7 ms·

Toyota is one of the top innovators in the world when it comes to manufacturing. The reason Tesla is able to produce millions of Model 3 is partly because they

Toyota is one of the top innovators in the world when it comes to manufacturing. The reason Tesla is able to produce millions of Model 3 is partly because they are applying the lessons learned from the Toyota production system (TPS). Toyota have a lot of experience of electrification, they just have not produced a lot of vehicles with a charging plug. Toyota will deliver EVs that good enough to compete with all other manufacturers and their EVs will come with the hallmark Toyota reliability. The reason that their current EVs have so low range is pure conservatism from their side. The batteries are over provisioned and the current iterations of EVs are more of a Prime without the gas engine than a pure EV platform. They are the tortoise. Be wary of betting against them.

acdha 3y ago
Nobody is saying they don’t have a good history or tons of resources but company leadership is not a constant. They blew a multi-decade lead and do not appear to be reacting well enough to catch up – likely because their senior people need to admit that their hydrogen gamble failed, which is hard enough even when it doesn’t involve multi-billion dollar write-offs. This is especially so because hydrogen worked out exactly how basically everyone else predicted it would when they made that bet, so they can’t claim nobody could have foreseen this outcome.
- _hypx 3y ago
  This is BEV propaganda. Toyota's hydrogen bet has yet to be even tested. There is a very good chance that batteries get disrupted by hydrogen. In that scenario, almost everyone is decades behind Toyota.
  - wlesieutre 3y ago
    Tesla wanted BEVs to happen, so they built their own nationwide charging network. Toyota wants hydrogen vehicles to happen, so they've sat around hoping someone else solves the refueling network problem for them. So far this strategy hasn't worked out. Are there any signs of that changing?
    - _hypx 3y ago
      Toyota does not live by the timeline of Tesla. It reminds me of the time the Germans became obsessed with diesel whereas Toyota focused on longer term projects. It did not end well for the German car companies. There's a good chance that Tesla's short-term strategy ends up not mattering.
      - wlesieutre 3y ago
        If the mass adoption of BEV passenger vehicles makes hydrogen fueling stations economically infeasible, then Toyota does live by the timeline of Tesla. https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/two-of-londons-three-hydrogen-filling-stations-will-close-this-month-due-to-insufficient-demand/2-1-1445060 https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/two-of-londons-thr... Hydrogen in the US feels destined for trucking and heavy industry if it sees success anywhere, but hydrogen filling stations at truck stops aren't going to sell a lot of Mirais.
        _hypx 3y ago
        Diesel cars at one point made up the majority of European car sales before collapsing. This is still short-sighted thinking. People really need to stop thinking about current market position and start thinking about the conclusion of each technology. Just like how diesel ultimately led to another fossil fuel burning ICE car, BEVs only lead to heavy and expensive vehicles that are highly dependent on exotic metals. What is the solution to that last problem? It has to be a vehicle that is both zero emissions and doesn’t have weight and resource dependency problems. If you think in that way, you pretty much always end up with a hydrogen powered car of some sort.
        willmadden 3y ago
        Those metals may not be so exotic after all. https://www.thestreet.com/travel/a-1-5-trillion-discovery-was-just-made-in-the-middle-of-a-nevada-supervolcano https://www.thestreet.com/travel/a-1-5-trillion-discovery-wa...
        3y ago
  - acdha 3y ago
