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Weird headline: Japanese carmakers are doing the same error, while Tesla (an American company) is the one of the leading electric carmakers... I'd just replace

Weird headline: Japanese carmakers are doing the same error, while Tesla (an American company) is the one of the leading electric carmakers... I'd just replace it with Legacy Carmakers (e.g. Ford, GM, Toyota and so on).

impossiblefork 7mo ago
I feel that Renault is also standing out as a company that's going in the opposite direction.
a-saleh 7mo ago
I thought Totyota is still one of the EV leaders. Alongside Kia and Hyundai?
- tpm 7mo ago
  Not at all, they were a hybrid leader long time ago but they never had a good pure EV and are only starting last few years.
- vel0city 7mo ago
  Toyota barely makes any fully EV cars, and their bZ series hasn't been very great. They have a number of hybrids, but even those are often based on dated battery technology. They're still selling new cars with NiMH batteries. They have some incredibly reliable hybrid drivetrains, but have weak EVs and ancient battery technology throughout.
  - ljlolel 7mo ago
    Hormuz might change their mind
- Ifkaluva 7mo ago
  lol no. They have been dragged kicking and screaming into offering just one model, the bz4x. They also spend a lot of money lobbying against electrification regulation, because they really don’t want to make EVs.
  - seabrookmx 7mo ago
    They were late to the game but are definitely investing more now. They have three full EV's, in rough order of size: CH-R, BZ (previously called BZ4x), and BZ Woodland (basically a long station wagon version of the former). Subaru is also selling a tweaked and rebadged version of each. I believe these are all made in Subaru factories with Toyota power-train components. They're also priced pretty competitively.
- jfengel 7mo ago
  Toyota pioneered hybrids, but they remain committed to the idea that a fossil fuel component is necessary. They continue to push for hydrogen, which is generated primarily from natural gas. With a hand-wave that maybe it'll be renewable some day. But the hydrogen infrastructure doesn't exist, and they haven't solved any of the real problems with it. So they're stuck flacking technology that was amazing in the 90s.
  - chii 7mo ago
    It's because japan can't really compete with china in the EV battery space (nor can anyone else really). By betting on hydrogen, it's possible to take the lead in a smaller pond as a bigger fish. Tho i'm not a believer in hydrogen - it's too difficult, and costs just as much to transition to that as it would electric. It'd be easier to synthesize carbon-based fuels, and that leverages the existing infrastructure for petrol in place for use.
- bastawhiz 7mo ago
  Toyota has a magical vaporware battery that they announce is just a couple years away every couple years. We're likely to see general quantum computing and an operational fusion plant before Toyota productionizes their first "real" EV with said battery.
- kube-system 7mo ago
  Toyota’s leadership is staunchly anti-EV
  - breve 7mo ago
    Toyota sells EVs. They sell the bZ3, bZ4, bZ5, bZ7, bZ3X, bZ Woodland, C-HR+, Lexus RZ, Lexus ES, and soon the Hilux EV. The Lexus ES: https://electrek.co/2026/03/19/lexus-launches-es-ev-with-300-mi-range-undercuts-rival-prices/ https://electrek.co/2026/03/19/lexus-launches-es-ev-with-300...
    - kube-system 7mo ago
      They do, however they have been very vocal in their reluctance to invest in that strategy.
      - breve 7mo ago
        Toyota's strategy is working. They have been the best selling automaker for the last six years straight. Last year they had record sales: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota-retains-top-auto-crown-2025-with-record-sales-2026-01-29/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota... As time goes on BEVs will make up a greater percentage of their sales. As BEVs get cheaper and more practical demand will keep going up. Toyota will follow BEV demand.
        kube-system 7mo ago
        What I said wasn’t a criticism, simply a fact. I’m personally a huge fan of hybrids
fullshark 7mo ago
Tesla is also retreating from the being a car company, at least they don't see being a company that sells electric cars to consumers being a great business to be in long term.
- jacquesm 7mo ago
  It's on the way to be merged with SpaceX.
- DennisP 7mo ago
  There are a couple good reasons for Tesla to do that, which don't apply to most carmakers. One is that their stock is priced for extreme growth, so they need to be in businesses that can justify that. Cars are not that kind of business. They were for a while when Tesla was much smaller and the only decent EV maker, but not anymore. For any carmaker with a typical carmaker PE, cars can be a fine business. Tesla's other problem is that Elon did serious damage to their brand, and they're not even getting the growth that other EV makers are getting.
  - fullshark 7mo ago
    It's priced for extreme growth cause that's the way the CEO and board want it to be. They don't want to make cars and sell them to consumers for a small profit cause that's not an extreme growth opportunity so the focus is elsewhere.
- dangus 7mo ago
