Featured Toyota EVs At Tokyo Motor Show

Yep, I reckon it’ll be a while before there is a full spread of electrics out there.

I just finished reading an interesting article about vehicle type- apparently a few carmakers have decided to keep building sedans with the expectation that the next generation of buyers will adopt them because A) it’s not the SUV their parents drove (Yuck!!) and B) sedans are nearly always lighter and more efficient than SUVs on a seat count basis. That’s a free performance boost.

I like that they’re looking ahead.

 

Hybrids have always been a little more expensive than their pure ICE counterparts, but not by 50-100%.

Not to start an argument, but the Leaf and the Bolt are not really full-size sedans ... the Leaf is a bona fide compact hatchback, and the Bolt is subcompact hatchback that looks like a microvan, and is called a "wagon".

 

Tesla is actually seeing data that's better than expected with their batteries, which is why they keep boosting power and charge rates... There's Teslas in their personal fleet that have already hit a million miles... Add to that the fact every major vehicle builder in the world is investing heavily in battery tech advancement and amazing new recipes announced every month of late... That 10 or 20 years is cut down to way less than that.

 

And not even one of them has made it past 11 years. Now, they have the best reason ever for that, but with an ever-changing recipe there is at least some risk in terms of how they age in real time.

 

Oh, I see what happened there ... A lesson to learn for all of us - no sarcasm intended: Complex sentences and inattentive readers do not play well together

Back to the money:

Apart from the purchase price problem, there is the annoying absence in EV's of the "Go anyplace with paved roads, Anytime" value-enhancing feature. This means many, if not most people, may end up needing to maintain another, non-BEV means of transportation in the household. That's an extra cost.

 

Looking back, the most expensive decisions I’ve ever made when picking cars were born out of the question, “which one car can do everything I need?”

Parking was much less available for many of the prior years and car purchases. When I lived in the city it was a foregone conclusion that I could only afford to park one.

Now that I’m further out and have space, it hasn’t been a big deal to keep a few kinds around. Ideally I’d like to see a lot more car rental activity, availability & location density but for now I have generous parking.

I would have no problem at all owning only a ~100-mile EV if there were 3 good, competing rental centers nearby.

 

The rent-a-car scenario will work for some; many city dwellers make a calculated choice to own no vehicle at all, but to use Uber/Lyft/rideshare services, and/or rent one on as-needed basis.

Renting in general is great on pre-planned occasions. But I can't dream up a good protocol for renting an ICE car on the fly when I am coming home with 30 miles left on GoM and find out that there is an a 20-minute traffic jam on the interstate with or without a crawling detour and perhaps 20F outside, Or when I need to go back to ____________ to collect my ______________ I left there, or when I find out at 5.30AM that I'd forgotten to plug the darn thang overnight. Of course these would never take aback a Tesla owners; Musk will show up, parting the clouds with his SpaceX starship (in an alternative mythology: emerge from the freshly drilled tunnel) and refills yer thirsty battery with cyberpunk elonectrons

 

This is likely 5 years away in china and india, but of course those will come with subsidies to get the prices down.

Other than parking subcompact bevs don't make much sense, and sub compact phevs even less. The battery pack's ability to use regen braking and battery costs mean a compact and subcompact would likely require the same battery, electronics, motor size and cost for city driving, and a compacts better aerodynamics (its harder to make shorter vehicles as low drag) mean range would be higher on the highway than a subcompact. Its likely chinese companies and tesla will be able to produce 50 kwh packs for about $5000 in 2025. Balance of power electronics, motor, transmission, and charger will likely cost less than engine, transmission, pollution controls, etc of a similarly powered ice. At that point its all about the charging infrastructure. I don't think tesla has the engineering bandwidth to build a compact car, with all there projects. The chinese yes, but they likely won't be built to american safety standards, so in full agreement the US and euro markets won't have good compact choices until around 2030. Then its likely to be someone other than tesla. Then again in the North american subcompacts are a tiny part of the market falling to about 2.5% of light vehicle sales. Compact cars and SUVs though are a significant part of the market.

