[HN Gopher] Toyota to spend 1.5T yen on EV battery development
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Toyota to spend 1.5T yen on EV battery development
Author : mikhael
Score : 113 points
Date : 2021-09-08 16:51 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.asahi.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.asahi.com)
| wazoox wrote:
| It's about time. At the current Munich Auto Show, I don't think
| there's even one single old-style oil burning car presented. In
| Europe (and China), it's complete game over starting now.
| kipchak wrote:
| I wonder if there's a bit of a late mover advantage here. If
| Company A spends $10B on from 2010 to 2020, and $10B from 2020 to
| 2030 and Company B spends 0B from 2010 to 2020 and 20B from 2020
| to 2030, how much can company B copy company A's homework?
|
| One potential advantage Toyota might have is their use of modular
| platforms - TNGA-K is used for a sedan, minivan, suv and luxury
| car, e-TNGA will likely be a similar story.
| bluGill wrote:
| > how much can company B copy company A's homework?
|
| Patent lifespan is 14-20 years, depending on the type of
| patent, and which country issued it (there are probably
| outliers that have longer/shorter time-spans, though most
| countries now are unified). The question is there anything
| useful in patents that are expire, but if so there is copying
| about it.
|
| Most car companies have weird cross licensing agreements (weird
| in part because there are anti-monopoly laws in place to work
| around) so to some extent they can.
| slownews45 wrote:
| This is a maybe 1.4B per year thing. That's... not huge.
|
| What _IS_ incredible is that Toyota HAD the absolute lead in EV.
| Their hybrid power trains had everything needed, they literally
| had power mgmt, battery, electric motors etc.
|
| Then they went absolutely crazy over hydrogen - which I always
| hated. The cycle is terrible currently (from production to power
| on road).
|
| The mind boggles a bit to imagine what might have been for them
| if they had just moved forward on hybrid, plug in hybrid, full EV
| path. They could have blended that mix more and more until full
| EV. They had most of the pieces it seems including production
| capacity.
| philistine wrote:
| One tiny detail about Toyota. They didn't chronologically move
| to hydrogen after their initial forays into electric. They
| always explored both, with most of their efforts on hydrogen.
|
| So imagine if instead of concurrently trying to make hydrogen
| happen while their side-gig of hybrids managed to completely
| corner the market, they went all in on electric. It would be a
| very different car market.
| pryelluw wrote:
| A lot of their current models are available as hybrids with
| great efficiency. I drove a new venza hybrid last week and it
| got low 40s mpg!
|
| They aren't as behind as you'd think given that a hybrid still
| makes more sense than an ev to a lot of people. A reliable
| hybrid that just works is what people need. More so with their
| adaptive cruise control.
|
| Could they have done better? Sure. It's hard to say different
| given their size and culture.
|
| Also, GM had the EV1 years before ...
| rasz wrote:
| 40 mpg is what you got 15 years ago in Ford Focus 2 Wagon 1.4
| tcdi.
| wffurr wrote:
| Venza is a much larger vehicle.
| rasz wrote:
| 2007 Ford Focus Wagon/Cargo volume 35.6 ft3, 73.7 ft3
| with seat area
|
| 2021 Toyota Venza/Cargo volume 28.8 ft3, 55.1 ft3 with
| seat area
| bdcravens wrote:
| They also produced 2 generations of RAV4 EV's, the second of
| which they partnered with Tesla on.
| rconti wrote:
| Which is insane, if you think about it. Toyota never should
| have needed the 'help' given their hybrid electric expertise.
| marcod wrote:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/25/climate/toyota-electric-h...
| AUSNA-ZI wrote:
| > Then they went absolutely crazy over hydrogen - which I
| always hated
|
| I always loved hydrogen, especially if someone comes up with a
| better way to generate it. The refueling issue and the chemical
| disaster with batteries would be solved.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| It seems more likely that in the time we could get a viable
| hydrogen infrastructure in place (I imagine decades) that
| both the refueling and 'chemical disaster' aspect of
| batteries will have been solved. We're getting fairly close
| on both counts, I believe.
