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The common wisdom on HN is that Toyota missed the boat on evs but I don’t think the boat will really set sail for another 7-10 years. Sure there are some evs ou
by userinanother 3y ago
The common wisdom on HN is that Toyota missed the boat on evs but I don’t think the boat will really set sail for another 7-10 years. Sure there are some evs out there and the market segment is growing but the charger network isn’t there. The charger standard will probably looks like it will finally converge in 2-3 years but good availability of ev chargers across the country will take at least 7 years. So Toyota has time to build and buy more mature tech without burning crazy new tech dollars.
- bdamm 3y agoThere is no "reset" button on gaining market share. In 7-10 years, if Toyota hasn't got some class of EVs locked up, their only option will be to buy one of the other players. The charging standard is converging to the current dominant player who has functioning charging and who's cars road trip just fine - Tesla. If Toyota doesn't get some decent EVs to market soon they will simply be left behind and will turn into a financial and branding husk while everyone else does the real work, eventually vanishing into the dustbin of history as one of GM's sub-brands. They can't magically produce innovative products unless they get into the game. In 7 years it will be game over.
- userinanother 3y agoThey have a ev it’s good enough as a tech demonstration and and R&D platform but Toyota and Tesla are opposite ends of the spectrum. Toyota is like freeBSD it’s tired true and rock solid. Tesla is like some new beta distro it’s got all the bells and whistles but tons of reliability and quality problems. I don’t see Tesla ever overcoming quality problems. Poor quality is built into their culture and you can’t fix culture