Japanese group think said big vehicles were inappropriate for bev because of cost and weight. Both of these have come down. The model Y and the tesla and rivilan pick up should be out in a couple of years. That is a much bigger part of the north american market than compact or smaller.

 

Actually the head of Lexus said they’ll release their BEV (not the concept shown) next year. Toyota's luxury Lexus brand plans battery EV launch in 2020 - Reuters

According to the Lexus enthusiast site it will be called the UX300e. We’ll see next month when it’s introduced.


Unsupervised!

 

Yes, but the issue here is building a low cost drivetrain... No doubt Lexus will be able to much more rapidly offer a luxury car option that isn't limited by keeping costs down... But for Toyota-Subaru to design a viable drivetrain that is lower than the lowest Price Tesla Model 3, that's going to take a 1/2 dozen years.

 

It seems like every few months or at least a couple of times a year this same "shortcomings of EVs" is repeated over and over.
What if this, what if that, but I might do this or need that, blah, blah blah.

Do you carry an extra spare tire in your Prius C? I mean, what if you just got a flat and put on the spare and you get another flat?
What are you possibly going to do about that? For every person on these forums that has a dozen reasons why an EV couldn't possibly work there are probably 10 other people/families who don't know squat about cars, who live in a house where they could charge daily and who never drive farther than 50 miles from home in a few years time in ONE of their cars.

It is time to retire this line of thinking. Sure, purchase price is an issue. There are lots of used EVs.

Mike

 

A limited mileage car may only appeal to multi car families. But that is a heck of a lot of potential buyers.

 

The limitations of EV's that are related to the still existing deficiencies of the current battery tech (and aggravated by the current problems with the public L3 infrastructure) are neither a conjecture, nor a secret. As you correctly stated, there is an on-going discussion about pros and cons.

An important part of the discussion is offering counter-narrative to partial truths and lopsided interpretations. For example, if a BEV is rated for 50 kW, does this mean you can arrive on any day, with any SoC, to any DCFC and drive off with 25 kWh added in 30 minutes? Why not?

I'd argue that the skill of thinking ahead (which is all done in what-ifs) is an indispensable tool for avoiding mistakes ... like running out of battery

The statistic probability of having two consequent flats within 12 hours of each other is 0.01% (an average American driver has 5 flats in their driving life, which we assume to be 60 years for the sake of exercise). You can call AAA or your insurance company.

The statistic probability of running into one of the situations I described earlier is quite a bit higher. They will befall most drivers a few times a year, and those who haven't done their what-ifs, pertinent to BEV limitations, will end up stranded with no gas can in sight to help.

You don't necessarily make the problem go away when you stop talking about it; on the contrary, some problems will persist because they are overlooked or played down. It's time to retire the problem, which will happen in a few years, and the line of thinking that goes with it will go away by itself. No sooner and no later.

Again, the price per se is not an issue; Americans have no problems with spending $40K+ on a new vehicle. It's the value for money and (additional) capabilities that middle-market looks for. When I bought the Prius, I reduced the TCO vs a comparable ICE-only car. When I bought the F-150, I added the capability to haul bulky/dirty items. In addition, in both scenarios I attained extra peace of mind, because I know both are highly reliable and will last for 10+ years if not abused, and the residual value after X years or Y miles is fairly predictable.

 

That may be true today, enabled by incredibly easy loan credit. But we already have a big problem with people stacking the last two years of their previous 7-year loan into a second one. That’s not sustainable. NPR is working on a big story about this, not sure if it dropped yet.

I’m in agreement with you on all the other points in your post, but I think you’re sweeping a bit too much under the carpet with the statement I quoted.

If the transition to EVs means we are all going to pay more to purchase these cars? We can work with it- but the value proposition is going to have to change too. That car is going to have to last a lot longer than the ~12 years we are seeing for gas cars today. That’s going to spur demand for 20-year battery warranties and very long term commitments for software and parts support from the manufacturers. I don’t get the sense that the industry is well positioned to accommodate these changes.