  It is a great business to be in, they just aren't run by a sane person who is good at business. If it weren't for massive conflicts of interest their CEO would have been fired years ago. They're getting leapfrogged by Chinese companies despite being extremely early to the Chinese market along with a factory in China. They've somehow squandered their technology lead despite being profitable and scaled unlike some of the companies leapfrogging them. They botched the Cybertruck so badly. Imagine an American company failing to make a popular pickup truck. They could have been selling pickup trucks at F-150-like volume and profitability. Their brand image of tech futurism is outdated and they're squandering the most profitable segments of the automotive market. Just look at stuff that's succeeding and pulling in big money like the Bronco and Toyota TRD lineup. Tesla is retreating to robots because their CEO gets bored of running scaled companies that aren't startups, and they're also doing a whole bunch of financial manipulation to prevent Tesla stock from crashing due to its fundamentals. Without a future moonshot business, the valuation of the stock makes no sense, and would naturally decline to that of a normal automobile company otherwise. That event would destroy Elon's net worth and probably make him default on a bunch of personal loans. By combining other moonshots like xAI and robotics, it lessens the impact of the reality of the automotive business: a profitable but generally low-margin high-maturity type of business.
siim_osur 7mo ago
Tesla is a hype company more than a car company. Also, me personally, I consider them all rolling coffins.
- qwerpy 7mo ago
  They’re some of the safest cars ever made, unless you drive them into a tree at 110mph.
  - whamlastxmas 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    - archagon 7mo ago
      I fully concur with the parent comment.
  - kuschku 7mo ago
    Unless you need to leave the rear seats when the electronic door openers don't work anymore. It's possible the parent was referring to that, which is to be fair not just a Tesla issue, but Tesla is probably the most extreme example.
xp84 7mo ago
GM has a ton of EV models and has been doing a ton of EV investment, R&D, etc. How can you say they’re somehow not EV enough? I think this article’s author is an absolutist and believes any company that doesn’t go 100% EV regardless of market demand is stupid. I think that’s irrational. And I love my EV. But it’s going to take 20 years or more for the entire country to even get to a place where all your suburbanites can afford the $5,000-$10,000 for the panel upgrade and wiring to charge at home. And they are the easiest to win over. Urban is tougher (and I assure you, many people drive in cities!) due to lack of residential garages, and parking garage facilities don’t have sufficient capacity to “just” add 500 level 2 chargers. Typical 500-car garages today have about 5. And of course rural has longer range needs which raises cost. Or if you’re one who thinks home charging isn’t a necessary prerequisite to make EVs attractive, it’ll take that long for fast charging tech to improve even more, and for those public fast chargers, which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and need tremendous amounts of power which needs to be brought in, are gonna get built. And you might argue either is a roadblock that can simply be blown up by strategically placed money bombs, but no Western government has that much money just lying around. The $7,500 handout (that mostly padded EV margins) was the best they’re gonna do. The government isn’t going to bankroll every shopping center in America to put in 10 350kw fast chargers at a cost of $5,000,000 per site, or pay $7,000 for every home to get a service upgrade. And even if they did this, it would take a decade just to build and install all that to get to 90% EV adoption. My point is gas cars are going to be popular and sell well for 1-2 decades more at least. “Retreating” from those would be the real bonehead move.
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
- freshpots 7mo ago
  "But it’s going to take 20 years or more for the entire country to even get to a place where all your suburbanites can afford the $5,000-$10,000 for the panel upgrade and wiring to charge at home.." I'm charging just fine with a decent commute, using only a 120V 12A circuit. You don't need a 240V 50A circuit to charge your car in 4 hours. Technology Connections does an excellent video on this: https://youtu.be/W96a8svXo14 https://youtu.be/W96a8svXo14 It will help update your knowledge on this topic. Cheers
rsynnott 7mo ago
The third-biggest BEV maker is VW AG, a legacy car brand. Likely soon the second, given their hefty (33% last year) growth vs Tesla’s modest shrinkage; unless something changes they’ll overtake in a year or so.
cosmic_cheese 7mo ago
Nissan at least seems to be somewhat leaning into EVs. The Ariya was released to little fanfare but has seen sales pick up over time (though it’s on pause in the US for 2026 due to tariffs), and they just released a freshly redesigned proper modern EV version of the Leaf at a surprisingly affordable pricepoint. They’re also working with Mitsubishi to sell a Leaf rebadge (which I’d speculate will come at a lower price point with a more stripped down feature set). In Japan Nissan also had a pure electric kei car they sell.

