6 ms·

Japan gives $2.4B in incentives to Toyota and more for EV battery making

50 points by teleforce 2y ago

createaccount99 2y ago
Time for tariffs, then?
- Sabinus 2y ago
  We can tolerate more subsidy to industry from allies.
  - Malidir 2y ago
    Not allies, sales competitors. It's not of 'critical' nationally strategic importance is it?
  - niceguy1827 2y ago
    I wish the politicians were as honest as you are -- it's about the good guys v.s. bad guys after all.
    - wiseowise 2y ago
      I don’t understand how is that not obvious. Of course it is about good guys vs bad guys. Japan is a strategic ally and doesn’t hold nuclear gun to US head while trying to “establish new world order” or what the hell commies/kleptocrats been spewing recently.
      - Sakos 2y ago
        Our culture has reached a point where there are no good guys or bad guys. Just look at Star Wars, where the latest director and actors try to argue that it's just a matter of perspective, the Empire isn't necessarily evil (despite good vs evil being the whole point of the original trilogy). So people are somehow unable and unwilling to consider anybody a good guy or anybody a bad guy. Like all the handwringing about how Putin must've been forced to invade Ukraine by NATO, it must be the US's fault, because the US has done bad things too.
        shiroiushi 2y ago
        I wonder how much of this is because of GWB's disastrous and illegitimate invasion of Iraq in 2004. It really really no more justified than Putin's invasion of Ukraine, though it was handled far more competently from a military perspective so it ended much quicker.
        Sakos 2y ago
        I'm sure it's due to plenty of things the US has done. In the end, people are often unable to hold conflicting ideas in their head. So it ends up being "the US invaded Iraq so the US is always bad and Russia isn't bad because they aren't the US". There are clear differences between Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the invasion of Iraq. Even if they are both illegitimate that doesn't make them in any way alike, and the invasion of Iraq simply doesn't justify the invasion of Ukraine in any shape or form. I also attribute much of this to Chomsky, who spent the past 50 years railing on US imperialism, but never updated his world views when the cold war ended. I used to devour everything he said and wrote until I realized, you know, maybe there are other bad guys too and it's not all the US's fault (like Russia).
        shiroiushi 2y ago
        >Even if they are both illegitimate that doesn't make them in any way alike, and the invasion of Iraq simply doesn't justify the invasion of Ukraine in any shape or form. I never said it does. It certainly doesn't. But to outsiders, having the US say how bad and evil Russia is for illegally invading Ukraine sounds ridiculous when the US illegally invaded Iraq only 20 years ago with equally absurd justification. >There are clear differences between Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the invasion of Iraq. Like what? The only thing I can see is that Iraq was run by a crappy dictator, while Ukraine was a troubled and corrupt democracy. Otherwise, it was really just as bad. The US's claim that Saddam was working with Al Qaeda on a WMD program is probably even more absurd than Russia's claim that Nazis are running Ukraine. >maybe there are other bad guys too Basically all the major powers are bad guys. Some are just worse than others. In the mid-2000s, the US was the worst; today, Russia is the worst with China a close 2nd (constantly threatening an invasion of Taiwan and bullying their SCS neighbors).
- vasco 2y ago
  What's your opinion on the $52 billion in subsidies to semiconductor giants that the US has distributed in the last two years?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - iml7 2y ago
    who? I only saw the freeze on the chips bill for intc.Then pay Samsung and TSMC more subsidies.
- bsder 2y ago
  Yes. Solar panels were a good example. The fact that China absolutely dumped solar panels on the US completely crushed the domestic manufacturers. Now the US solar cell supply is almost completely at the mercy of a geopolitical adversary. And US domestic manufacturers don't want to be bothered as they have no idea when China will dump panels on the market, and they'll get crushed again. Because the US government failed to act, we lost both the manufacturing capability and the engineering research behind solar cells. The world utopia has failed, and the world has become adversarial again. We need to add some support to local, domestic manufacturers.
  - Sakos 2y ago
    What's the better solution though? Tariffs, which end up just passing on the cost to consumers and do nothing about the competitiveness of the US's own industry, or subsidies, which can either incentivize waste or it can make US industry more competitive, or a combination of the two?
    - shiroiushi 2y ago
      We could just go back to the Cold War days and cut off trade and communications altogether.
      - Sakos 2y ago
        > We could just go back to the Cold War days and cut off trade and communications altogether. Sorry, this is an absurd, bad faith argument and doesn't add to the conversation in any way. If you want to rejoin the conversation and discuss real options like a mature adult, go ahead. Otherwise, stop wasting everybody's time.
        jmpman 2y ago
