Featured Toyota Announces 2 New EV's

I doubt it. Look at his constant bashing and penis comparisons with the Porsche Taycan. I have seen enough of Musk to understand him as a troll who caters ridiculous tweets to a fan boy base which makes him quite similar as a character to a previous president in my book. His by far biggest achievement is not about innovation, but it is Tesla's share price which he has succeeded in rocketing beyond the stratosphere of reality. This was a true accomplishment, and without him and his nonsense hype machine of robo taxis, ever appreciating assets, that's it's all about the environment while he cruises around in his private yet, and so forth, Tesla would not exist as an independent company any more. But now it is able to raise enough cash in the markets so that it will make it over the bump of being very early in a new business segment which still has profitability problems.

 

That is OK. A couple of years ago, talk like this led to me looking closer at Tesla and investing my 401k in TSLA stock, ~$60/share. I diversified with gold mining stock and sold that off a week ago.

Bob Wilson

 

Whether it was Scion or not is irrelevant. All their experimental work was getting badged "Scion" while they had the brand. What's wrong with a mini 50-mile EV for city driving? It doesn't look like it's pretending to be a highway cruiser.

 

There certainly are enough short-range EVs around. Some think my "BMW i3" is short range and then I add "-REx". Longest trip was 700 miles, each way thanks to the Range Extender engine.

Bob Wilson

 

“If somebody comes and makes a better electric car than Tesla, and it’s so much better than ours that we can’t sell our cars and we go bankrupt, I still think that’s a good thing for the world,” Musk told Leslie Stahl during the interview.
Elon Musk wants the world to embrace electric cars, even if Tesla goes bankrupt

Musk is CEO of Tesla. Part of the job is hyping your product and discounting the competition. I don't disagree on his personality, and the drive to win is part of why he has been successful, but he got into Tesla near the very beginning, when the odds were against success. We can't say what is the true Musk.

In the end, it doesn't matter. A generation may not buy a Tesla, and the brand will end up like Cadillac, but that generation won't be buying an ICE that runs on fossil fuels.

What other experimental work has Scion done? All the models they sold were using hand me down tech from Toyota's in the engines and transmissions. They weren't going to get hybrids, which is why the US didn't the hybrid C-HR. IIRC, the emissions weren't the cleanest either. Scion was a North American thing. The models available elsewhere wore a Toyota badge.

What's wrong with a 50 mile EV(might have been less) is that the next shortest range BEV of the time had over more than 10 miles of range, could seat 4 adults, and may have cost less. The last we won't know for sure because Toyota cancelled selling the car before they announced an official price. With only 100 of the first 600 shipped to the US, it is even barely a compliance car.

The iQ EV was a product of conclusions the Japanese car industry drew when the cutting edge battery chemistry was NiMH, and many experimental BEVs they offered for sale had lead-acid. That only short range city BEVs would work. The iMiEV was hinting that was no longer the case with Li-ion, and the Leaf was showing they could be a regular size car. The Rav4 EV Tesla made for Toyota showed that there was demand for longer range BEVs.

Yet Toyota still has that 'BEVs will only work as city cars' mentality in management. It's why they are pushing hydrogen FCEVs so hard. Why one of their more recent BEV announcements for the home market was a low speed "car" the likes of GEM and Zap!. I've seen a Sambar pulling 70mph on 95, this EV isn't a kei car.

 

Which is correct for the vast majority of the US population, at least with current EV ranges and current charging infrastructure.

 

I can't say what the management of Tesla and Toyota think or what motivates them. I can say that both Tesla and Toyota have been responsible for pushing the electric car into the mainstream.

While Tesla did a lot to popularize the electric car, Toyota did what they could within the restrictions of the Chevron patent Encumbrance settlement. They pushed the Hybrid design and managed to make a car that was not only popular but was very practical while managing to come close to the emissions (well to wheel) of the EVs of the day.

No one knows exactly what encumbrances remain on Toyota from the Chevron patent dispute. Part of the agreement was a gag order that prohibited disclosing the terms of the agreement. The fact that Toyota had Tesla develop the drive train for the second gen Rav4-ev in 2010 suggests that Toyota was prohibited from designing and building a BEV through at least that time frame.

