car is basically an EV minus the most expensive part. That is going to be a decisive advantage.
mensetmanusman 3y ago
It's not fundamentally superior due to the challenge of storing hydrogen at high densities. It's superior in some cases where you have an existing pipeline network.
- _hypx 3y ago
  Hydrogen storage has a higher density than li-ion batteries.

svnt 3y ago

Others discussed hydrogen. Frankly it seems to me to be a bad bet by Toyota. I assume they have better information than I do, but they also may have been prevented from a reasonable position on battery vs hydrogen by some internal politics or other dynamics. The robot: Tesla seems to have approximately reproduced the state of Japanese robotics in 2000 (Honda Asimo) using technology that has seriously advanced in twenty years. I am not qualified to say what the future value of that is, or why battery packs are a competitive advantage to something that never leaves the home. Tech to sell to other car companies: Humans run the other car companies. What will they do if they recognize a competitive threat with a technology advantage? Will they say “great, let’s buy that from our competitor since they’re clearly superior”? Or are they more likely to say something like “let’s figure out a way to neutralize or eliminate this advantage” and then go about doing it (even as a collective)? Tesla hired Toyota execs to build their manufacturing line. There is little chance that Toyota could not, if it could get out of its own way, do what Telsa is doing from a manufacturing and technology perspective. This to me suggests that others will, even if Toyota culturally cannot make it happen. The profit per vehicle available is primarily indicative of competition. Toyota is a mature company in a mature segment with a lot of competition. Tesla is entitled to those numbers as long as they can maintain them and stave off competition. Some people think they will be able to do that for a long time. I’m not one of them. Tesla’s barrier in justifying their market cap is not only the other car companies, of whom there are roughly a dozen with similar revenue or higher. In the process of capturing the value they are talking about, their competition becomes major portions of the structure of global markets in the energy and transportation sectors, at least.

_hypx 3y ago
Hydrogen is a fundamentally superior technology to batteries. It is Tesla that will eventually have to move on to fuel cell cars, not Toyota doing the other way around.
- svnt 3y ago
  To which fundamentals are you referring? If you factor in production, transmission, and combustion, tank cycling, and failure modes, is it still superior?

FireBeyond 3y ago

> What tech is Toyota going to sell to other car companies to make money? What tech is Tesla going to sell to other car companies? Beyond allowing access to a charging network? Other manufacturers want as little to do with Tesla tech as possible.