 

No, but 50 kw is not state of the art, it is quite low. Porsche Taycan using current battery tech can use 350 kw combo plugs charging from 5%-85% (about 70 KWh) in 15 minutes, using less expensive battery technology the tesla model 3 long range can charge at v3 superchargers at 250 kw at 15 minutes (about 150 miles or 36 kwh) or 250 miles in 40 minutes. These chargers are slowly rolling out and better battery tech will allow faster charging. As charge gets above 80% or below 5% the charging slows down so its not a linear thing. Still in a model 3 to go on a 600 mile trip it would require charging to 100% overnight and 2 - 20 minute stops for charging.

On most days there is no thoughts or stopping at gas stations the cars are simply charged at home or work. On long trips it requires a little planning. The tesla does the planning for you with awareness of charger locations. These are not fully built out though so when traveling off the beaten path, you would have to plan a little ahead and position for longer charge time.

I'm sure its much higher than that. I had that happen 6 months after getting my prius (truck had dumped small debris on the road which was hard to see). It took 3 hours for a tow as their was not a flat bed close by with time to reach me. Other cars with the problem got towed quicker. Still it was pretty simple to get towed, get a ride, and get new tires. Still with a little planning an 90 minutes at a at a slow charger will get you to a L3 charger.

 

Tesla has proven the opposite.

Their best cars have half the range and cost twice as much as the conventional or hybrid competition, and a great deal of that difference comes down to the fact that the best batteries around still stink.

As it has been for the last 150 years, EVs are battery-limited. Less so than in the lead-acid or NiCd/NiMH days, but EVs still can't do what fossil-fueled vehicles can do or do it for the same price.

 

And this is a known unknown, whereas there likely are unknown ones as well, especially in the demographics department. You see, there are a lot fewer millennials than Gen-X'er and Baby boomers. On top of this, millennials buy fewer cars, and later in life than "we" did. For example, the 4 millenials that I am familially associated with have clocked 20 years of driving age among them, and only one of them - the 26 year old specimen - has ever had a car, for about 2 years I think.

So, in the next decades in the West the personal automobile as such - regardless of the powerplant - may go the way of the log splitter or a kerosene lamp to the outer margins of the consumer goods market.

BTW, the BEV may even follow the path of the CD to irrelevance after 3 decades of mighty struggle to beat the versatility of the cassette tape

Sure, the 50 kW was given as an example of it not being the true 50 kW most of the time. As everyone agrees, these things will improve, and after that there will be a supply-and-demand-regulated market.

Sure, and let's remind ourselves that not every EV is a Tesla, and the motley patchwork of public DCFC's is not the Supercharger network. That's one of the reasons that in the US Tesla sells (I think) more cars than all other manufacturers, taken together. Also sometimes cars cannot be "simply" charged at home or work. Here are some real-life examples: Not all condos have public L2s, and not all HOA's will allow you to install a private one. Where we live, we sometimes have power outages for few hours - not big enough bother to install a whole-house generator at the price of a small car, but enough to disrupt one's travel plans a BEV is their only car. Not all work- and public places have L2s, and those that exist are often in disrepair, or in use by others, or ICE'd .... geez, I couldn't find a single one in Bethany Beach.

 

Again, you are just repeating arguments that we've covered 20 times in the last 4-5 years.
And YES, what you say is true. But progress is being made on better batteries and faster chargers and more chargers.
IN THE MEANTIME...as a guess, there are tens of millions of car owners who don't have these limitations.
They can be the early adopters.

Question: how many families own two or more cars and own their own home?
How many of them have one car that rarely, if ever, travels outside a 25 or 50 mile range?

The next level up from there is people who can afford a longer range car, like a Tesla.

Once those two groups have helped to ramp up the market share, then it will be easier to address the other cases

Mike

 

Most people are very short sighted on finances. Yes, EVs cost more up front. But over the life of the car they are likely to save money on repairs and fuel costs. That is the value proposition.
There are other advantages besides just personal finance.
- lower smog, healthier air, lower health costs
- fewer military/overseas issues on oil supplies
- lower CO2
- no gas smell when refueling

Add it up. Its a financial win nationwide except for those dependent on oil jobs and ICE making jobs.

My request to all: stop all the arguments of why it maybe can't work for you and figure out how to make your next car an EV. And if you don't want an EV just don't get one.

Mike