Featured Toyota shareholders protest EV stance with votes to oust longtime leader from the board

But Toyota doesn't "over promise and under deliver."

 

or, they didn't used to...

 

From 2017, "According to reports in The Wall Street Journal and Japan’s Chunichi Shimbun, Toyota is in the “production engineering” stage of building an electric vehicle (EV) battery with a solid electrolyte. Reports suggest the new battery will debut in Japan in a model 2022 car with an all-new platform."
Toyota in “production engineering” for a solid state battery, WSJ says | Ars Technica

 

Well that didn't age well.

 

They still have plenty of time because you left out the part where Marty McFly and Doc Brown are the lead engineers

 

that's the great thing about marketing hype, most people don't remember or bother to look back.
least of all wall street loudmouths

 

Is Toyota's dilemma really so short term insurmountable? When 1970's ford & GM were caught with their pants down due to no small vehicles, didn't they tap Mazda and Isuzu for little trucks? Why can't Toyota do the same thing with EV's. iirc, didn't toyo tap Tesla some years back by providing glider RAV4 vehicles? Why wouldn't such a joint venture be a win win for both, again.
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Tesla added their early powertrain to a Rav4. Like GM before them, Toyota's management did not believe ev could be mainstream.

Until this year Toyota believed hybrids were the mainstream answer. GM should have the Tesla marketshare and more today with their ev headstart. When a Toyoda family member steps down from active management its pretty clear mistakes were made.

If Toyota is behind, a smaller company won't catch up quicker. One thing Toyota could do is to standardize on Tesla's charging system. Don't forget Tesla has Nasa engineering and manufacturing knowledge to bring to the table. Which they have in their current generations.

Today I can buy a one of two Toyota evs in stock at a local dealer lot. For more than a Model 3, with shorter range (worse after subtracting ac energy) and no track record. Meanwhile Tesla has Model 3s and other models at a dealership in the best part of town with Tesla superchargers located everywhere.

 

Well they can in around a 4 year time frame. Right now none of the players except Tesla and the Chinese have enough batteries.in the short term. Those with enough batteries are not likely to hurt profit margins by helping Toyota on the cheap. The question really is will the dealer network and old guard allow for a fast transition.

At the time of the original joint venture Toyota was going full speed ahead with hydrogen. They didn't like that Tesla pointed out the flaw in this. They could have sucked it up and had a better model bz4x around 2019 using many Tesla designed parts. Back then Tesla needed Toyota for cash and credibility, so likely cut them a sweatheart deal. Now Tesla doesn't need Toyota, and the years of Toyota marketing against them mean Tesla will probably extract a heavy price if Toyota works with them again.

BMW, Hyundai, or byd look the be the likely partners that could get them caught up fairly fast.

 

Honda is building EVs based on GMs ultium, and Ford is using VWs MEB platform in Europe. I think Toyota has a major case of "not invented here" going on.

 

What car maker has a good enough design, spare factory capacity and an excess of batteries that they could make cars for Toyota?

Mike

 

China Inc but Toyota is not ready to accept the cars and slap a Toyota badge on the front (I hope!)

Bob Wilson

 

They are close to it. Their joint venture with FAW makes about a dozen Toyota models, some of which are variants for the Chinese market. They are going to make the bZ3. The EV was jointly developed with BYD and FAW.
Toyota Announces bZ3, Second Model in bZ Series | Toyota | Global Newsroom | Toyota Motor Corporation Official Global Website

 

Toyota should stay far away from full EV as possible. Never go full EV.

 

I understand the logic behind the statement: “we want to offer a variety of solutions”.
I don’t understand the logic behind never offering any of one solution that many people seem to want.

Although, I took your phrase, “full EV” to mean “BEV”. If instead you meant that Toyota shouldn’t offer only BEVs and no other cars?

I’d be surprised if that is the case, as nobody has asked Toyota to only make BEVs.

 

Works for me. Local Toyota dealers and Southeast Toyota have disappointed me too often.

Bob Wilson

 

I have hybrids and a plug in hybrid. I am not considering an EV currently, but probably for my next car in a few years. However, it seems ridiculous that Toyota, once a technology leader has so few fully electric vehicles and plug in hybrids. ON the other hand, I see Hyundai's termination of many of their hybrid vehicles (replacing them with EVs) as short sided as well. IF Toyota wants to build back market share it needs vehicles in all segments at all price points like it used to.

 

If Toyota shareholders are that upset i wonder what Honda stockholdes are saying! Talk about lagging behind!

 

Why are you worried about honda? They have always had decent mileage across their fleet. The Honda prologue suv ev is out and available and made in the u.s.a.
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One model and one PHEV option isn't many. Their US line up is about as hybridized as Toyota's. The Venue, Santa Cruz, and Palisade are their only models without a hybrid, PHEV, and/or BEV option.

While Honda chases the hydrogen dragon, they didn't market or lobby against plug ins and higher efficiency standards. Their EV focus is more on bikes and motorcycles with swappable batteries.