| trhway wrote:
| >The mind boggles a bit to imagine what might have been for
| them if they had just moved forward on hybrid, plug in hybrid,
| full EV path. They could have blended that mix more and more
| until full EV.
|
| i think there is a speadsheet somewhere inside Toyota where
| your "nightmarish" - because it cannibalizes significant share
| of the current revenue from hybrids - scenario is precisely
| described. The fear of cannibalization of current cash cow (and
| related internal uphill battle with the top management milking
| the cow) is frequently the reason behind seemingly obvious
| blunders by BigCo-s.
| fnord77 wrote:
| Japanese govt pushed hydrogen as one "fuel" to rule them all,
| including household heating and cookin
| varjag wrote:
| How did Nissan dodge it then?
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Maybe the fact that Nissan is owned by Renault has
| something to do with it.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Nissan wasn't "winning" like Toyota was.
|
| While Toyota was raking in wheelbarrows of easy cash from
| moneyed buyers Nissan was selling Altimas for bottom dollar
| to people who were rolling in negative equity from a Dodge
| Journey.
|
| This is standard BigCo stuff. You get a lead and you lose
| that lead because you don't jump hard enough onto the next
| big thing because you don't want to divert resources over
| the thing you're currently winning with. IBM, Boeing, Ford,
| Microsoft, they've all been down this road.
|
| Nissan never had that lead so they had nothing to stop them
| from going into EVs deep enough to grab a good share of the
| market.
| api wrote:
| Nissan beat Tesla by years with the first mass market EV
| with the Leaf. In some ways the 2022 Leaf is still a much
| better value than the Tesla model 3 if you don't need
| frequent fast charging. The price is a lot lower and the
| reliability and build quality are excellent.
|
| The Leaf can fast charge and this is now included in all
| models, but it can only suck down 50KW vs Tesla now being
| able to draw 100+KW. It also uses ChaDEMO which is a
| fading standard, though still very common where I live.
| Apparently there are some converters in the works to let
| the Leaf charge off CCS and perhaps even the Tesla
| network in the future, but they'll probably cost hundreds
| of dollars since apparently a DC fast charge mega-dongle
| is not trivial.
|
| In other news: there is now a market for dongles for
| cars. I have seen the future and it has a dongle.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I agree. We have a Bolt, and until recently a Tesla. If I
| were buying again right now, I'd get a Bolt (if there
| wasn't a stop-sale, at least). When we got ours, the
| brand-new price was $24K. For 258 miles of range, and
| basic 50kW fast charging, that's a ridiculous deal. For a
| Model 3, I'd be into it damn near twice that.
| cartoonworld wrote:
| I think people don't really like plug-ins unless its
| Tesla and has a fast charge. That is all I can think of.
| Tesla ride quality is also pretty good if everything is
| going right, can't comment on a bolt or leaf.
| oblio wrote:
| In Europe they've standardized the chargers.
| varjag wrote:
| Yeah what I mean it's not the government to blame for
| Toyota ineptitude.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Or you could argue the government assigned Toyota for
| Plan A with Hydrogen/FCEV path and Nissan was assigned to
| the backup Nuclear/BEV route.
| varjag wrote:
| Honestly, with Toyota clout the opposite could likely
| happen: it assigned the government of Japan to promote
| Hydrogen.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| I believe this is it too. Honda also has the equivalent
| hydrogen powered car and lack of EV's. Occam's razor says
| they didn't both come to that unideal scenario by chance.
| danans wrote:
| > Their hybrid power trains had everything needed, they
| literally had power mgmt, battery, electric motors etc.
|
| They don't have what they would need in the battery dept - and
| the battery is the most important part of an EV. The Prius has
| a NiMH battery, which has lower energy density than Li-ion and
| other newer chemistries.
|
| The (non-plugin) Prius can get by with the NiMH battery because
| the battery is only used for regen braking energy capture and
| acceleration at low speeds, not for high amounts of energy
| storage or power output. For those it uses gasoline and the ICE
| engine.
| JonathonW wrote:
| The Prius _had_ a NiMH battery. Current production Priuses
| (Prii?) almost all* use lithium-ion batteries, from the 2016
| model year (fourth-generation /XW50) on.
