When we decided to trade in our Prius for an EV a year and a half ago, we found that Toyota only offered one option in the US (with a Lexus variant), and they weren't competitive on range or charging speed. So my Japanese wife, from a Toyota-driving family near Nagoya, now drives a Cadillac Lyriq (and loves it). It's hard to know whether Akio Toyoda is publicly dismissive of EVs because Toyota doesn't make a competitive EV, or whether they don't invest enough to develop a competitive EV because Akio doesn't believe in them -- but either way, I agree that they risk falling further behind (although I do have to admit that the coming mid-cycle refresh of the bZ4X is by all accounts a big improvement).
I wonder how much of Japan's slowness to move to BEVs is due to the 100 volt electrical grid? Most US homes have a 240V circuit for the clothes dryer, so adding a Level 2 EV charger is relatively straightforward. But Japanese homes don't have dryers or 240V circuits. Is there something I'm missing, or is home charging doomed to be limited to 100V?
Thanks for another insightful article! It seems like Toyota is waiting for technology to catch up. You may have been referring to all-solid-state batteries when you mentioned EREVs. If not, you may want to look into this technology. I wrote an article on this topic at the end of last year while doing some new car shopping in Japan. We ended up choosing a Honda HEV, which is terrific. Just FYI: https://realgaijin.substack.com/p/japanese-automakers-are-about-to
Mark, EREVs have nothing to do with solid-state batteries at all. They are explained in the full post. I'm very interested in the competition around solid-state batteries and so thank you for your post. It seems to be very unclear when such batteries will become commercially viable and who will be the leaders. It's also unclear how much Toyota will use them for BEVs rather than HEV hybrids.
Thank you for your reply. Yes, I agree that solid-state EV batteries won't become commonplace until around 2030. That's why we bought a new HEV a couple of months ago. The competition to develop this technology is fierce. However, I have a feeling that Toyota will find a way to win.
"However, the production system for a BEV is very different from an ICE or HEV. The BEV has thousands of parts that are either new or put together differently than in a Camry or a Prius. “You cannot kaizen yourself from an ICE vehicle to a BEV. That is the dilemma for Toyota,” "
I don't think that is true. The move from (P)HEV to EREV should be easy and one that Toyota can do. PHEVs have electric motors and batteries and gasoline motors as do EREVs. The difference is that the EREV loses all the ICE powertrain and simply connects it to the battery charger. Essentially you remove the ICE powertrain and probably add a second electric motor on the other axle. That's an evolutionary change and I can't see why it would be hard for Toyota.
In fact that EREV makes the FC vehicles possible too - just replace the gasoline motor with the hydrogen FC and have the FC charge the batteries when needed.
Hydrogen FC has been, and remains, money down the drain, as I noted in the piece. 2020 Olympics were advertised as hydrogen Olympics--a massive failure.
Immense "sunk costs" drive so much propaganda in favor of BEV's, while denigrating and dismissing alternatives such as hydrogen, that it is impossible to blindly accept the credibility of articles such as this. Enormous subsidies have been handed out to increase infrastructure such as charging stations, while fighting any attempt to allow any competing infrastructure, while then using the lack of infrastructure as an argument against the technology. It's another example of financial, marketing, and political maneuvering pushing society wide development over actual cost-benefit analysis, technological prowess, or free market choices.
Akio Toyoda can't bear the thought of destroying millions of people through EV transition because the overcomplexity of ICE cars allowed an overly complex Japanese supply chains. Additionally, China has already owned all resources and supply chains to develop BEV and other next generations of cars. BYD and Chinese automakers already can make more competitive PHEVs than Japanese ones! Toyota and Japanese automakers are terrified of coming storms against Chinese companies. Just like how Chinese companies crushed everyone in solar industry.
When we decided to trade in our Prius for an EV a year and a half ago, we found that Toyota only offered one option in the US (with a Lexus variant), and they weren't competitive on range or charging speed. So my Japanese wife, from a Toyota-driving family near Nagoya, now drives a Cadillac Lyriq (and loves it). It's hard to know whether Akio Toyoda is publicly dismissive of EVs because Toyota doesn't make a competitive EV, or whether they don't invest enough to develop a competitive EV because Akio doesn't believe in them -- but either way, I agree that they risk falling further behind (although I do have to admit that the coming mid-cycle refresh of the bZ4X is by all accounts a big improvement).
I wonder how much of Japan's slowness to move to BEVs is due to the 100 volt electrical grid? Most US homes have a 240V circuit for the clothes dryer, so adding a Level 2 EV charger is relatively straightforward. But Japanese homes don't have dryers or 240V circuits. Is there something I'm missing, or is home charging doomed to be limited to 100V?
Thanks for another insightful article! It seems like Toyota is waiting for technology to catch up. You may have been referring to all-solid-state batteries when you mentioned EREVs. If not, you may want to look into this technology. I wrote an article on this topic at the end of last year while doing some new car shopping in Japan. We ended up choosing a Honda HEV, which is terrific. Just FYI: https://realgaijin.substack.com/p/japanese-automakers-are-about-to
Mark, EREVs have nothing to do with solid-state batteries at all. They are explained in the full post. I'm very interested in the competition around solid-state batteries and so thank you for your post. It seems to be very unclear when such batteries will become commercially viable and who will be the leaders. It's also unclear how much Toyota will use them for BEVs rather than HEV hybrids.
Thank you for your reply. Yes, I agree that solid-state EV batteries won't become commonplace until around 2030. That's why we bought a new HEV a couple of months ago. The competition to develop this technology is fierce. However, I have a feeling that Toyota will find a way to win.
The link for the McKinsey article is broken.
Thanks for the heads up. I fixed it.
"However, the production system for a BEV is very different from an ICE or HEV. The BEV has thousands of parts that are either new or put together differently than in a Camry or a Prius. “You cannot kaizen yourself from an ICE vehicle to a BEV. That is the dilemma for Toyota,” "
I don't think that is true. The move from (P)HEV to EREV should be easy and one that Toyota can do. PHEVs have electric motors and batteries and gasoline motors as do EREVs. The difference is that the EREV loses all the ICE powertrain and simply connects it to the battery charger. Essentially you remove the ICE powertrain and probably add a second electric motor on the other axle. That's an evolutionary change and I can't see why it would be hard for Toyota.
In fact that EREV makes the FC vehicles possible too - just replace the gasoline motor with the hydrogen FC and have the FC charge the batteries when needed.
Hydrogen FC has been, and remains, money down the drain, as I noted in the piece. 2020 Olympics were advertised as hydrogen Olympics--a massive failure.
Immense "sunk costs" drive so much propaganda in favor of BEV's, while denigrating and dismissing alternatives such as hydrogen, that it is impossible to blindly accept the credibility of articles such as this. Enormous subsidies have been handed out to increase infrastructure such as charging stations, while fighting any attempt to allow any competing infrastructure, while then using the lack of infrastructure as an argument against the technology. It's another example of financial, marketing, and political maneuvering pushing society wide development over actual cost-benefit analysis, technological prowess, or free market choices.
Akio Toyoda can't bear the thought of destroying millions of people through EV transition because the overcomplexity of ICE cars allowed an overly complex Japanese supply chains. Additionally, China has already owned all resources and supply chains to develop BEV and other next generations of cars. BYD and Chinese automakers already can make more competitive PHEVs than Japanese ones! Toyota and Japanese automakers are terrified of coming storms against Chinese companies. Just like how Chinese companies crushed everyone in solar industry.