Why Toyota is not selling electric cars

Sounds like a reasonable long game strategy....


Rob43

 

Rather foolish excuse.
Just how does Toyota think it got almost 20 times their battery supply? Excactly, they built it.
Toyota could do the exact same.

That excuse sounds similar to there are only so many doors, so we are only going to make two door cars.

 

Life is simple...buy what you want.

 

'most competitors have been bullish' = most competitors are lying

'there are only so many batteries to go around after all'. if that is truly the case, bevs will never replace gassers

in my mind, all this is simple obfuscation for the real reason: there's no profit in bevs, and if there ever is, toyota will be able to jump in at any time.

clearly, no one is committed to refueling except tesla

 

Thankfully that’s not the case. Tesla’s Gigafactory and similar efforts in Europe and China are ensuring a supply.

Availability of batteries is only a problem if you don’t do anything about it.

 

What's wrong with waiting until battery production is less expensive?

After all, this is Toyota. They are hyper-aware that they are in the business of selling Toyotas for Toyota prices.

 

Typo alert?
I would guess your first "T" word should be Tesla ?

exactly is spelled wrong too.

 

No typo, it makes sense in context.
“It” refers to Tesla, the subject in the earlier sentence. “Toyota” refers to “Toyota”.

In other words, “Just how does Toyota think Tesla got almost 20 times the battery capacity Toyota has?”.

Apologies if that was unclear, typing on mobile. Thanks also for the spelling check. Unfortunately the post is no longer editable.

 

Currently they have a supply for 1.5 milion hybrid batteries. But indications are that they intend to expand with their stake in Orocobre:
Orocobre, Toyota approve $400m Olaroz lithium expansion - Australian Mining

In 2017 Toyota announced they they intend to produce 5.5 million electrified vehicles per year, of which 1 million will be BEV and FCV, I know the target year is somewhat conservative 2030, but never the less the target is clear: Toyota will be making BEVs.

The first EV for Asia and Europe is supposed to be Lexus UX 300e, (European trademark for UX 300e), for China C-HR will probably come even sooner.

 

I am saying this without much knowledge, but with increased demand for battery productions, I worry about all those mining operation for lithium and other rare earth that goes into electronics. They can't be good for an environment no matter how we glorify EV as environmentally friendly. Yeah, maybe better than petro, but ...

 

It’s all relative, lithium can be separated from sodium salt water in a relatively inane way should we wish...
High volume water wells and sodium salt dome mines are more dangerous and widespread than lithium mining but no one seems to care about those either.

 

There will soon be a world wide shortage of cobalt, an essential part of lithium ion batteries.
Bill Gates-backed Breakthrough Energy Ventures supports KoBold’s cobalt quest

 

The above is mainly because of cell phones oddly enough.

But regardless...

The way auto companies work is that technology has to be around FOREVER in another industry before they adopt it.
Lithium batteries that use Cobalt are ancient tech going on 40 years old.

There are other better lithium chemistry’s that use no Cobalt but they haven’t been around as long.

LifePO4 for example doesn’t require Cobalt but auto makers are very careful not to use it since it’s only about 15 years old, but someone has to go first.

 

Bunch of BS to fool the lay investor. They're not making EVs because they don't have the supply for battery and the R&D/engineering to do so.

A sale is a sale. In the medium term, EV sales will displace conventional ICE Hybrids. Only Toyota and Honda is slow on this and I suspect is their corp. culture. Japanese work culture is job stability and permanence. So there's large cohort of employees in the Atkinson Hybrid era (now) and this won't go away soon unless these ppl retire or start a brand new arm dedicated to EV r&d. Just look at how BAD THE PRIME INFOTAINMENT system is......it was like it was built with visual basic.

So their products lines are based on their corporate entity not the market. Toyota and Honda usually slow to respond to market needs. Toyota made the wrong long-term investment choice into hydrogen 10 years ago and they're paying dearly.

I just bought the model 3

 

Really well-researched and well-produced video, broadly on the topic of this thread:

A few comments regarding environmental impacts of battery production:

First and foremost, we need to bear in mind that the costs, in every sense of the term, of manufacturing batteries are one-time-per-vehicle. That, as opposed to oil drilling for gasoline production, which is an on-going cost incurred continuously, long after the car has left the factory. In other words, even for a monster, 100KWh Tesla battery, the total amount of material we’re talking about is minuscule compared to gallon after gallon after gallon of gas we keep pumping (literally) into our cars, and pumping oil is hardly devoid of environmental impact.

Despite the name “lithium ion,” lithium mining in particular is a comparatively minor concern compared to Cobalt. That since a typical “lithium battery” is only a few percent lithium, and since lithium mining mostly takes place in remote deserts. Cobalt is a bigger concern because there’s more total cobalt than lithium, and also because a lot of cobalt comes from inhumanely-managed mines. That’s a big part of why battery manufacturers are working to reduce cobalt content in their batteries.

Most importantly though, after serving a dozen years or longer in an EV, batteries will go into stationary power applications (e.g., office UPS systems or EV rapid chargers) for another dozen years or so. After that, they can be recycled to a fair degree.

Now, it’s true that we don’t have a very good track record so far with recycling lithium-ion batteries. However, that’s mostly because, until now, we’ve had comparatively small numbers of each of thousands of different kinds of such batteries. That makes them very difficult to “de-manufacture” for purposes of recycling. In the case of batteries being retired from an EV rapid charger, you are suddenly in possession of tens of thousands of nearly-identical batteries — easy for volume-production (“re-production”?).

 

Nothing wrong, it is just that Prius fans are disappointed in their taking it slow, because of what the Prius represents in terms of future cars. Toyota still is calling hybrids a bridge to the new thing in their marketing.

What many fans don't know, and Toyota kept mum about, is that the Prius came about as part of government backed programs and industry partnerships that dated back to the '70s. The Prius was sold as something Toyota did on their own, but public funding supported its research in part, and each sale had government subsidy since introduction.

How does present Toyota think past Toyota got the battery capacity for the hybrids they sell now?

Their hydrogen choice goes back to the low emission vehicle programs than helped support the Prius. They also looked into BEVs. At the time, NiMH was cutting edge technology, and many of the BEVs offered in Japan at the time were using lead acid. Which lead to the conclusion that BEVs what only work for short range city cars. Within corporate culture, this seems to have fossilized, and remains inspite of the advances recently seen in battery technology.

edit: Because of that fossilized view, Toyota spin, or poor researching by the journalist, the article put forth the claim that NiMH is cheaper. Perhaps that is true for Toyota still, or even for some other car companies with Li-ion supply issues, but Tesla has shown that Li-ion can be cheaper with the proper investment.

 

I have one nagging concern. Where did the claimed CO{2} footprint for battery production come from?

I once read a Swedish study that made that claim but the details were 'thin.' I'd really like to see more details.

Bob Wilson

 

Reasonable question. I presume the answer is simply that manufacturing and mining anything requires energy.