Featured Toyota Exec Sets Tesla Catch Up Date For Its Fleet

catch up to demand?

2035, that's a nice safe date that most everyone will be able to forget in the next 12 years.

i predict toyota (and all legacy makers) will not be all ev until they are forced to by governments

 

It's hilarious... Almost every single day they make a new promise... It's like they put their entire PR department on a daily grind of promising something they don't make, don't sell and are more years behind the EV leaders than every other major automaker.

Saddest part it that it might work for a while. I mean Amazon workers were being treated horribly with chronic wage theft and even losing their lives in warehouses where they had to use pee bottles so they wouldn't get in trouble for working too slow and so Amazon through tens of millions in PR lies and presto! All the polls since suggest they eliminated the problem and people again are convinced Amazon loves their workers and its a great to have a career.

But this type of corporate misinformation will probably work better for Amazon than for Toyota.

 

At a minimum they are 5 years behind. We should all be cheering them on - if / when they catch up & pass 2nd to last place U.S.EV manufacturers.

 

Well, golly, one of those T's had a 20 year head start over the other. I won't make my popcorn just yet to watch that race. Wake me when they've painted a starting line.

 

And what of the head start of VW? And how about Nissan that was offering their EV back in in Toyota's early hybrid days? But more to point all the major automakers were making the same kind of daily ridiculous promises that Toyota just started making 3-4 years ago and it has not been easy for them and meanwhile Toyota is starting to look like the kid that is going to be held back and will have to repeat 1st grade for a second time when all its friends are moving way beyond onto third grade.

 

There are definitely ways to catch up in 4. This would mean huge changes to the corporation, and paying other companies for engineering.

I would not say all BEV should even be a goal. To me catching up to Tesla would be producing as many plug-ins (BEVs and PHEVs) as they do. I don't think Toyota is even trying to do that.

Some countries don't really want plug-ins. Tesla doesn't sell in these markets. Toyota doesn't need to either, or make them buy plug-ins.

I am looking forward to 2028 (5 years from now) when they have made many of the promises. I think they will not make it, but let's see. I will cheer them on if they can do it.

 

The various partnerships they've announced over the years to set up a brand new EV platform designed from the ground up, combined with building new factories is their only hope. I'm sure these near daily promises about EV Toyotas is tied to trying to raise funds to do this. They're clearly studying all the ways Tesla has simplified systems to lower cost and indicate plans to invest in it, but they have quite the hill to climb.

 

Some Toyota exec talking and thinking about the Tesla stock price. Another guy in Europe talking too fast and too much. My god it’s like hysteria to me. I think this could be used for torture.

 

Toyota has plenty of money to invest. The announcements may be to get better deals with partners, as I don't think toyota can catch up fast on their own. They should have never left the tesla partnership, but they know that now.

Tesla is much more agile than toyota, but toyota has much better manufacturing expertise. If they can get the cars designed and get partners to build the battery packs directly or through joint ventures, then they can move swiftly.

 

Somehow I think those late to the game are discovering that the supplies/suppliers they covet have already been locked up.

I think my son gets one of those T's delivered this weekend.

 

"Plenty of money" is not going to be enough to build new factories and an entirely new product line, which is what all the other automakers have been working on for more than 4 years while Toyota executives made excuses for why being asleep at the wheel was a winning business plan...

We're talking tens of billions over the next 5-10years... As in the near equivalent of Toyota starting up as a new automaker. The unaffordable cost of this massive transition is the entire reason Toyota has avoided it for so long. Their current valuation doesn't allow them to rapidly build mega-factories on almost every continent like Tesla is doing.

What's more as other EV automakers start swallowing Toyota market share, it may well be that Toyota stock is soon to drop in huge ways and that's when Tesla will have the ability to find enough investor interest to buy Toyota out.

 

toyota's approach, right? or wrong?

Toyota's EV strategy is called flawed by ARK Research

 

I'd like to read that article but it's paywalled... Can you grab a paragraph or two and cut and paste so we can understand your point?

 

idk how to cut and paste, but the gist is that ark researchers don't believe the cost of solid state batteries will come down enough in 12 years to be competitive in the automotive environment, especially considering that lithium keeps dropping as well.
they believe in solid state for other applications though.

 

from ARK analyst Sam Korus

They mainly don't believe there will be much value in the short or mid term (0-8 years) to solid state for automotive because of suspected cost. It isn't leap frog tech. They didn't criticize the moving to a dedicated platform or the bipolar LFP that promises to be low cost.

 

Promises, promises