Featured BEVs More Polluting Than ICE Vehicles, According To Toyoda

and this from the guy who just hyped a new bev that may or may not come to market

i think toyota is getting nervous about the transition speed, their investment in ice, and their lack of r&d and production facilities for bev's.

they are seeing the writing on the wall with hybrid sales, and they are not happy that the bridge doesn't quite reach the other side.

 

In Japan. Not to mention the Japan part is propaganda. Toyoda thinks BEVs pollute more than ICE cars (I assume hybridized) in Japan. Last I checked about 80% of electricity in Japan is sourced from fossil fuels and half of that from coal. Coal releases more CO2 than oil when extracting an equivalent unit of energy.

Given the electricity mix, I'm still not sure if BEVs would emit less GHG than hybrids. But it'd definitely be in the same ballpark.

 

I read his entire interview in the unabridged version. The linked article is taking his comments out of the context. As commented in this thread, he is addressing to Japanese audience at a year-end news conference in his capacity as chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association. The numbers and examples he has cited are very specific to the Japanese market.

Currently over three-quarters of Japan's total electricity generated are from natural gas or coal-burning power plants. With the Fukushima accident, there is almost no hope for Japan to build new nuclear power plants. If all the cars driven in Japan today are to be switched to BEV, the national grid must be increased by 20 or more new fossil fuel-burning power plants. Banning gasoline engine cars in Japan as alluded by its gov to achieve a total carbon-neutral society by 2050 and rapid shifting to EV is not only unrealistic but also very energy-demanding causing more CO2 emission without concerted effort to shift the entire country's energy generation infrastructures. His comment was not a bad-mouthing EV shift, but more of a warning to the popular belief that getting rid of gas engine cars is the only way to cut down the carbon emission.

 

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When Toyota offers a BEV better than our Std Rng Plus Model 3, I'll take a look. Until them, empty promises do not impress.

Bob Wilson

 

Comes down to specifics, but Japan still has many non-hybrids on the road and for sale.

Part of their reducing carbon emission plan involves importing blue then green ammonia, stripping off the hydrogen, and burning that in their NG plants.

Japan's grid leaves much to be desired. It will need upgrading for plug ins, but it should be upgraded for general use. Many buildings there install NG generators, usually cogen, instead of using the grid as a main electric source. Honda has a true Atkinson model.

 

I am not a chemist. What happens when blue or green ammonia is used in current NG plants? No CO2 emissions?

 

Yes; no carbon, no CO2. The nitrogen could mean NOx emissions, but Japan isn't planning to burn the ammonia directly. They'll separate the nitrogen and hydrogen first, then use the hydrogen to offset some of the natural gas for the power plant, and maybe in their NG infrastructure. Get enough ammonia and other hydrogen sources in, and they might go fuel cell for the grid.

 

That sounds like a national project which Toyota alone has very little power to change.

 

Toyota was the mover behind Australian coal for hydrogen project, and they are the biggest in the auto industry, which has pushed the government to hydrogen for cars.
Toyoda's concerns is that FCEVs are still a ways off from being competitive, and Toyota isn't prepared to mass produce BEVs. The grid is a distraction for delay of banning ICE cars. Dirty US grids, 80% coal, have a carbon emission equivalent of around 48mpg. That's based on an average of the EV efficiency of plug ins currently available here, not just efficient ones like the Prius Prime. So BEVs on Japan's grid will be about as dirty as a hybrid, and Japan is working to clean up the grid.

 

I really don't think Toyota is opposed hybridization.

 

Didn't mean to imply that they were.
Hybrids are big sellers in Japan. They are 20% to 30% of new vehicle sales there. Even with continued growth, that's still a lot of non-hybrid ICEs coming on the roads.

 

Even considering only the small auto market in Japan (compared to global sales), the BEV excuses don't hold much water. Coal has peaked there and it's not even 50% of their mix. NG produces nearly equal amounts of power and renewables are growing faster than any other source, by far.



Japan also has lots of offshore wind potential and:

Japan plans to install as much as 45 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind power by 2040, the country’s industry ministry said on Wednesday as the government aims to reduce emissions and meet a target to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050...

The government is now targeting 10 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030 and between 35 GW and 45 GW by 2040, the ministry said...​

Japan plans to install up to 45 GW of offshore wind power by 2040 | Reuters

 

He's doing his job of defending existing markets and investors. That's what all good corporate sticks in the mud do when they're too entrenched to adapt to emerging markets, as well as emerging crisis...

And as as hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, wildfires and windstorms continue to set all time records month over month and year over year both your claim and Japanese automakers claim that a rapid shift to EV is unrealistic and too energy demanding is not much different than a drug addict that knows they're slowly killing their ability to exist and function but they aren't going to give up getting more smack in their veins until they hit rock bottom and are no longer able to do so, even if it means their own death.

And in Japan's case rock bottom has a lot to do with the largest ever recorded typhoons destroying their country's infrastructure and as each as one that hits is stronger and each new one comes more and more often, rock bottom is coming way sooner for humans on planet earth than they're junky fossil fool mindset will be able to be in denial of.

 

Sorry, but IMHO, BEV or not, we have already passed the point of no return. But I assure you, the planet will survive, in fact, it will thrive well after the demise of the human species.

 

We've been passing many points of no return in recent decades, but that's irrelevant... The willingness to take action globally is going to happen at same point and it will keep getting worse for a long while after once we take it seriously. Your comment is a perfect example of the level of the genocidal level of dismissiveness and apathy that has caused the death of millions globally, as well as the loss of 100K homes to wildfires in the western US in past 1/2 dozen years. In just the past three years we've seen the fastest wildfires spread at a rate of 1 hectare per second which was the extreme limit of normal to this Summer when we say a rate of spread of 5 hectares per second. This is because global average wind speed has increased by 17% in just 10 years.

 

By all means, if you believe driving BEV will stop and reverse the climate change events, please buy BEV and drive it. I have no doubt that climate change is real and it is anthropogenic. But I still think the small changes I and you make will not change the course. However, even with my conviction that it is too late, I am looking into trading in my current PHEV for a BEV sometime near future. I have signed up for the community solar to reduce my fossil fuel dependency. I have not traveled by airplane for years past, and refuse to do so in the future. We grow as much of our own food using permaculture techniques on our land now. Hopefully, when I retire, I will build an off-grid tiny house with its own solar panels to live a zero-carbon emission living style. I will do what I can and you do what you can. But I have no interest in trying to change how other humans behave.

 

I agree that small individual efforts make almost zero difference... But just like elections and product marketing, the more you create culture, routine and ideology around the message, the more ubiquitous / effective the effort becomes in everyone which adds up to something far great than individual efforts.

 

I don't disagree with you. Sometimes the sum of parts is more than the total. But again, I have no interest in the activism of trying to change the culture, routine, and ideology of others. I will do what I can do but what others do is all up to them. I don't believe in "the power of persuasion" (or politics? lol). Good luck with your endeavour.