|
| * A subset of fourth-gen Priuses, those equipped with all-
| wheel drive, went back to NiMH for better cold-weather
| performance.
| oflannabhra wrote:
| Yep. Interesting that a 3rd party has developed and released
| a LiFePO4 battery pack for the Prius [0]. It is cheaper than
| the OEM NiMH pack. I'm on some Prius forums and it has been
| interesting to see the amount of detail owners get into, from
| replacing cells in their OEM packs, to upgrades, to eeking
| out every bit of performance. Toyota had a huge advantage
| with their brand and some fanatical customers that they
| totally blew by not going full EV.
|
| [0] - https://projectlithium.com/products/prius-lithium-
| replacemen...
| danw1979 wrote:
| The toyota I desperately want them to sell is a plug in prius -
| pre-2018's fugly makeover - with a decent LIon pack, let's say
| 30kWh, with the more recent PiP's max EV speed of 80mph.
|
| The hydrogen distraction is baffling.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Hmm, perfect is the enemy of the good and all? I have that...
| er, 'made-over' Prius, the Prime PHEV, and while its puny
| 8.8kWh LiIon battery could certainly be bigger, it's enough
| that 75% of all my driving is electric-only.
| gordon_freeman wrote:
| I own a Corolla Hybrid which gives 57 MPG combined and am
| pretty happy with it considering I got it under $25K. Now
| Toyota knew that their Hybrid electric systems are working
| great as they are a leader in it and selling millions of such
| vehicles over the years and still they have not trusted the
| electric batteries enough and went on Hydrogen fuel cell side.
| Very perplexing to me!
| addicted wrote:
| My, possibly mistaken, understanding has been that the deep
| dive into hydrogen was a broader National level push in
| Japan.
|
| If I'm not mistaken, the idea I believe was that if they
| settled on and developed hydrogen infrastructure, that would
| power not just cars, but also heavy machinery, etc that other
| parts of the Honda/Toyota/Mitsubishi/etc conglomerates could
| use.
| slownews45 wrote:
| This might be it, but it bled over into their internal
| efforts and they got too focused on the political side and
| less on what would work for customers.
|
| Politicians like hydrogen because if you ignore all the
| crap to get their (drilling for fossil fuels, separation,
| energy use in compression, transport, capital costs of
| building networks etc) you get that picture of water out of
| a tailpipe. The physics of it remain very poor.
| numpad0 wrote:
| There's a gas field in disputed area in East China Sea,
| which some says could produce hydrogen at scale, and
| energy self sufficiency had been an ambition of the
| country for ... some time. There's no equivalent oil
| field or Uranium deposit.
| slownews45 wrote:
| Most of the clean hydrogen production schemes I've seen
| are pipe dreams or scams, but happy to be shown something
| here.
|
| As a point of ref we have relatively clean electricity
| generation _already_ (hydro, solar, wind, nuclear)
| depending on what you count.
|
| Any indication how close to production this east china
| sea resource is? How willing China is to let Japan
| develop it or is it already well developed? Again - these
| are often pipe dream type ideas.
| numpad0 wrote:
| It's not happening, and there's zero reason China is
| willing to give in, but sort of remains as an ambition.
| Yeah pipe dream is probably spot on.
|
| I think it has more to do with external
| independence/isolationism, than about environments theme,
| carrying over from the century before. I don't understand
| why the government just go double down on nuclear fuel
| cycle concept but maybe there are too much political
| complications in it.
| pryelluw wrote:
| My next car is a hybrid Corolla (current is a regular one). I
| live the damn things. Hopefully the hybrid is offered as a
| hatchback as well.
| slownews45 wrote:
| Exactly this.
|
| The prius was AMAZING.
|
| Their other hybrids also great. They had aero down, ev
| engines down, power management down.
|
| It's so weird to see them fight EV's so hard for so long.
| varjag wrote:
| It's a safe bet some top brass in the company was playing a
| visionary with hydrogen.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| It was apparently a push by the Japanese government.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Totally agree
|
| The ideal model, if I had some power/leadership 10 years ago
| with some foresight would have been:
|
| - add a plug to the Prius for all-electric mode, get the
| technology to as many carmakers as possible with whatever
| negotiated means possible.
