Featured Shareholders Concerned About Toyota Anti-Electric Car Lobbying

Pension funds are generally long term investors. They are also funds headquartered in Europe, where climate change is taken more seriously. It is also a market in which parts can be banning new ICE vehicle sales in under ten years. The fund managers very likely understand Toyota's business approach, and know they are strong enough on hybrids that those will carry Toyota in those markets as they switch to more plug ins. If that had been a concern, they likely would have already sold.

It is Toyota's lobbying against environmental and climate change measures that has them speaking up, because it hurts the company long term when there are several car companies switching to plug ins that aren't lobbying against their future products.

 

What is the struggle? Tesla started with laptop batteries because that was all they could get. They ramped this up, made some improvements and have now designed more improvements and will ramp that up at some point.

Finally, you said something that makes sense.

Mike

 

I'm not. My posts make that quite clear too. I regularly point out aspects of BEV design and infrastructure related today... then reflect back about how the pattern of dismissals & disregards match history. Repeating the same mistakes is what Toyota is taking the time to prevent. The fact that other automakers don't place that as a priority is analysis of the past is so important.

Of course, I noticed your obvious attempt to mislead by intentionally avoiding more recent Volt decisions. Gen-2 in 2016 was a blatant omission. And the decision to abandon that entire investment instead of moving it to a better platform... like Trax or Equinox... was quite recent, just 2 years ago. Again, diversification is vital for good business (long-term sustainability). Rather than offer anything at all to GM customers currently looking to replace their aged Chevy SUV, the decision was just divert attention to the "30 EV models by 2025" without any mention or commitment to volume. It's just another setup for "over promise, under deliver".

Meanwhile, Toyota is rolling out both PHEV and BEV.

 

That's GM, who hasn't been a market leader in a awhile. They are doing interesting things with their BEV platform, but people aren't looking to them for the way the market is going. That would be Tesla and VW. There is also the prospect of a Chinese company gaining ground outside their home.

 

hmm - lets see what I actually said -

It really does seem you are stuck in 2012 no matter what your claims are. I did not change the subject, your post trying to divert toyota's lobbying against environmental regulations despite its claim to support them bringing up gm just seems wierd, and bizzare. I don't really understand your point. You said gm rushed to get the volt out. That was end of 2010. I don't think concentrating on bevs in the US market given that companies like toyota and ford and bmw were gettting subsidies while gms maxed out made a lot of financial sense, but here you are. Tesla seems to be doing really well concentrating on bevs. Can you tell me your point? What in the world does gm have to do with toyota lobbying effort?

yes Toyota/Lexus and its other subsidiaries and joint ventures sold and leased world wide less than 54,000 phevs, bevs, and fuel cells in 2020 - almost all of them prius primes. GM on an equivalent basis sold or leased 220,000 plug-ins last year including both bev and phev SUVs. The phev SUV is in china. GM maxed out their US subsidies for batteries so how was that going to compete with subsidized phev SUVs from toyota, ford, and BMW? But again here and in my post why talk about gm. It doesn't even sell in europe where these toyota investors are mad at Toyota's anti environmental lobbying and distorted claims about plug-ins.

Tesla sold 499,550 thousand vehicles in 2020. It did this on just 2 platforms and 4 vehicles. Tesla sells no phev or fuel cell vehicles so that diversity can not be claimed to be leading to higher sales for toyota. See not so difficult when you look at the numbers. Tesla should have the cyber truck and roadster out next year as well as model S plaid. They will easily sell over 1M bevs in 2022 with the Austin and berlin factories producing and battery suppliers higher output from investment made in 2019.

I really hope Toyota eventually gets it right and these shareholder lawsuits get the bone heads that are pushing against the waves of plug-ins to at least step aside and stop advertising against them and lobbying against them.

 

That is exactly why what GM did is so relevant now. We have the same "Who?" problem. How many hundreds of times was "Who is the market for Volt?" asked? Over and over and over, it was dismissed as unimportant. We can see the history pattern playing out, again. Those references to "people" and "looking" and "going" are meaningless, without any defining substance. No critical thinking can be attributed to such vague claims... hence the question.