It is now twenty-one years since Chevron sued Toyota, and 17 years since the agreement was signed. It would be reasonable that it's provisions are expiring and that they are at last allowed to make BEVs again.

As for the future of the Fuel Cell cars... They would have fallen into the category of "not a BEV" and therefor one of the few alternatives that Toyota could develop themselves. That explains their interest in the technology up to now. It's likely that they will fade away as Toyota fleshes out their stable to include PHEV and EVs that will cover most markets and needs.

Dan
P.S. I speak from years of experience working at a company that was prohibited by a court order consent decree from bringing to market any product that processed data. We could transport data but could not analyze it, change it, encrypt it or otherwise change it. We came up with a lot of inventive ways to invent things that would benefit us, even if we had to give the designs away so others would make it and use our services as a side effect.

 

Toyota built and designed the iQ EV while they had Tesla doing the Rav4 EV conversions. Tesla doing the Rav4 was merely outsourcing to control costs. It was done as a joint development agreement, so Toyota was involved in it. Toyota didn't see a market for it outside the US, as the demand for it here was mainly driven by a cult following of the original one. They also needed a compliance BEV for California's ZEV program. Toyota ended the program after the initial 2600 where made. Nearly all those were sold. Even though the original lease didn't give the leasee the benefit of the federal tax credit, and Toyota banned sales outside of California.

The settlement with Chevron only involved transportation uses for NiMH large format batteries, and the limitations on various sales of NiMH by Toyota were limited to 2007 and 2010.
Patent encumbrance of large automotive NiMH batteries - Wikipedia

FCEVs for longer ranges because of BEVs weren't suitable wasn't only a Toyota stance. Honda is also a big proponent, and their own BEV attempts have been lackluster. The Clarity BEV had a range of under a 100 miles. It is the view of a majority of the auto industry in Japan. Also their government. At least until recently. The announcement of increased EV subsidies without mention of FCEV or hydrogen might be a sign the government is shifting its approach to GHG and transportation, or just getting tired of the high cost of hydrogen and the cars.

 

Where, exactly, did you find the copy of the settlement agreement? That's the only way that you could possibly know for a fact what was stipulated in the agreement. I'd love to read it. According to all sources a gag order was imposed to keep Toyota from disclosing the terms of the settlement.

So I ask... Where, exactly, did you find the copy of the settlement agreement?

 

While

The settlement agreement was sealed by court order. What is your source of information to support the assertion that the agreement only pertained to NiMH batteries?

It is widely reported that Texaco (and then Chevron) bought the patents with the express purpose of interfering with development of a market for BEVs in order to protect the oil market. If true, then it would be quite reasonable for Chevron to insist upon a clause that would explicitly restrict Toyota from building BEVs for some length of time. It would also be within reason for Toyota, having a strong Hybrid market, to accept such a restriction.

But both of us are just guessing until we can find a copy of that infernal agreement.

 

This source to the Wikipedia article I linked, http://www.ovonic.com/PDFs/Financial_Reports/form_8k/8k_mbi_patent_infringe_settlement_7july04.pdf

"Under the terms of the settlement, ECD, Ovonic Battery, Cobasys and MEI, PEVE, Toyota have entered into an agreement pursuant to which the parties have cross-licensed current and future patents related to NiMH batteries filed through December 31, 2014, effective upon the date of settlement. The licenses granted by ECD, Ovonic Battery and Cobasys do not grant rights to MEI, PEVE or Toyota to use the licensed patents to (i) offer for sale certain NiMH batteries for certain transportation applications in North America until after June 30, 2007 or (ii) sell commercial quantities of certain transportation and certain stationary power NiMH batteries in North America until after June 30, 2010."

The specifics of those applications were under gag order, but the patent Chevron held only applied to NiMH, no other chemistry.

The case went to arbitration before the International Chamber of Commerce, and Chevron's, um, puppets didn't just file against Toyota, but also Panasonic and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Maybe Toyota would accept restrictions beyond the scope of Chevron's patent, but Panasonic was also going to have a say. It is also important to note that the unknown application limitation only applied in North America.