impossiblefork 7mo ago

I feel that Renault is also standing out as a company that's going in the opposite direction.

a-saleh 7mo ago

I thought Totyota is still one of the EV leaders. Alongside Kia and Hyundai?

tpm 7mo ago
Not at all, they were a hybrid leader long time ago but they never had a good pure EV and are only starting last few years.
vel0city 7mo ago
Toyota barely makes any fully EV cars, and their bZ series hasn't been very great. They have a number of hybrids, but even those are often based on dated battery technology. They're still selling new cars with NiMH batteries. They have some incredibly reliable hybrid drivetrains, but have weak EVs and ancient battery technology throughout.
- ljlolel 7mo ago
  Hormuz might change their mind
Ifkaluva 7mo ago
lol no. They have been dragged kicking and screaming into offering just one model, the bz4x. They also spend a lot of money lobbying against electrification regulation, because they really don’t want to make EVs.
- seabrookmx 7mo ago
  They were late to the game but are definitely investing more now. They have three full EV's, in rough order of size: CH-R, BZ (previously called BZ4x), and BZ Woodland (basically a long station wagon version of the former). Subaru is also selling a tweaked and rebadged version of each. I believe these are all made in Subaru factories with Toyota power-train components. They're also priced pretty competitively.
jfengel 7mo ago
Toyota pioneered hybrids, but they remain committed to the idea that a fossil fuel component is necessary. They continue to push for hydrogen, which is generated primarily from natural gas. With a hand-wave that maybe it'll be renewable some day. But the hydrogen infrastructure doesn't exist, and they haven't solved any of the real problems with it. So they're stuck flacking technology that was amazing in the 90s.
- chii 7mo ago
  It's because japan can't really compete with china in the EV battery space (nor can anyone else really). By betting on hydrogen, it's possible to take the lead in a smaller pond as a bigger fish. Tho i'm not a believer in hydrogen - it's too difficult, and costs just as much to transition to that as it would electric. It'd be easier to synthesize carbon-based fuels, and that leverages the existing infrastructure for petrol in place for use.
bastawhiz 7mo ago
Toyota has a magical vaporware battery that they announce is just a couple years away every couple years. We're likely to see general quantum computing and an operational fusion plant before Toyota productionizes their first "real" EV with said battery.
kube-system 7mo ago
Toyota’s leadership is staunchly anti-EV
- breve 7mo ago
  Toyota sells EVs. They sell the bZ3, bZ4, bZ5, bZ7, bZ3X, bZ Woodland, C-HR+, Lexus RZ, Lexus ES, and soon the Hilux EV. The Lexus ES: https://electrek.co/2026/03/19/lexus-launches-es-ev-with-300-mi-range-undercuts-rival-prices/ https://electrek.co/2026/03/19/lexus-launches-es-ev-with-300...
  - kube-system 7mo ago
    They do, however they have been very vocal in their reluctance to invest in that strategy.
    - breve 7mo ago
      Toyota's strategy is working. They have been the best selling automaker for the last six years straight. Last year they had record sales: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota-retains-top-auto-crown-2025-with-record-sales-2026-01-29/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota... As time goes on BEVs will make up a greater percentage of their sales. As BEVs get cheaper and more practical demand will keep going up. Toyota will follow BEV demand.
      - kube-system 7mo ago
        What I said wasn’t a criticism, simply a fact. I’m personally a huge fan of hybrids

fullshark 7mo ago

Tesla is also retreating from the being a car company, at least they don't see being a company that sells electric cars to consumers being a great business to be in long term.