None of us really know where Tesla is going. Reaching middle-market (the source of sustainable profit for large automakers) is necessary for growth, but how will that be achieved? The required price drop won't come from technology alone. That won't be enough to sway those living from paycheck to paycheck. Offering a smaller vehicle with less range would trigger a paradigm-shift, forcing Tesla to take a new approach with promotion & sales. That's an entirely new category for Tesla.

As for VW, we see a number of prototype vehicles being presented and hear about factory building... but nothing else. That should raise warning flags. How will the rest of the process be achieved? What will be done to draw customers to VW and what will dealers do to entice EV sales? Our market is especially skeptical of VW and they were never that big of an automaker here anyway. That means heavy emphasis on existing owners to achieve any type of real change.

In other words the same barriers GM faced still exist.

 

To see what?

Selling 1,000,000 vehicles worldwide is impressive, when details are excluded. But when you dig, you discover profit is razor-thin, prices are still beyond the reach of middle-market consumers, and a big chunk of what sustains the business is the sale of carbon-credits. To complicate matters, we have no indication of how proprietary supercharger locations will grow to meet demand or how that equipment/usage will be funded. This is all taking place within the context of limited competition too.

It's more of the short-term perspective being projected as if long-term variables are the same. Continuing to refer to "lobbying" is such a generic way, without any detail whatsoever, is why past and recent decisions from GM are being brought up. It's all about the lack of substance. Enthusiasts thrive on hype and evade accountability.

In other words, looking at numbers without context feeds a narrative some of use see faults with.

 

Like "token efforts" and "vague promotions" and "pledges". You were asked to provide examples of such back on page 2 of this thread, and only recently brought up GM. Any examples from other companies?

A fair assessment if Tesla was just a car company. Perhaps they'll start advertising when they get to an entry level BEV.

What? You obviously haven't been paying attention to what VW has been doing. The new, EV only plant started official production back in October.
SAIC VW's EV-only plant starts official production - Gasgoo
Capacity will be 300k vehicles. The retooling of the German plant is done, as ID.3 delivery to Europe started when VW had announced. The US retooling is done, or nearly so, as the ID.4 will be coming out on time in the US. Well, aside from any pandemic related delay. The Audi Q4 e-tron and Skoda Enyaq are already in production and for sale.

At this point, there isn't any reason for announced VW group BEVs to not reach production. Exact timing may be off from what VW planned, because of a global event, but that has hit everyone.

Our market is number 3 for plug ins, after China and Europe, which don't have obstructionist independent dealers. Ford will likely have a bigger impact here. Their electricification plans seem to be coming along as planned. They also have partnered with VW for somethings.

You are looking at them like a shorter. Comparing Tesla to an established, 100 year old car company, when they are a young, growing company making heavy capital investments.

So what if they are making money off carbon credits, or any other government regulation or incentive. Toyota used Prius sales to reduce the cost of selling Tundras. Tesla is using those credit profits to increase their growth rate, and aren't integral to their long term success.

What's with the Supercharger FUD? Tesla updates the Supercharger map at least once a year with planned new sites. Funding for the network's use and growth comes from the fees to use it.

What are Toyota's plans to grow the charging infrastructure? They tried to keep from spending any of their own money on hydrogen refueling infrastructure. Is it the same with chargers, or are they just delaying until someone else has built it?

The examples of problematic lobbying were given in the articles and early posts of this thread. We are at page 5. Not defining such a term so far into a discussion every time is acceptable to the discourse.

 

umm, nice cutting off the sentence from the middle of a paragraph and pretending you don't understand the point. And you accused me of switching the subject from the volt on a thread about lobbying and electrification as misleading. Just read above, its pretty damn clear in context.

Talk about things off topic but fine. Last year tesla averaged selling credits worth about $3000/car to other auto manufacturers so they could meet government mandates. They recieved no direct incentives in the US, so a model Y had no tax credits outside a few incentives, while the toyota successfully lobbyied to have the mirai get $12,000 per vehicle direct subsidies to consumers and about $20,000/vehicle in subsidies to toyota directly or to build infrastructure for them. The rav4 prime has $7500 in federal tax credits. The Japanese government just gave toyota a lot of money to build a lithium battery factory.

