Featured Why Are Hyundai's EVs So Good? And Why Are Toyota's So Bad?

Word salad.

Toyota knows what they are doing and is doing it very well would have sufficed!

 

Consider the politics of EVs in the US . Consider the megaphone enjoyed by one current candidate, his previous statements re EVs and what would happen next year if that candidate was elected. How soon would the tax rebate strategy of promoting EVs be cancelled? What effect on EV sales would that have? And, facing that possibility, how would you position your investment dollars?

 

What are you replying too?

A consideration for the US market, but global car companies need to consider China and Europe, and More EVs are selling there.

 

Selling to the Chinese market isn't going to work - for anybody right now, or possibly in the future at all. I also think there's still some serious supply chain issues that have yet to be resolved for batteries, sensors, displays...

 

Toyota is risk averse and has a huge dealer network and factories to support. Toyota can also borrow at lower rates than a company like tesla so debt makes more sense, although the load seems very high given what happened in 2008. It is likely the dealer network is resisting as they would need to invest and would likely have to layoff the repair and maintenance departments. Toyota would likely shift labor from car factories to anouther companies battery plants. Lots of reasons not to transition if they can stop the world from going electric. Since BEVs are gowning rapidly it seems like a dumb idea not to invest, competition outside japan will make toyota lose market share and dealers no matter what they do.

 

At one time, Japan banking had negative interest rates on deposits. At the time, I didn't check to see if they had positive interest rates on loans.

Bob Wilson

 

China is now the largest passenger car market in the world. In order to sell anything there, a company needs to sell an EV. That won't change too much with economic troubles. Nearly all of Toyota's BEVs before the bZ4x were China only models.

The supply issues will be resolved. Investments for some components were made years ago. It just take time to build.

 

My local small town small Toyota dealer completely gutted and remodeled their showroom, service area, waiting area, etc about 4 years ago. Then late last year, two charging stations showed up in front of the store. It may be a requirement to keep selling Toyotas that the dealer does some of these things. Will be really interesting to see as EVs grow if they are able to keep any trained techs assuming that having a trained tech or two is also required. .

 

My experience has been the charging stations are behind gates locked outside of business hours. When you get in, they have inventory blocking the charging lanes.

Bob Wilson

 

The dealer's two charging stations are side by side in parking spaces that couldn't be blocked. Right in front of the showroom and where my wife would park for a few seconds when we were dropping off one of my cars for service (all routine). There are dealers all in a row (Nissan, Ford, GM, Toyota) so there may be others in the area. Haven't been in any of the others.

Stelantis on the other side of town.

No Mazda, Kia, Hundai, Lexus, Porsche, VW, BMW, Polestar, Volvo, Audi, MB, Land Rover, other EV makers in town, Those are in Cary/Raleigh 45 miles up the interstate. The Tesla sales and separate service shop is 60 miles away.

On the other side of town (8 miles) there is a 12 stall Tesla charge park just off the interstate and near a grocery store and Starbucks.

 

Consumer reports doesn't know what they're talking about. Mini isn't reliable at all. probably worse than chrysler. Is it true that consumer reports praises every car because they get them for free from the manufacturers and if they bash the car manufacturers we'd stop giving them cars?

 

I think that CR says that they anonymously buy every car they test

Car Testing - Consumer Reports

Mike

 

It took Consumer Reports over a decade before they published fair reviews of the Prius. Curious coincidence, the rise of EVs occurred about the same time. Soon CR was flogging EV, especially the Teslas. But that coincidence might have been Toyota fixing a lot of long standing shortcomings. But I am not a fair observer of CR as I'd stopped our subscription in 2012.

I switched to picking up or now, newsstand reviewing the CR annual editions. I soon realized they 'cut and paste' their first review in the subsequent years. This explains why their reader surveys are at odds with their one and only review of the first model car.

Other car reviewers like Car and Driver, publish original reviews. That means they stay current with the vehicle(s) over time.

Bob Wilson

 

and the Canadian Market is very far behind that crowd....waiting 2 years for a Rav4 Prime ....is disgusting

 

never heard @Zythryn complain about HIS mini. Never heard a peep out of our plugin pacifica either.


Maybe someday a manufacturer will be able to claim they haven't had tens of 1,000's of vehicles recalled at one time or another.
.

 

Minis are notoriously prone to issues. I have never been a member of a car model group with so many people discussing where to get parts or how to fix things that went wrong.
I was actually... gobsmacked when I saw that CR rated them with a high reliability. I was wondering if that covered the first 1 or two years only.

All that said, almost all of the issues seem to be with the engine. And since mine doesn't have one, I suspect it will continue to have great reliability

 

The issues I've heard of for the i3 all involved the REx.

 

If Consumer Reports actually said that I'm done.