Who is plunking down $1k?

IMO, the fuss that comes from many of us is because we love Toyota quality - & because of the Prius - feel a loyalty to the brand. That Toyota turns away from a Tesla-like product and even goes negative on it (via their anti advertisement) , seems inexplicable

 

i would explain it as business as usual.

 

It may all come down to that. Some of us were under the impression Toyota was better than that.

 

agreed. not sure why though. they make a great car and they're sticking to it. i can't fault them for that. if the hydrogen thing is a hoax, shame on our voting populace.

 

I am looking at the bigger picture. The bigger picture is fossil fuels are going away. That is true for 100% of all cars. A car company can either ignore that or address it. The Prius is still 100% dependent on this temporary fuel.

Back in the 1980s, well ahead of every other car maker, a Toyota leader directed the company to start developing the car of the 21st century. That meant both gasoline use was to be dramatically minimized and pollution from the exhaust was to be dramatically minimized...not just slightly improved. That was the result of forward thinking and not what a marketing study reported as being most profitable. Now all I'm hearing is how the next step does not make "marketing sense".

Simple. My next vehicle may not be a Toyota.

There are winners and losers in the marketplace. Enough bad decisions converts a winner into a loser. Throwing a huge amount of company resources behind FCVs is a decision. Deciding to sit out the EV market is another decision. (The big consequence of this decision is to become totally dependent on someone else's high volume battery production.) Toyota's present day decisions do not seem to be the same caliber of the 1980's decisions.

 

wisdom is justified by her children.

 

That's at the penalty of sacrificing short & mid term well being. In other words, large established automakers cannot put all their eggs in one basket. They must continue with business sustaining production & sales while long term is pursued.

So. That's fine. The expectation is for early adopters to come & go anyway. Remember, the target is changing mainstream consumer purchases, not breaking new ground.

Huh? Toyota is a major stakeholder in Panasonic Heavy. They produce batteries. We're seeing that too. The new Prius uses lithium and so will Prime. Offering an EV is totally realistic still. What consequence is there of ramping up production in the meantime and for who?

Each new generation Toyota offers provides improvement and reaches out further into the mainstream.

What is the "better" are you expecting?

 

I take it you missed the part where the gigafactory's output, which it looks like will barely suffice for meeting M3 demand, exceeds the production capacity of all other plants in the world combined. that does not bode well for Toyota if they wake up tomorrow and decide that EVs aren't just a fad, since it's not clear where they will be getting the capacity to produce the batteries for them.

 

then Tesla will be the only game in town.

 

No, I kept listening and heard how long it would take and noticed all the other automakers are in similar positions.

 

Except, of course, for the part where no other automaker is building their own battery production factory. But yeah, apart from that, they are all in "similar" positions.

 

Sounds like some people are countering just for the sake of keeping the discussion going.

We've heard from others on various threads simple upset that Toyota isn't a "leader" anymore, yet fail to recognize that leadership isn't always the same thing. There are different approaches for different needs. The one-size-fits-all mentality has caused problems in the past... and some still may not see the lessons learned from that.

It's unfortunate success like Tesla has achieved is causing the inability to notice other goals being achieved.

 

do not know, that post sounds an awful lot like something just to keep the discussion going.

i don't really care about whether toyota is the leader or not. Palm was the leader in the handheld space and said "PC guys aren't just going to walk in here and figure things out". A few years later Palm didn't exist anymore. Sure, Toyota has a much farther way to fall, but the point remains – some of us are walking away.

Note that despite Toyota's efforts to make hybrids available across their lineup, the marketshare of hybrids has remained stagnant for years. In fact I just looked at the February numbers on hybridcars.com and they are absolutely abysmal, 1.82%. Total hybrid sales in February were under 25k. Remember that Tesla has now taken over 270k reservations, meaning nearly a year's worth of hybrid sales. In 3 days.

 

Of course it should be noted that the hybrid market has become saturated by the types that would get in line to reserve a Model 3. ALL the more reason for Toyota to diversify their product lineup, tick tock tick tock.

 

It's a basic economic principal that a plateau will occur.

To overcome that, all the rest of the automakers must get involved. We're seeing the participation grow... finally Chrysler & GM are new to the hybrid market. Hyundai is really stepping up their program. Ford is striving to deliver some type of upgrade. Honda is reworking their effort. We're witnessing VW's diesel program come to an end.

The same will end up being the case for Tesla. It needs Nissan & GM along with others to push the market beyond the impressive wave of initial Model 3 reservations.

 

So your prediction is that hybrid market share will start growing again?

As for Tesla, they don't "need" help, Tesla sales are expected to continue to grow through 2020.
I also don't believe GM sales have reached a long term plateau, Nissan likely has until they come out with Gen2.

Don't get me wrong, the more help the better and Tesla wants the help. But they don't need it at this time or in the near future, to continue to grow profitable sales.

 

You're mixing up micro & macro economics. They they have different scopes & spans.

And yes, the hybrid market will grow.

 

The numbers I provided were for all manufacturers, but glad to see that you still found a way to spin this in a positive light ;-)

 

The Hybrid market has just started, the Gen IV is the start of introducing the Hybrid to greater masses across the country, its not just going to be a car on the West Coast. From the Gen IV success (Rising fuel costs) the Mirai will also see growth in the West, and slowly become the norm for the rest of the US. We will see Tesla and Toyota sharing the roads, but Toyota will always be the bigger company and the one to watch. This has been in the making for the past 20 years.

 

GM, Chrysler, and Nissan are major automakers that don't offer any hybrids. There's smaller automakers too, like Mitsubishi. The number of hybrids coming from Honda, VW, and Subaru are almost non-existent.

Look at the top-selling category, small SUVs. There is only the RAV4. There aren't any hybrid minivans here. For that matter, there's only one sub-compact available.

The market is most definitely lacking choices still. Thinking that's representative of "all" is serious denial.