I'm sure Chevron would love to have the restriction on Toyota you believe, but there wasn't a viable replacement to NiMH at the time. Using Li-ion in a plug in at the time would be more costly than using NiMH, and later predictions of Li-ion cost drop would prove to be to conservative. It was four years after this settlement that the first hybrid using Li-ion, the Sonata, would come to market in the US. I doubt Chevron would care if Toyota continues to play around with lead-acid.

Then if this restriction was in place, it would likely bar Toyota from using development agreements to get around it.

 

That's what I thought. The link pointed to an SEC filing that discussed the agreement, but not the agreement itself. We'll never know, unless someone at Toyota slips up and says that "now that we can make BEVs...."

 

Everyone is announcing. I want to see production volumes, dealer delivery and support and test results. Until then it is mere vaporware.

 

That might sway me away from a Rivian.

If only .

 

I put in the wrong link above. The correct one, Wayback Machine

Are you suggesting that Chevron and company lied in a report to the SEC?

Chevron's patent is over NIMH. The lawsuit they filed against Panasonic and Toyota was over infringement of that patent. The settlement report specifically states it is NiMH batteries that the defendants can no longer sell for certain transportation and stationary applications. They also had to pay $30 million in damages for the infringement and royalities for the NiMH batteries they could sell(for hybrids).

For your speculation that the agreement banned Toyota from developing BEVs, you have offered no evidence on how Chevron could legally manage that for battery rights they have no legal ownership of, beyond "we can't know because the agreement is sealed" and "Toyota would be fine with it."

If Chevron managed that coup, why would they leave a loophole in letting do it with a party? How Toyota develop the iQ EV on their own while under this ban? They had multiple concept cars that were BEVs and PHEVs during that time.

This has more details about what was leaked on the settlement, EV WORLD COMMENTATOR PERSPECTIVES [BLOGS]

 

Thanks for that link. It makes several points that support my theory, especially the ban against making NiMH BEVs and restricting PHEVs until 2015. While it does not say that Toyota was prevented from making ALL BEVs, it was noted that Panasonic was not allowed to make BEV batteries.

The question about "how Chevron could legally manage that for battery rights they have no legal ownership of," is really simple. A settlement is never confined to any particular remedy. Such settlements often include a barrier to undesired activities in exchange for lower cash fines.

In the 1970s AT&T anti trust suit, the company was accused of padding their costs buy buying tools and equipment from an unregulated subsidiary. The settlement included prohibitions on making and selling equipment, breaking up the company, prohibited from making and selling computers and allowing other companies to have access to the company services at the same level and cost as the company had itself. None of that had to do with selling screwdrivers for 10 times the normal retail price.

 

Regarding the OP, I'm waiting to see the actual BEVs. The Lexus Toyota recently released in China and Europe was a sub 200 mile range one, so their attempt there wouldn't be competitive in the North American market.

Yeah, NiMH batteries for BEVs. The letter/email was discussing batteries within the scope of the NiMH patent, so in that context is that battery is referring NiMH ones.

You made the claim that Toyota couldn't work BEVs because of the settlement{post below}, even though they did have one or two BEV prototypes during that time frame. Your speculation falls outside the scope of a typical patent dispute. As the extraordinary claim, it requires evidence to support it, and you aren't providing any. If settlement discussions, this was going back to federal court. Would the judge higher than $30 mil penalties? Would they impose conditions out side of the patent scope?

The evidence against it is that Toyota wasn't the only company to show a disinterest in BEVs during the time frame. Nissan and others weren't limited to such a agreement, and BEVs were arriving to market in the same time as the iQ and Rav4 EVs. CARBs ZEV credit requirements aren't going to be timed to some secret agreement.

A company charging customers more because they are buying overpriced screwdrivers from a wholly owned subsidiary falls within the scope of a monopoly leveraging its position for excess profit.

But that doesn't matter because antitrust and patent infringement cases aren't comparable. They are of different scope and scale. For one, antitrust can be charged on the criminal level, not just civil, which is higher stakes and can mean larger penalties. It is a case between the federal government and a company, not between two private parties, who has much larger clout for enforcement.