        The Russian invasion of Ukraine suggests that Russia may be willing to go down that path. If China invades Taiwan, I can absolutely see a scenario where this happens. China, being export driven, would likely have a harder time than it expects. Russia’s petroleum exports are enough to disrupt global supplies, and the reason they’re still allowed to trade.
- Malidir 2y ago
  All countries are doing the same. Tesla got lots of help in the US for example.
Animats 2y ago
They have to or China's battery and car makers will crush Japan's auto industry. Look at the numbers outside the US. Only 10% of US new cars are electric, but worldwide, 20% are. Most of those are from China, and they're cheap.
- xbmcuser 2y ago
  China has already hit 50%+ new sales of plugin electric and plugin hybrid. The sticker price of electric cars has almost reached parity with ice even without any kind of subsidy then fuel savings are an additional bonus. Japan and other legacy car manufacturers have an extremely limited time left to catch up but they and their governments dragging their feet trying to protect an industry that is about to crash.
  - codedokode 2y ago
    This is an interesting note because American electric cars (like Tesla) are super expensive.
    - Animats 2y ago
      This is a huge problem. US automakers treated electric cars as a premium product. This is very clear for vehicles available in both electric and IC.[1] That premium has been decreasing rapidly. There's now a glut of used Teslas. In the commercial sector, though, the Ford Transit is slightly cheaper in electric than in IC.[2] [1] https://www.caranddriver.com/ford/f-150-lightning https://www.caranddriver.com/ford/f-150-lightning [2] https://www.caranddriver.com/ford/e-transit https://www.caranddriver.com/ford/e-transit
- ryuno_k 2y ago
  And cheap quality.
  - cced 2y ago
    I really don’t get the purpose of a comment like this, who is this for? Have you ridden in a Chinese EV? They don’t “feel” cheap. This type of rhetoric is pretty much the reason other companies are lagging behind. After all, why compete with a “cheap” competitor? There may have been a time when quality of Chinese vehicles was questionable but I’m not sure that’s still the case. If it weren’t for the protectionist tariffs the west has imposed on them, I would seriously consider a Chinese EV, maybe a Zeeker or Byd.
gloryjulio 2y ago
Japan made a fatal mistake wasting so much effort on hydrogen cars. Yet Tesla leaped forward with Panasonic's battery technology It's ironic.
- Reason077 2y ago
  Panasonic (f.k.a. Matsushita)'s battery technology, not Mitsubishi.
  - gloryjulio 2y ago
    That's right. Updated
- Kelteseth 2y ago
  And recently, BMW with their announcement of a joint venture with Toyota [0] to focus on hydrogen cars. [0] https://www.bmwgroup.com/en/news/general/2024/hydrogen-cooperation.html https://www.bmwgroup.com/en/news/general/2024/hydrogen-coope...
  - soco 2y ago
    Maybe it's not the best place to ask in a sub-comment but I keep wondering, what's the big deal with hydrogen cars? They're not anything greener than electric (actually less, as you lose more in the intermediate steps), safety also has its question marks, range improvement is still on the theoretical side, gas stations have to be retrofitted anyway, mechanically they have as many moving parts as an ICE so it's actually a disadvantage... I mean okay we're researching, but today it still looks to me very far from better.
    - niceguy1827 2y ago
      It's about the supply chain and patents. Japanese companies have cornered the world in both -- if they get traction on these technologies, they are poised to profit much more than they would if say Toyota succeeds at selling full evs.
    - 2y ago
Malidir 2y ago
$2.4bn over 4 companies + panasonic and 12 projects isn't a huge amount, relatively speaking. And I imagine Hydrogen is also still being pushed. EVERYONE knew China was coming, it was long clear that China saw the changeover from ICE to EV as an opportunity to become a dominant player. Chinese companies are setting up local brands for different countries: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74jgk1kw87o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74jgk1kw87o and making cars that appeal to western tastes. Japan's main problem is that they are stubborn - the Koreans and Chinese bought in european designers and made cars look to Western tastes. Japanese cars look like Japanese cars.
- surgical_fire 2y ago
  > Japanese cars look like Japanese cars. And yet I think Toyotas are extremely common in the west. Would they really benefit by looking like everyone else?
  - Malidir 2y ago
    Lexus would for example - far more reliable and engineered than the European premium ones but, in my opinon, have never looked the part. Even the Lexus performance coupe's. Compare Volvo suv designs to lexus!
    - surgical_fire 2y ago
      Funny, I kinda like how Lexus looks. And I certainly see more of those around than Volvos.
      - soco 2y ago
        I know some people who weren't very pleased when Volvo was sold to China and switched their preferences. Could it be a trend?
- hifix 2y ago
  I definitely agree on your last point, big fan of a lot of the recent designs that have come out of Korea. A sort of boxy, cyberpunk look in models like the Hyundai Grandeur and IONIQ 5 - and the Hyundai N Vision 74 concept looks amazing.
Phelinofist 2y ago
Compare that to Germany https://www.electrive.com/2024/09/09/its-now-official-germany-to-stop-funding-battery-research/ https://www.electrive.com/2024/09/09/its-now-official-german...