Tesla is using the subsidies to grow. They were building 3 new factories and developing 3 vehicles (Pick up truck, roadster, and semi truck). That actually costs resources but profit margin for the model 3 actually went up as costs came down. They also started upgrading the charging network speed and added more stations. They are also working on making all superchargers run on 100% renewables by the end of next year. Of course this is about toyota's lobbying not tesla. Toyota doesn't want the US or japanese governments to really help subsidize the charging networks. Their shareholders do.

I'm sorry you can read the shareholder proposal. You can read further up this thread. WSJ had an article in November about toyota lobbying the Japanese government with some really distorted information. But if toyota is not doing this, then they should just agree with shareholders and not keep fighting them. Is that so hard?

 

There it is, a vague reply to a request for clarification.

That's the same thing, evading detail when requested.

 

The link in the first post of this thread gave some examples of Toyota's anti-climate/environment lobbying.

The second post was yours. You didn't ask for clarification on the lobbying then. You tried spinning Toyota's actions as somehow holding out for something better, though you didn't define what that better was. This clarification for lobbying wasn't asked until post #87, which is late for something central to the original topic. With you also being unable to provide clarification to "token efforts, vague promotions, and pledges" when asked, your asking for them now is dishonest; merely a diversion to the discussion.

 

Know your audience.

 

I was thinking it was about time for that nugget of wisdom to come out again.

 

Should that be read as, " I have nothin' ".

 

I am well aware of the game you are playing. The narrative of Toyota being a laggard or anti-EV is fed with vague claims. When called out, sources have no substance... just outdated hearsay to divert attention away from the real problems and garnish praise instead. That's history repeating. It's the same old nonsense. Fortunately, reach of such rhetoric is limited.

In the meantime, Toyota stays on course with their continuous improvement approach. It's subtle and often ridiculed, but it is extremely effective. We are seeing platform upgrades across the fleet, setting the stage for profitable sales of plug-in vehicles requiring little effort from dealer or salesperson. That's the goal... not dealing with opinions of those online.

 

This isn't about opinions from anyone online. It is about Toyota consistently lobbying governments to repeal or reduce government measures aimed at reducing carbon emissions(examples have already been provided), with the complaint coming from large funds that own Toyota stock, and likely have done so for an extended period of time. A complaint that was serious enough that Toyota had address it with a public statement to the effect of them reviewing their past lobbying.

In this thread, Toyota's lobbying behavior has been excused as somehow them actually working for stricter regulations, and that other car makers' EV efforts are token ones. The latest diversions from Toyota's behavior was to demand an explanation of the lobbying and use non sequiturs.

 

How is it 'vague claims' if Toyota runs anti electric car adds, coupled with anti BEV lobbying. And how is that hearsay. If there's a notion that adds we're negative "long ago", can we be more specific then long ago? Seems even if ads were 10 years ago, they would still be Jermaine, if anti BEV lobbying continues.
.

 

There is a problem with the so-called continuous improvement approach.
It is like building a ladder to the moon, one rung at a time.
Seems like you'll obviously get there, eventually.

But sometimes you have to scrap the whole thing (ICE cars) and try a new approach (rocket or BEV).

Mike

 

Like an electronic CVT transmission driven by an Atkinson engine getting nearly twice the mileage of existing ICE cars. ... You know, the Prius that brought us together.

Bob Wilson

 

You don't, which was the point of all of this. It's about noticing what people don't say. That is the history repeating. Volt continues to be the ideal example, since it was developed, delivered, upgraded, then died without ever dealing with the problem it passed along. That was lack of clarity. No real purpose doomed it to fail. What was it attempting to achieve? That same chaotic mixed messaging carried over from Two-Mode to Volt and now to Bolt. We have witnessed it here with so-called "lobbying" claims. This audience was and still is clueless as to why any type of resistance has been expressed.

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE is absolutely vital. What the %$#&!@ are you trying to get ordinary consumers to purchase?

Look no further than DC fast-charging for an understanding absent goals. BEV owners are all over the place, no agreement whatsoever about type, speed or pricing. It's a disaster that is getting worse, not better. Why would anyone apprehensive about plug-in vehicles listen to the jumble of experiences that don't address the entire situation. The randomness of supposed "need" only serves to confuse & disenchant. Again, who? It's quite remarkable to watch this group chase its own tail.

These concerns are what Toyota is bringing attention to. While others are accepting accolades, there is still many barriers to overcome... and shooting the messenger doesn't accomplish anything.