Why Toyota is not selling electric cars

Unfortunately this is how some foot dragging corporations make decisions.
I'm sure toyota has a very good explanation for why the competition is getting on the Clean Energy Bandwagon and they are not.

How does corporate explain headlines like this?
VW is planning a capacity of 100,000 electric cars per year for first plant to go electric - Electrek

I'm excited about the future! Unfortunately toyota is living in the past and has no product I want.

Keep burning fossil fuel, changing your oil every 10k miles and telling yourself you drive a Hi Tech clean car.

 

Hmm... Sorry, I guess I don’t follow; its 1.5M cars either way, and there will be some mix of gas, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and BEV. If the percentage BEV were 2-5%, say, rather than zero, that would be a step forwarding my book.

 

I'm referencing the third paragraph of the article linked at the top of this thread:

[emphasis mine]

 

I like mine, it keeps the neighbors at bay.

 

Agree. Not sure what the connection to profit is...

 

Did people miss the obvious?

The reason Toyota is not selling electric cars is because they do not manufacture any

 

And the reason they don't manufacture any is because batteries are still expensive and have low energy density leading to expensive cars with poor range, which is not what most people want out of a general-purpose car.

 

I think you just described the Gen 1 Prius.

 

Lot of other companies — Tesla, GM, Porsche, BMW, Hyundai, Kia... — don’t seem to be letting that stop them.

 

For most it's more marketing expense, than money making. When out of their 2M carrs annually BMW has 1M+ electric - then you can call it shift.

 

Let me know when someone starts making money selling them in mass.

Believe me, if EVs were a superior solution, everyone would switch almost over night. But they aren't superior. They're inferior in most ways and you have to pay more to get that inferiority.

I wish it weren't so. I've been hoping for good batteries to come out since the mid 80s. Lithium Ion batteries are up to the point where they're good enough for small and medium-sized electric model airplanes and that's why I rarely see a glow-fuel airplane anymore (I started flying all-electric in 1986 on Nickel-Cadmium batteries). However, even for large model airplanes, electric is still too costly and too low-performance (energy wise). That's why the big models are still gasoline-based. Even the big electric ducted fan airplanes are too expensive and low-performance so everyone uses genuine turbines burning Jet-A.

I'd love for batteries to triple in energy density and get half as expensive per unit of mass (which means 1/6th as expensive per unit of energy). When that happens, 90% of all new cars will be EVs almost immediately.

 

That is when the oil company money flows like water for the government to block it too.

 

That map is using out of date data, and maybe lying by emission. It likely is based upon the UCS's Cradle to Grave map.

Here is the most recent one. Because of the nature of reporting it, the grid mixes used for it date to 2016.


The other map has no granularity. The states it lists as hybrid being best may only be true for the most efficient hybrids. There are still several that get less than 50mpg; virtually none of the SUV models do.

The above map is based upon an average efficiency of all available plug ins. The model with the most sales is also one of the most efficient ones available.

This is the results when using just the Ioniq Electric, Prime, and Model 3. There is one Hawaiian island and a couple state sized grids in which a hybrid might emit less carbon than those models on electric.

New Data Show Electric Vehicles Continue to Get Cleaner - Union of Concerned Scientists


I get the point of showing that no combustion car is best, but the presentation omits an important fact, which could bring confusion to the discussion.

Without a plug, a hybrid is a combustion vehicle.

Toyota's future is hydrogen fueled FCEVs. It's the one that lacks them to continue leveraging their huge investment into NiMH.

Would be nice if Toyota had shared the data supporting that statement.

It is also an investment. I don't doubt Toyota is capable of making a good BEV, but a car design does not come with the factory line, part suppliers, and a network of trained dealers.

 

I think Toyota designs cars for Japan first and other countries are "along for the ride".

I do not think Japan has the electrical infrastructure to support BEVs but they do have a source of Hydrogen, hence the work on FCEVs.

 

Yes, largely for the learning experience at this point. Gradually changing, though.

 

Or gasoline gets 6 times more expensive might also do that. Another oil shock? Not likely to happen any time soon.

 

Jumped 20 cents here, yesterday

 

It's not just gasoline. Even if gasoline were horrible expensive, the life-cycle cost of ownership would still be cheaper because most of the cost of owning a car is initial capital cost, not the cost of fueling it.

150,000 miles at 25mpg = 6,000 gallons. Even if the cost is $5 per gallon, it will take the full lifetime of the car to use $30,000 in gasoline, and that's getting a lousy 25mpg and buying gas at $5 per gallon.

 

And electric cost depends more on where you live

 

So does gas cost. I payed $1.989 here when I fueled up last week for the first time in 6 months.