Featured Toyota to stop selling Traditional Gasoline Vehicles by 2050

Sorry but I think you overlooked the bigger news here:

"Electric cars weren't part of their vision, outlined by top Toyota Motor Corp. officials at a Tokyo museum on Wednesday, striking a contrast with rivals such as Nissan Motor Co., which has banked on that zero-emissions technology."

That's the first official attribution I've seen. I thought they had always left themselves with an out when it came to BEV's.

 

It's crazy, how about the their trux fleet?

 

I think hybrids, and plug-in hybrids, are gonna outsell pure electric for some time to come. Limited range and tedious charging is a deal breaker for many.

 

A 35 year projection is nearly an action of pure speculative fiction.

I happen to know, the Aliens, which we will call The Buddies, will arrive in the year 2025, and share their Banana Jammin' technology, which will allow EVERYTHING to be powered from Banana's.

I'm sure Toyota has a long term plan, and vision, but my real guess that as a competitive automaker, in the year 2050, they'll be selling what people want and what is possible. And my feeling is that there are just too many variables over 35 years to predict exactly what that might be.

Sure in the meantime Toyota "Shazam" projects selling hybrids and fuel cell vehicles. Huh...think that might be because that is what Toyota is promoting TODAY?

I don't care what Toyota say's or even wishes....who really knows what will dominate transportation in 35 years?

 

There is a rather telling chart put out by Toyota this year, possibly as part of this announcement. I found it on GreenCarCongress.com in their coverage.



Look at the gray blob for "High capacity Li-ion battery". They think the state of the art for commercial battery cells is around 250-300 Wh/L. There certainly are cells like that being used but Tesla's recent Model S cells (the ones from prior to the new and even denser 90 kWh packs) are already 630 Wh/L or more than twice what Toyota thinks is in the market.

Look at the "All solid battery" pink blob. It says "Current (research)" and shows 400 Wh/L. Sakti3 announced last year that they already have 1,100 Wh/L cells that are suitable for large scale production and they plan to start selling them in a couple of years. That far exceeds even the 600-800 Wh/L Solid battery future target. Dyson appliances has already signed up to Sakti3's cells and GM was an early investor for automotive use eventually.

So, is this chart propaganda to explain by BEVs are not presently realistic (and won't be in 2050) or is this reflecting what Toyota managers (don't) understand about battery technology today and in the immediate future?

Yes, I understand that Toyota may think that Tesla's NCA cells are too volatile for use in automobiles but Tesla is using them with apparent success and they certainly reflect reality. The 2016 Volt LMO/NMC cells are speculated to be around 380 Wh/L. This "2015" chart is definitely already out of date....

 

Wierd

If they are talking NOx, SO2, no problem. Urea based SCR of NOx and more stringent sulfur standards in gasoline can do that quickly.

If they are talking ghg, that is a crazy ambitious plan given the rest.

OK, but even in 2050, hydrogen in the Japan and the US will probably mainly be fossil fuel based (natural gas and coal) with some percent renewable.

cool, I'll belive it when I see it, but out of roughly 10 million vehicles a year, toyota expects to make 60% as many hydrogen vehicles in 2020 as tesla will make bevs this year. That is they expect 0.3% of their 2020 sales to be fcv. Definitely doable but optimistic. What percent will be fcv in 2050? How are you going to fit those hydrogen tanks in a yaris or a corolla? 30% seems crazy optimistic from 0.3%, so lets go with that, and only count tailpipe emissions as toyota appears to be doing here.

nice

Maybe the US and canada are "less developed countries. Only small numbers of phevs and gasoline cars in 2050. That seems a little crazy. Maybe the guy that said it plans to be dead by the time his prediction is shown to be overly pessimistic for the internal combustion engine and plug-in cars.

I guess if you are more than 100% confident, you can confidently pretend you aren't wrong when you are.

 

most of the fool-cell info out there is propaganda. Really, for all it's pomp and circumstance and charts and graphs, FCV info is lacking how much electricity is used in making the 'magic'. Hmm, I wonder why...

 

...diapers allowed right?
Cars will be self-driving so we'll be OK up to about age 100

 

I hope this was put out just to cover up their real plans.

I don't see oil and gasoline going away and I don't see Toyota putting its money where its mouth is by investing in hydrogen stations. Make money on selling the vehicle then make money selling the fuel that powers the vehicle.

If this is Toyota's long range plan they better hope the Japanese government is going to be able to bail them out.

 

Remember the Southpark underwhere nomes episode
Step 1) Steal Underware
Step 3) profit

Ok toyota has gotten step one. They have a fcv that they can afford to sell 3000/year at a slight loss to the company, and have gotten the Japanese, US, and German governments to poney up a lot of cash to put in infrastructure. I even believe in 2020 they can drive down costs eneough that they can sell 30,000/year at a loss. The reason I don't belive they will sell that many (say 150,000 in 5 years) is that I don't think governments will pay for all those stations and fuel, but Japan seems willing to pay for stations and fuel for 100,000 in that time (toyota selling 150,000 would mean other countries and/or honda and nissan don't take their share of the government cash.

The problem is step 3. You are now sellilng 100,000 fcv/year between the car companies, this takes goverment money. How do you go from their to selling most of the 17 million vehicles the US buys a year or most of the 20 million the chinese buy, in only 35 short years.

We are missing that middle step. I don't expect toyota to tells us. I mean then they would have to cruch the numbers and they don't look good for hydrogen infrastructure + fcv. How do you supply the energy density for long haul trucking, or the small tank size for compact cars?

 

I was just listening to CBC radio's Q show: discussion re a guest's self-driving car experience. What impressed him was the cautious behaviour of the car. It never sped, was always cognizant/polite with other cars.

 

Google supposedly hazed their interns by cranking up the cars' aggressiveness on a closed course. Lots of high revs and brake squealing.

 

Funny you should mention that: the Q host was asking along those lines, could you tailor the car's personality. Can you picture if they ALL went edgy/aggressive on the same day?

Still, there's massive potential for reducing the carnage (not to mention collision repair) a'coming.

 

Or wish we were...

 

ISIS just put in an order for 100, self-driving pickup trucks large enough to carry 500 kg payload.

Bob Wilson

 

ISIS is happy with trucks as long as they are toyotas.

 

I can't see the International Secret Intelligence Service buying anything from Toyota as I can't imagine Archer wanting to drive it.

John Dillinger preferred to steal Fords because they were reliable.