Featured Warning from Toyota President - Akio Toyoda

Prime time will be the early 20's, a generation beyond the first profitable worldwide offering. That's exactly as anticipated. In fact, this quote confirms it:

"Toyota announced plans to add more than 10 all-battery models to its lineup starting in the early 2020s."

In the meantime, we still have to deal with early-adopters not understanding how products how products are sold to mainstream consumers.

 

And then the day came when the U.S. electrical grid was overwhelmed, and the power was shut down in several cities....

New technology is great, sure, build those electric cars! But city officials and power companies had better get off their arse and figure out how they will deal with the increased electrical demands. My most recent Edison bill lists my city as being one of the "rolling blackout" areas. AC is for WIMPS! Just throw on a wet t-shirt!

 

If I had a nickel for every pro-EV article by Bloomberg I could get a couple dollars off my next Prius

 

That's where battery & hydrogen storage come in. Both are dramatically more clean & efficient for dealing with the expensive load demands.

 

I'm pretty sure that switching ICEs to BEVs will also increase jobs manufacturing EV parts, like inverters, chargers, cables, batteries and motors.
I wonder how many fewer parts has a FCV like the Toyota Mirai...

 

maybe that's toyota's strategy. make a failing fcev so that stinkers won't go away to preserve jobs.

 

I start to bristle, walking the dog in reasonably temperate weather, past parked, idling cars with the windows all rolled up, fans (and AC compressors) cycling on/off/on/off/on...

 

funny thing, but i've been hearing about job losses due to technology most of my life. and before that, it was probably machinery and the industrial revolution. and before that, i'm sure there were many reasons over the centuries to cry WOLF!

but it has never really happened in the long run, and we have more information and time to prepare if jobs are really the concern. or could there be a hidden agenda to these cries?

 

Yes, the “no one is knocking on our door asking for EVs” line didn’t do the trick

 

Two thoughts....

Ever been in a tornado area? Somehow they seldom occur where power lines are buried and the first thing you see is roofs torn up. We were only without electricity in the area for 4 days but never without transportation thanks to gas in the tank. Of course during that time, gas pumps driven by electricity weren't pumping but with 400+ miles in the tank that wasn't an issue. Had we had solar plus backup plus EV we would have been in the same situation.

The real disruption from the EV adoption will be at the dealer level. With no oil to change every 5k miles and no spark plugs or belts and even fewer parts and updates over the air, where will a dealer get the volume of repairs which are his money maker. With youngsters buying fewer cars, this compounds their troubles long term.

 

I am all for new technology. And new inventions, etc. But I still like a old fashion car with gas in it. (A hybrid is as far as I will go.)

And with these crazy times we live in? I very rarely let my gas tank go below 1/2. Especially living here on the West Coast, in earthquake country. When the electricity goes off, and the gas stations are not pumping gas, at least I will have a half tank to try and flee the riots.

 

And now everybody is afraid of all the robots taking jobs. However, there might be some truth to that. And now we have all these unmanned aircraft and ships and subs and boats. (That's a whole Nother subject.)

I'm not sure about all electric. But I think Toyota should make every model of their vehicles a hybrid. They are very good at it.

 

crazy times? have you forgotten the sixties?

and if you're afraid of running out of electrons, you must have slept through the seventies.

 

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it's like the proverbial frog in a pot of water, someone slowly, steadily raising the heat.

 

So, Toyota is planning on adding 10 BEV models in the 2020's. That sounds very reasonable. They bypass all the early teething problems and jump in when things are bit more firm. Toyota is very good at manufacturing high quality reasonably priced vehicles. I think it is wise to sit out the teething stages of a BEV.

As for jobs lost due to ICE demise, well, that's the price of progress and it has been paid many times over. Industrial revolution left many people out of work, computers did the same, robotic operations are poised to do it now. It's not a cry "wolf", it's real for the individuals with those jobs. Will other jobs come to replace the lost ones? Maybe. Will they be as numerous? Probably not as productivity becomes more efficient (robotic assembly). We as a society will need to figure out a way to live with fewer jobs and more free time. That will be a much more difficult puzzle to solve than where the electricity will come from to charge all the new EVs.

 

Funny but true. We've got a work-ethic culture going back several centuries, that used to make more sense, but is maybe going to be a hindrance in years to come.

 

I wasn't born until 1985? (Not afraid, sir, just cautious. I'm so old I remember the Cuban Missle Crisis.)

Keeping the car fueled up.... in case it's time to get out of Dodge. Yes, crazy times.

Iranian-Backed 'Sleeper Cell' Militants Hibernating in U.S., Positioned for Attack

 

That doesn't work so well with data center equipment...

Yeah that's the hypocrisy. AC units, no problem. Hot tubs, no problem. Even a clothes dryer that most of the world does without and draws 3-5kW usually everybody has. And people run their laundry machines for an entire day doing household laundry versus the 2-3 hours an EV would charge for. How many people are willing to do their clothes at night for electric dry, or just hang them up outside to dry in the daytime?

My Leaf almost exclusively charges with 120v. The L1 trickle charger. The world is my gas station. Even in the middle of nowhere you can find an electrical outlet, but not always gas. When we were in the Yukon earlier this year there was an RV electrical hookup at the beginning of the Dempster highway that has been there for ages. A nice 30A 240V outlet just sitting there free to use. It's only been in the last couple years that the fueling depot has opened up to allow anyone to fill up.

Many places in an emergency it is much harder to get gasoline than electricity. Even if you want to wait in line for 12 hours to fill up your tank of gas at the only working gas station, it is still easier to just find a plug. Heck, I can make electricity Gilligan Island's style much more easily than I can refine a barrel of crude if we're talking zombie-prepper emergency.

And it is lunacy that places that have such disasters have overhead lines at all. Here in CO almost all services are buried. The only above ground are substations. And we live on a giant hunk of granite, one of the hardest grounds to bury crap in. We routinely get "hurricane winds". The winds that come off the mountain every single night are usually in the 80mph to 110mph range. This is just normal, every day wind. You live with it. Bolt the limited things on your deck down to the deck. Even our 1000lb BBQ has levitated and blown away. And shortly after we bought it we put it on the "wrong side" of the deck and when the strapping broke securing it to the deck, it became a projectile and made an ACME style hole in the other side of the deck the size of the BBQ as it tried to take off. Our roof is rated to withstand sustained winds of 160mph. The entire structure is beefed up to support not only the wind forces but to also contain a couple feet of snow load sitting ontop. The power rarely if ever goes out. It is not hard, and it is possible. Places that get tornadoes and hurricanes, or just wind/snow/whatever have the ability to build something that lasts. They just choose not to and complain when their house made of match-sticks blows over and fills with water. Even the 3 little pigs only had to be told twice.