Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumToyota Is Losing the Electric Car Race, So It Pretends Hybrids Are Better
https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/03/12/toyota-losing-electric-car-race-pretends-hybrids-better
Toyota Is Losing the Electric Car Race, So It Pretends Hybrids Are Better
By Ben Jervey, March 12, 2019
There are at least 12 car companies currently selling an all-electric vehicle in the United States, and Toyota isnt one of them. Despite admitting recently that the Tesla Model 3 alone is responsible for half of Toyotas customer defections in North America as Prius drivers transition to all-electric the company has been an outspoken laggard in the race to electrification.
Now, the company is using questionable logic to attempt to justify its inaction on electrification, claiming that its limited battery capacity better serves the planet by producing gasoline-electric hybrids.
For years, Toyota leadership has shunned investment in all-electric cars, laying out a more conservative strategy to electrify its fleet essentially doubling down on hybrids and plug-in hybrids as a bridge to a future generation of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. As Tesla, Nissan, and GM have led the technological shift to fully battery electric vehicles, Toyota has publicly bashed the prospects of all-electric fleets. (See, for instance, the swipe the company took at plug-in vehicles in this recent Toyota Corolla Hybrid commercial.)
Last week, at the Geneva Auto Show, a Toyota executive provided a curious explanation for the companys refusal to launch a single battery electric vehicle. As Car and Driver reported, Toyota claims that it is limited by battery production capacity and that Toyota is able to produce enough batteries for 28,000 electric vehicles each year or for 1.5 million hybrid cars.
In other words, because Toyota has neglected to invest in battery production, it can only produce enough batteries for a trivial number of all-electric vehicles.
Due to this self-inflicted capacity shortage, the company is forced to choose between manufacturing 1.5 million hybrids or 28,000 electric cars. Using what Car and Driver called fuzzy math, the company tried to justify the strategy to forgo electric vehicles (EVs) on environmental grounds.
(snip)
The fuzzy math that justifies Toyotas anti-EV strategy on environmental grounds also relies on a few very questionable assumptions.
Though Toyota didnt provide details, the calculation seems to assume that for every hybrid sold, a fully gasoline-powered car would be taken off the road. In reality, many Toyota hybrid buyers are replacing a Toyota hybrid. And, based on Toyotas own revelation that they are losing Prius drivers to Tesla, it stands to reason that many Toyota hybrid drivers would jump at the opportunity to transition to an all-electric Toyota.
hlthe2b
(102,292 posts)ExciteBike66
(2,358 posts)As someone who can only afford a single "family" car, I must have the range to get to Grandma's house without stopping every hundred miles to slowly charge.
and even then in some circumstances they may well still be so.
kysrsoze
(6,022 posts)to a major shift starting around 2020 toward fully electric vehicles.
Toyota seems to still be banking solely on hybrids, fuel cell vehicles. I dont recall even a single electric Toyota concept.
Even with plain old gas engines, manufacturers like Nissan, Mazda and Hyundai are outdoing Toyota with new variable compression engines and diesel-like compression ignition gas engines.
Toyota always seems too late to every game these days.
NNadir
(33,525 posts)Last edited Fri Mar 15, 2019, 06:49 AM - Edit history (1)
Most of them are uneducated types who think that all the world's electricity comes from solar cells and wind turbines.
They are rather mindless and so uneducated that they can't figure out that almost all of the world's electricity comes from the combustion of dangerous fossil fuels, with the waste dumped directly into the planetary atmosphere, where it kills people.
They are also entirely unaware of the thermodynamics of charging and discharging batteries.
And of course, they couldn't give a shit about the enslaved human beings digging cobalt in the Congo so smug bourgeois brats can claim that they're doing something about climate change.
Electric cars: Running on child labour?
As for climate change, the results of all this crowing about the grand super special fantastic outstanding exponentially growing blah, blah, blah ad nauseum...wind/wind/solar/electric car fantasy are written in the planetary atmosphere.
Week beginning on March 3, 2019: 412.14 ppm
Weekly value from 1 year ago: 409.78 ppm
Weekly value from 10 years ago: 388.97 ppm
Last updated: March 14, 2019
Up-to-date weekly average CO2 at Mauna Loa
It appears that all this cheering is oblivious to the fact that the wind/solar/electric car fantasy didn't work, isn't working, and won't work.
It's pure Alice in Wonderland.
Have a pleasant Friday.