50 points by teleforce 2y ago

createaccount99 2y ago

Time for tariffs, then?

Sabinus 2y ago
We can tolerate more subsidy to industry from allies.
- Malidir 2y ago
  Not allies, sales competitors. It's not of 'critical' nationally strategic importance is it?
- niceguy1827 2y ago
  I wish the politicians were as honest as you are -- it's about the good guys v.s. bad guys after all.
  - wiseowise 2y ago
    I don’t understand how is that not obvious. Of course it is about good guys vs bad guys. Japan is a strategic ally and doesn’t hold nuclear gun to US head while trying to “establish new world order” or what the hell commies/kleptocrats been spewing recently.
    - Sakos 2y ago
      Our culture has reached a point where there are no good guys or bad guys. Just look at Star Wars, where the latest director and actors try to argue that it's just a matter of perspective, the Empire isn't necessarily evil (despite good vs evil being the whole point of the original trilogy). So people are somehow unable and unwilling to consider anybody a good guy or anybody a bad guy. Like all the handwringing about how Putin must've been forced to invade Ukraine by NATO, it must be the US's fault, because the US has done bad things too.
      - shiroiushi 2y ago
        I wonder how much of this is because of GWB's disastrous and illegitimate invasion of Iraq in 2004. It really really no more justified than Putin's invasion of Ukraine, though it was handled far more competently from a military perspective so it ended much quicker.
        Sakos 2y ago
        I'm sure it's due to plenty of things the US has done. In the end, people are often unable to hold conflicting ideas in their head. So it ends up being "the US invaded Iraq so the US is always bad and Russia isn't bad because they aren't the US". There are clear differences between Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the invasion of Iraq. Even if they are both illegitimate that doesn't make them in any way alike, and the invasion of Iraq simply doesn't justify the invasion of Ukraine in any shape or form. I also attribute much of this to Chomsky, who spent the past 50 years railing on US imperialism, but never updated his world views when the cold war ended. I used to devour everything he said and wrote until I realized, you know, maybe there are other bad guys too and it's not all the US's fault (like Russia).
        shiroiushi 2y ago
        >Even if they are both illegitimate that doesn't make them in any way alike, and the invasion of Iraq simply doesn't justify the invasion of Ukraine in any shape or form. I never said it does. It certainly doesn't. But to outsiders, having the US say how bad and evil Russia is for illegally invading Ukraine sounds ridiculous when the US illegally invaded Iraq only 20 years ago with equally absurd justification. >There are clear differences between Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the invasion of Iraq. Like what? The only thing I can see is that Iraq was run by a crappy dictator, while Ukraine was a troubled and corrupt democracy. Otherwise, it was really just as bad. The US's claim that Saddam was working with Al Qaeda on a WMD program is probably even more absurd than Russia's claim that Nazis are running Ukraine. >maybe there are other bad guys too Basically all the major powers are bad guys. Some are just worse than others. In the mid-2000s, the US was the worst; today, Russia is the worst with China a close 2nd (constantly threatening an invasion of Taiwan and bullying their SCS neighbors).
vasco 2y ago
What's your opinion on the $52 billion in subsidies to semiconductor giants that the US has distributed in the last two years?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- iml7 2y ago
  who? I only saw the freeze on the chips bill for intc.Then pay Samsung and TSMC more subsidies.
bsder 2y ago
Yes. Solar panels were a good example. The fact that China absolutely dumped solar panels on the US completely crushed the domestic manufacturers. Now the US solar cell supply is almost completely at the mercy of a geopolitical adversary. And US domestic manufacturers don't want to be bothered as they have no idea when China will dump panels on the market, and they'll get crushed again. Because the US government failed to act, we lost both the manufacturing capability and the engineering research behind solar cells. The world utopia has failed, and the world has become adversarial again. We need to add some support to local, domestic manufacturers.
- Sakos 2y ago
  What's the better solution though? Tariffs, which end up just passing on the cost to consumers and do nothing about the competitiveness of the US's own industry, or subsidies, which can either incentivize waste or it can make US industry more competitive, or a combination of the two?
  - shiroiushi 2y ago
    We could just go back to the Cold War days and cut off trade and communications altogether.
    - Sakos 2y ago
      > We could just go back to the Cold War days and cut off trade and communications altogether. Sorry, this is an absurd, bad faith argument and doesn't add to the conversation in any way. If you want to rejoin the conversation and discuss real options like a mature adult, go ahead. Otherwise, stop wasting everybody's time.
      - jmpman 2y ago
        The Russian invasion of Ukraine suggests that Russia may be willing to go down that path. If China invades Taiwan, I can absolutely see a scenario where this happens. China, being export driven, would likely have a harder time than it expects. Russia’s petroleum exports are enough to disrupt global supplies, and the reason they’re still allowed to trade.
Malidir 2y ago
All countries are doing the same. Tesla got lots of help in the US for example.

