Featured Toyota Won’t Make A Proper EV Because Dealers Say It Won’t Sell

I agree. By that time I wil McCoalRolling in an urn at Evergreen.

And it may very well be that Tesla will share space with Nash Motors. One thing I have to say is that Teslas are a sure bet for being future collector cars. As are the Gen 4 Prius. wink.

 

any company can go down, some more likely than others, but we've seen some surprises as well.

lots of cooked books and blinded/ignorant stockholders

i've been to vegas, the house always wins

 

I am not a nay sayer. I just don't see the droop. On my way home from Phoenix yesterday I saw a pair of Gen 3s pulling the two sections of a 24 x 60 foot mobile home. True story.

 

Luckily both are available on the market so you can buy which you prefer.
Having owned both, I see no advantage to an ICE (hybrid or otherwise) over an EV.

 

@William Redoubt
Multi-quote please

 

Charging away from home already hurts. My benchmarks show remote EV charging is ~4x the cost of gasoline. Fortunately going out of town is a small fraction, less than 10%, of my miles. My plug-in hybrids handle out of town trips very nicely.

In contrast, +90% of my miles are EV in town at half the cost of gas. Plus we can use free chargers ... not much free gasoline around.

Bob Wilson

 

The actions of the overwhelming majority are those primarily of convenience and cost to the individual. This is one of the major reasons slowing BEV adoption. If "what does it do for me" doesn't line up with the good of larger society or the environment, the later two will almost always lose out.

Plenty of folks have the ability to make some minor compromises on convenience and cost but choose not to do so. But it is not only about individual greed.

Curiously, many of the 2+ vehicle households would be better off in terms of convenience and cost with a second vehicle being a short to medium range BEV. These can be had new for <$20k after incentives in many places and much less if purchased used. Plenty of folks with a second vehicle ICE in a garage with a plug who have to routinely visit gas stations. It would save them time instead to have a fully charged vehicle every day when they leave. These folks need better education.

Meanwhile, BEVs are getting better every year: higher battery capacities, higher energy densities, decreased cost, faster charging capabilities, growing infrastructure...ICE improvements, OTOH continue to plateau.

 

You do understand that rear of a Volt has only about an inch and a half of travel?

My volt had 1500 lbs of wood pellets in the back and didn’t look much different than stock and the guy in the photo has a welded frame and air bags under his Volt, I don’t.

Same guy towed his Jeep across America with that car because it was cheaper than the other way around.

 

In Wisconsin many towns have outlets along the main street , I know because I used to do craft shows and plugged into them.

My guess is the problem like everything is the choice of milking money out of the need to access or figuring out an equitable less expensive way of allowing people to plug in to infrastructure that already exists.

At night and a few hours a day up to 80% of the baseline power is thrown out and not utilized.
Even with this loss baseline loads still end up costing 1.8 cents (hydro areas like mine) to 6 cents a kwhr.

Many millions of EVs could run on the wasted power using already built infrastructure if we could wrap our heads around access.

After all not everyone needs to drive hundreds of miles a day, quick charging as it exists today isn’t a good use of resources, low power electricity though is all around us everywhere

Ah well

 

What is the mechanism for "throwing out" the 80% of baseline power? The grid has to be balanced. That means generation is limited. There is no "wasted" energy to charge EVs, only excess capacity. It's not like there is giant toaster oven that gets turned on to balance the grid. Hydro power is reduced by reducing water flow. Gas turbines are shut down or run at a reduced rate. The potential that is unused is stored as water, in the case of hydro, or un-burned gas in the case of a gas-fired turbine. There isn't any waste. Only excess capacity.

 

yes there is waste, if unused capacity doesn't get stored, then it never gets used. That's why there are battery backups. Tesla has large parts of Australia & the entire island of Kauai on their systems as are many other areas. Similarly, through photovoltaics, Tesla has begun storing their own power at superchargers, which means the grid won't necessarily be negatively impacted when there are dozens per location charging at around 100kW.

 

Unused capacity is not waste. Waste is an act or instance of using or expending something carelessly, extravagantly, or to no purpose. When water behind a dam is not released to produce power it is not wasted. It is not used or expended. Running a big toaster oven for no purpose is waste. Flaring gas is waste. Leaving the lights on in a vacant home is waste.

 

maybe the engine spins without fuel, to burn off excess energy

 

That’s not how baseline loads typically work .
Baseline loads use the same amount of coal or nuclear fuel regardless of power requirements, they don’t flip on or off like a light switch

 

yes, I understand the semantics of nitpick definitions. One can imagine in a test tube environment that a damn's water level is at just the right level - but they get too low, so you can't produce, & during High runoff dams have to discharge water but power might not be needed at that time - & anyway - that's sidetracking & derailing the issue - which is, according to the OP, Toyota making up bogus excuses for not getting into EV's the way other manufacturers are. Then again, bagging on Tesla was sidetracking & deflecting the op as well. Not that it matters - just pointing it out.
.

 

Base loads are still 100% consumed. There is no waste. They are the minimum amount of power needed to supply the minimum demand. Base loads are supplemented on an instant basis by secondary sources. Too little electricity means brown outs. Too much and there are overloads and burnouts in equipment.

 

The 80% is little over the top but the steam generator plants, nuclear, coal, and natural gas, are not so easily throttled.

More details than one might want: Electric Power Annual 2017 - U.S. Energy Information Administration

Bob Wilson

 

You may waste electricity, but at least you can't spill it all over the ground.

 

Hey I feel like throwing a fresh question out there:

Would Toyota be able to sell BEVs with non-Toyota branding through channels that didn't involve its dealers?

I'm throwing out a lot here, but I'll add some context. If Toyota dealers have no interest/ability in selling battery cars, but Toyota still wants to profit from building such, how do they solve the problem? I know there's tons of contracts and agreements between Toyota Motor and their dealers.

Perhaps a refined form of the same question:

Could Toyota build a direct sales system for transportation products that aren't their existing lineup of cars, without antagonizing their existing car dealer network?