    Something you can just look at being used in the real world can’t be propaganda. I know people who have been driving BEVs for over a decade and while they’d be the first to tell you there are real problems (e.g. long road trips) but it’s a commodity technology they’ve been using, so clearly it works for many people. Since people have been using them all over the world at scale, you can get reliable data on how it’s working for any particular question. Contrast that with hydrogen, which is only barely out of prototype stage with extremely limited availability. The Toyota Mirai is the most successful with around 21k units sold total since 2014 - 3 full orders of magnitude lower than Toyota’s annual sales count, or the total BEV sales. Now, it’s possible that things will pick up if there are some big improvements in cost and availability but that’s a huge if since it requires major advances in multiple areas just to become competitive with BEVs: it’s not just price but especially fueling - batteries are slower to charge but electricity is available almost everywhere so your plan B is a lot better than needing a tow if anything goes wrong with the one station you were planning to refuel at in the few regions which have any stations at all. Again, that’s not intractable but it’s a much harder chicken-and-egg problem, especially as long as it relies on customers choosing to lock in higher costs and significant restrictions. Environmentalists care about the result, not the technology, so they’re just going to buy an BEV if they aren’t riding an e-bike.
    - _hypx 3y ago
      People who have actually driven FCEVs will tell you they work basically identical to BEVs. They make it a point to mention that there are no problems with the cars themselves. In reality, the moment hydrogen becomes comparably as cheap and available as gasoline or diesel, it is likely the end of the BEV. It is the availability of fuel that is the fundamental problem right now.
      - theshrike79 3y ago
        The availability will be the biggest problem for the next decade, unless governments force it with huge subsidies. The EU has mandated that every "major highway" must have a H2 depot every 2-300km, can't remember exactly. But still you need to get it made somewhere, preferably not from natural gas, because that's just stupid. It needs to be transported to a station, by truck, on a regular schedule or it'll stop working. Compared to EV chargers which are, in essence, glorified power outlets.
rasz 3y ago
Craftsmanship? Yes. Conservatism and playing it safe resulting in overbuilding and longevity? Yes. Management? Disaster! Here is one of their more recent ~$1B blunders "How Japan's Greatest Supercar Flourished and Failed" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdVWKpqZaXg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdVWKpqZaXg LFA was delayed by at least 5 years and released just as Toyota announced pulling out of F1 in December 2009 after spending $1.6B there with no wins. Probably the reason they stopped developing sports cars altogether and resigned to reselling repackaged Subarus and BMW.
jbm 3y ago
My post above included a gas car (the Sienna) which is backordered for years in my country (Canada). There is obviously some kind of breakdown in the way their company is run; how else can you leave that many customers waiting for that period of time? The pandemic is not an excuse anymore. I have no confidence they will successfully produce an EV with the classic Toyota reliability because of the software piece. It's completely wrong to call them the tortise, they are the hare. They took their nap, and now have a very different field to race on; one in which Hyundai is suddenly a strong competitor with years of practical experience - without domestic politics restricting them to daydreaming about Hydrogen. I hope they surprise me, because I still love my 2016 Sienna. On a related note, before I bought my Model 3, I went for a test drive at the Subaru dealership. The dealer specifically told me that, if I really wanted an electric car, I should go with Tesla because "Toyota will never get an equivalent charging network going here".
- _hypx 3y ago
  You're just being brainwashed by BEV propaganda. It is not a sustainable solution and does not work for the majority of car buyers. There will come a day when we will laugh at your decision in the same way we laugh at the diesel car. Ethanol/flexfuel cars in the US too. Eventually, everyone will be forced to scale back or outright abandon BEVs, and adopt the next wave of technology such as FCEVs or some other type of hydrogen car.
  - jbm 3y ago
    OK, let's take the fact that I'm brainwashed while you are a free thinking sovereign citizen who just understands reality better than everyone else for granted. The fact remains that they can't sell me a new car and deliveries are years out - so I'm a brainwashed person who tried to buy a gas minivan and was told that it wasn't available. Or did I just imagine that? If you'd like, you can contact Stampede Toyota (https://www.toyota.ca/toyota/en/dealer/14058 https://www.toyota.ca/toyota/en/dealer/14058) and have a discussion with them if you feel I'm lying to you
    - _hypx 3y ago