jacquesm 7mo ago
It's on the way to be merged with SpaceX.
DennisP 7mo ago
There are a couple good reasons for Tesla to do that, which don't apply to most carmakers. One is that their stock is priced for extreme growth, so they need to be in businesses that can justify that. Cars are not that kind of business. They were for a while when Tesla was much smaller and the only decent EV maker, but not anymore. For any carmaker with a typical carmaker PE, cars can be a fine business. Tesla's other problem is that Elon did serious damage to their brand, and they're not even getting the growth that other EV makers are getting.
- fullshark 7mo ago
  It's priced for extreme growth cause that's the way the CEO and board want it to be. They don't want to make cars and sell them to consumers for a small profit cause that's not an extreme growth opportunity so the focus is elsewhere.
dangus 7mo ago
It is a great business to be in, they just aren't run by a sane person who is good at business. If it weren't for massive conflicts of interest their CEO would have been fired years ago. They're getting leapfrogged by Chinese companies despite being extremely early to the Chinese market along with a factory in China. They've somehow squandered their technology lead despite being profitable and scaled unlike some of the companies leapfrogging them. They botched the Cybertruck so badly. Imagine an American company failing to make a popular pickup truck. They could have been selling pickup trucks at F-150-like volume and profitability. Their brand image of tech futurism is outdated and they're squandering the most profitable segments of the automotive market. Just look at stuff that's succeeding and pulling in big money like the Bronco and Toyota TRD lineup. Tesla is retreating to robots because their CEO gets bored of running scaled companies that aren't startups, and they're also doing a whole bunch of financial manipulation to prevent Tesla stock from crashing due to its fundamentals. Without a future moonshot business, the valuation of the stock makes no sense, and would naturally decline to that of a normal automobile company otherwise. That event would destroy Elon's net worth and probably make him default on a bunch of personal loans. By combining other moonshots like xAI and robotics, it lessens the impact of the reality of the automotive business: a profitable but generally low-margin high-maturity type of business.

siim_osur 7mo ago

Tesla is a hype company more than a car company. Also, me personally, I consider them all rolling coffins.

qwerpy 7mo ago
They’re some of the safest cars ever made, unless you drive them into a tree at 110mph.
- whamlastxmas 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  - archagon 7mo ago
    I fully concur with the parent comment.
- kuschku 7mo ago
  Unless you need to leave the rear seats when the electronic door openers don't work anymore. It's possible the parent was referring to that, which is to be fair not just a Tesla issue, but Tesla is probably the most extreme example.

xp84 7mo ago

GM has a ton of EV models and has been doing a ton of EV investment, R&D, etc. How can you say they’re somehow not EV enough? I think this article’s author is an absolutist and believes any company that doesn’t go 100% EV regardless of market demand is stupid. I think that’s irrational. And I love my EV. But it’s going to take 20 years or more for the entire country to even get to a place where all your suburbanites can afford the $5,000-$10,000 for the panel upgrade and wiring to charge at home. And they are the easiest to win over. Urban is tougher (and I assure you, many people drive in cities!) due to lack of residential garages, and parking garage facilities don’t have sufficient capacity to “just” add 500 level 2 chargers. Typical 500-car garages today have about 5. And of course rural has longer range needs which raises cost. Or if you’re one who thinks home charging isn’t a necessary prerequisite to make EVs attractive, it’ll take that long for fast charging tech to improve even more, and for those public fast chargers, which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and need tremendous amounts of power which needs to be brought in, are gonna get built. And you might argue either is a roadblock that can simply be blown up by strategically placed money bombs, but no Western government has that much money just lying around. The $7,500 handout (that mostly padded EV margins) was the best they’re gonna do. The government isn’t going to bankroll every shopping center in America to put in 10 350kw fast chargers at a cost of $5,000,000 per site, or pay $7,000 for every home to get a service upgrade. And even if they did this, it would take a decade just to build and install all that to get to 90% EV adoption. My point is gas cars are going to be popular and sell well for 1-2 decades more at least. “Retreating” from those would be the real bonehead move.

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
freshpots 7mo ago
"But it’s going to take 20 years or more for the entire country to even get to a place where all your suburbanites can afford the $5,000-$10,000 for the panel upgrade and wiring to charge at home.." I'm charging just fine with a decent commute, using only a 120V 12A circuit. You don't need a 240V 50A circuit to charge your car in 4 hours. Technology Connections does an excellent video on this: https://youtu.be/W96a8svXo14 https://youtu.be/W96a8svXo14 It will help update your knowledge on this topic. Cheers

rsynnott 7mo ago

The third-biggest BEV maker is VW AG, a legacy car brand. Likely soon the second, given their hefty (33% last year) growth vs Tesla’s modest shrinkage; unless something changes they’ll overtake in a year or so.

cosmic_cheese 7mo ago

Nissan at least seems to be somewhat leaning into EVs. The Ariya was released to little fanfare but has seen sales pick up over time (though it’s on pause in the US for 2026 due to tariffs), and they just released a freshly redesigned proper modern EV version of the Leaf at a surprisingly affordable pricepoint. They’re also working with Mitsubishi to sell a Leaf rebadge (which I’d speculate will come at a lower price point with a more stripped down feature set). In Japan Nissan also had a pure electric kei car they sell.