Animats 2y ago

They have to or China's battery and car makers will crush Japan's auto industry. Look at the numbers outside the US. Only 10% of US new cars are electric, but worldwide, 20% are. Most of those are from China, and they're cheap.

xbmcuser 2y ago
China has already hit 50%+ new sales of plugin electric and plugin hybrid. The sticker price of electric cars has almost reached parity with ice even without any kind of subsidy then fuel savings are an additional bonus. Japan and other legacy car manufacturers have an extremely limited time left to catch up but they and their governments dragging their feet trying to protect an industry that is about to crash.
- codedokode 2y ago
  This is an interesting note because American electric cars (like Tesla) are super expensive.
  - Animats 2y ago
    This is a huge problem. US automakers treated electric cars as a premium product. This is very clear for vehicles available in both electric and IC.[1] That premium has been decreasing rapidly. There's now a glut of used Teslas. In the commercial sector, though, the Ford Transit is slightly cheaper in electric than in IC.[2] [1] https://www.caranddriver.com/ford/f-150-lightning https://www.caranddriver.com/ford/f-150-lightning [2] https://www.caranddriver.com/ford/e-transit https://www.caranddriver.com/ford/e-transit
ryuno_k 2y ago
And cheap quality.
- cced 2y ago
  I really don’t get the purpose of a comment like this, who is this for? Have you ridden in a Chinese EV? They don’t “feel” cheap. This type of rhetoric is pretty much the reason other companies are lagging behind. After all, why compete with a “cheap” competitor? There may have been a time when quality of Chinese vehicles was questionable but I’m not sure that’s still the case. If it weren’t for the protectionist tariffs the west has imposed on them, I would seriously consider a Chinese EV, maybe a Zeeker or Byd.

gloryjulio 2y ago

Japan made a fatal mistake wasting so much effort on hydrogen cars. Yet Tesla leaped forward with Panasonic's battery technology It's ironic.

Reason077 2y ago
Panasonic (f.k.a. Matsushita)'s battery technology, not Mitsubishi.
- gloryjulio 2y ago
  That's right. Updated
Kelteseth 2y ago
And recently, BMW with their announcement of a joint venture with Toyota [0] to focus on hydrogen cars. [0] https://www.bmwgroup.com/en/news/general/2024/hydrogen-cooperation.html https://www.bmwgroup.com/en/news/general/2024/hydrogen-coope...
- soco 2y ago
  Maybe it's not the best place to ask in a sub-comment but I keep wondering, what's the big deal with hydrogen cars? They're not anything greener than electric (actually less, as you lose more in the intermediate steps), safety also has its question marks, range improvement is still on the theoretical side, gas stations have to be retrofitted anyway, mechanically they have as many moving parts as an ICE so it's actually a disadvantage... I mean okay we're researching, but today it still looks to me very far from better.
  - niceguy1827 2y ago
    It's about the supply chain and patents. Japanese companies have cornered the world in both -- if they get traction on these technologies, they are poised to profit much more than they would if say Toyota succeeds at selling full evs.
  - 2y ago

Malidir 2y ago

$2.4bn over 4 companies + panasonic and 12 projects isn't a huge amount, relatively speaking. And I imagine Hydrogen is also still being pushed. EVERYONE knew China was coming, it was long clear that China saw the changeover from ICE to EV as an opportunity to become a dominant player. Chinese companies are setting up local brands for different countries: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74jgk1kw87o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74jgk1kw87o and making cars that appeal to western tastes. Japan's main problem is that they are stubborn - the Koreans and Chinese bought in european designers and made cars look to Western tastes. Japanese cars look like Japanese cars.

surgical_fire 2y ago
> Japanese cars look like Japanese cars. And yet I think Toyotas are extremely common in the west. Would they really benefit by looking like everyone else?
- Malidir 2y ago
  Lexus would for example - far more reliable and engineered than the European premium ones but, in my opinon, have never looked the part. Even the Lexus performance coupe's. Compare Volvo suv designs to lexus!
  - surgical_fire 2y ago
    Funny, I kinda like how Lexus looks. And I certainly see more of those around than Volvos.
    - soco 2y ago
      I know some people who weren't very pleased when Volvo was sold to China and switched their preferences. Could it be a trend?
hifix 2y ago
I definitely agree on your last point, big fan of a lot of the recent designs that have come out of Korea. A sort of boxy, cyberpunk look in models like the Hyundai Grandeur and IONIQ 5 - and the Hyundai N Vision 74 concept looks amazing.

Phelinofist 2y ago

Compare that to Germany https://www.electrive.com/2024/09/09/its-now-official-germany-to-stop-funding-battery-research/ https://www.electrive.com/2024/09/09/its-now-official-german...