acdha 3y ago

Nobody is saying they don’t have a good history or tons of resources but company leadership is not a constant. They blew a multi-decade lead and do not appear to be reacting well enough to catch up – likely because their senior people need to admit that their hydrogen gamble failed, which is hard enough even when it doesn’t involve multi-billion dollar write-offs. This is especially so because hydrogen worked out exactly how basically everyone else predicted it would when they made that bet, so they can’t claim nobody could have foreseen this outcome.

_hypx 3y ago
This is BEV propaganda. Toyota's hydrogen bet has yet to be even tested. There is a very good chance that batteries get disrupted by hydrogen. In that scenario, almost everyone is decades behind Toyota.
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  Tesla wanted BEVs to happen, so they built their own nationwide charging network. Toyota wants hydrogen vehicles to happen, so they've sat around hoping someone else solves the refueling network problem for them. So far this strategy hasn't worked out. Are there any signs of that changing?
  - _hypx 3y ago
    Toyota does not live by the timeline of Tesla. It reminds me of the time the Germans became obsessed with diesel whereas Toyota focused on longer term projects. It did not end well for the German car companies. There's a good chance that Tesla's short-term strategy ends up not mattering.
    - wlesieutre 3y ago
      If the mass adoption of BEV passenger vehicles makes hydrogen fueling stations economically infeasible, then Toyota does live by the timeline of Tesla. https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/two-of-londons-three-hydrogen-filling-stations-will-close-this-month-due-to-insufficient-demand/2-1-1445060 https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/two-of-londons-thr... Hydrogen in the US feels destined for trucking and heavy industry if it sees success anywhere, but hydrogen filling stations at truck stops aren't going to sell a lot of Mirais.
      - _hypx 3y ago
        Diesel cars at one point made up the majority of European car sales before collapsing. This is still short-sighted thinking. People really need to stop thinking about current market position and start thinking about the conclusion of each technology. Just like how diesel ultimately led to another fossil fuel burning ICE car, BEVs only lead to heavy and expensive vehicles that are highly dependent on exotic metals. What is the solution to that last problem? It has to be a vehicle that is both zero emissions and doesn’t have weight and resource dependency problems. If you think in that way, you pretty much always end up with a hydrogen powered car of some sort.
        willmadden 3y ago
        Those metals may not be so exotic after all. https://www.thestreet.com/travel/a-1-5-trillion-discovery-was-just-made-in-the-middle-of-a-nevada-supervolcano https://www.thestreet.com/travel/a-1-5-trillion-discovery-wa...
        3y ago
- acdha 3y ago
  Something you can just look at being used in the real world can’t be propaganda. I know people who have been driving BEVs for over a decade and while they’d be the first to tell you there are real problems (e.g. long road trips) but it’s a commodity technology they’ve been using, so clearly it works for many people. Since people have been using them all over the world at scale, you can get reliable data on how it’s working for any particular question. Contrast that with hydrogen, which is only barely out of prototype stage with extremely limited availability. The Toyota Mirai is the most successful with around 21k units sold total since 2014 - 3 full orders of magnitude lower than Toyota’s annual sales count, or the total BEV sales. Now, it’s possible that things will pick up if there are some big improvements in cost and availability but that’s a huge if since it requires major advances in multiple areas just to become competitive with BEVs: it’s not just price but especially fueling - batteries are slower to charge but electricity is available almost everywhere so your plan B is a lot better than needing a tow if anything goes wrong with the one station you were planning to refuel at in the few regions which have any stations at all. Again, that’s not intractable but it’s a much harder chicken-and-egg problem, especially as long as it relies on customers choosing to lock in higher costs and significant restrictions. Environmentalists care about the result, not the technology, so they’re just going to buy an BEV if they aren’t riding an e-bike.
  - _hypx 3y ago
    People who have actually driven FCEVs will tell you they work basically identical to BEVs. They make it a point to mention that there are no problems with the cars themselves. In reality, the moment hydrogen becomes comparably as cheap and available as gasoline or diesel, it is likely the end of the BEV. It is the availability of fuel that is the fundamental problem right now.
    - theshrike79 3y ago
      The availability will be the biggest problem for the next decade, unless governments force it with huge subsidies. The EU has mandated that every "major highway" must have a H2 depot every 2-300km, can't remember exactly. But still you need to get it made somewhere, preferably not from natural gas, because that's just stupid. It needs to be transported to a station, by truck, on a regular schedule or it'll stop working. Compared to EV chargers which are, in essence, glorified power outlets.

rasz 3y ago

Craftsmanship? Yes. Conservatism and playing it safe resulting in overbuilding and longevity? Yes. Management? Disaster! Here is one of their more recent ~$1B blunders "How Japan's Greatest Supercar Flourished and Failed" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdVWKpqZaXg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdVWKpqZaXg LFA was delayed by at least 5 years and released just as Toyota announced pulling out of F1 in December 2009 after spending $1.6B there with no wins. Probably the reason they stopped developing sports cars altogether and resigned to reselling repackaged Subarus and BMW.

jbm 3y ago

My post above included a gas car (the Sienna) which is backordered for years in my country (Canada). There is obviously some kind of breakdown in the way their company is run; how else can you leave that many customers waiting for that period of time? The pandemic is not an excuse anymore. I have no confidence they will successfully produce an EV with the classic Toyota reliability because of the software piece. It's completely wrong to call them the tortise, they are the hare. They took their nap, and now have a very different field to race on; one in which Hyundai is suddenly a strong competitor with years of practical experience - without domestic politics restricting them to daydreaming about Hydrogen. I hope they surprise me, because I still love my 2016 Sienna. On a related note, before I bought my Model 3, I went for a test drive at the Subaru dealership. The dealer specifically told me that, if I really wanted an electric car, I should go with Tesla because "Toyota will never get an equivalent charging network going here".

_hypx 3y ago
You're just being brainwashed by BEV propaganda. It is not a sustainable solution and does not work for the majority of car buyers. There will come a day when we will laugh at your decision in the same way we laugh at the diesel car. Ethanol/flexfuel cars in the US too. Eventually, everyone will be forced to scale back or outright abandon BEVs, and adopt the next wave of technology such as FCEVs or some other type of hydrogen car.
- jbm 3y ago
  OK, let's take the fact that I'm brainwashed while you are a free thinking sovereign citizen who just understands reality better than everyone else for granted. The fact remains that they can't sell me a new car and deliveries are years out - so I'm a brainwashed person who tried to buy a gas minivan and was told that it wasn't available. Or did I just imagine that? If you'd like, you can contact Stampede Toyota (https://www.toyota.ca/toyota/en/dealer/14058 https://www.toyota.ca/toyota/en/dealer/14058) and have a discussion with them if you feel I'm lying to you
  - _hypx 3y ago