|
| - push them to increase the all-electric mode to 50 miles
|
| - once tech was doable, impose incentives/requirements/taxation
| that required all new cars be PHEV. Especially for trucks/SUVs.
|
| - incentivize home charging and start incentivizing gas
| stations to have plugs as well as a requirement to staying in
| business
|
| Given the current supply of cobalt, nickel, lithium, etc, the
| most effective way to electrify consumer transportation is the
| 50 mile PHEV. It would have electrified 95% of daily trips for
| those vehicles, and eliminates range anxiety for the longer
| trips until the infrastructure is done.
|
| With that and Toyota's lead, the plug in hybrid would have
| provided practical market "EV" leadership probably through
| 2030. It is mystifying to me why they dragged their feet to add
| a simple plug to the system. A massive management failure that
| ceded not only pseudo-EV leadership, but leadership in the
| hybrid market.
|
| Toyota may be able to coattail the nascent OEM market for EV
| components and leverage their status as current #1 to keep
| afloat, but so many companies are far ahead in the vertical
| integration for the EV. An OEM component EV will be inferior to
| vertically integrated manufacturers (Tesla currently, VW and
| probably GM soon).
|
| I'd guess that the OEM model of ICE drivetrains is basically an
| extreme optimization of a long-running design. Early ICE
| companies were probably vertically integrated intheir
| parts/components manufacturing until specific market
| competition for components between dedicated OEM manufacturers
| could eventually beat the in-house teams.
|
| But EVs are a MASSIVE revolution in terms of the core
| components, and designs are innovating/evolving so rapidly that
| you can't tie yourself to components. Look at Tesla, they are
| building their own motors, batteries/chemistries, and even
| minerals extraction pipelines per battery investor day.
|
| OEM ecosystems only exist once a sufficient number of cars are
| using a component. So an automotive OEM EV motor won't be
| competitive with Tesla until several generations of EVs go
| through the market, and a generation for a car is at least 5
| years traditionally?
|
| Almost all the car companies annoucing EV programs/funding
| aside from VW and maybe GM are just doing the OEM model: we'll
| get some OEM motors and OEM batteries, slap them onto a
| traditional OEM ICE platform. And boom, the CEO gets to tell
| major activist shareholders that he isn't being left behind:
| please don't fire me like you canned the BMW CEO.
|
| Toyota is likely still stuck in OEM mode. They can't maintain
| leadership with that mentality, the vertical integration model
| will win for the next two decades at least, even if solid state
| closes some of the tech gap with Tesla for the main auto people
| (which is what they are basically all gambling on)
| minhazm wrote:
| I agree with the 50 mile PHEV. Before my fully electric car I
| had a Chevrolet Volt (not the crappy Bolt). It had a ~50 mile
| electric range (40-60 depending on weather), and then it just
| turned into a normal hybrid. It was a great car and I almost
| never had to use the gas on the car. I had to do a few longer
| distance drives a year and the > 300 mile gas range covered
| that easily. It's unfortunate that Chevy killed off the Volt.
| It was a great car and was an excellent transition car for
| people to go electric but without the range anxiety issues.
| It got me used to having to charge my car, but without the
| risk of getting stranded if I wasn't able to for some reason.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > the crappy Bolt
|
| Bolts are crappy? My wife drives one, and given the cost, I
| like it more than my Tesla. Before covid pricing, you could
| pick one up brand new for mid-20s. And they will get back
| to that level after the bubble pops, because GM is keeping
| the mediocre range and "fast" charging speeds. For someone
| who just wants a runabout that can handle pretty much _any_
| daily driver scenario, the ROI is unbeatable. That it makes
| me smile to drive it is a plus.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _Before my fully electric car I had a Chevrolet Volt (not
| the crappy Bolt)_
|
| Aside from the battery recall, what's crappy about the
| Bolt? $36,000 for 250 miles of range and the reviews seem
| pretty good. That said, I was disappointed that they
| canceled the Volt.
| freeopinion wrote:
| It turns out that a car that is good for consumers is
| almost never good for GM. Who could blame GM for scrapping
| a $20K car with $4K margin or a $40K car with $5k margin
| when they can use their resources to build a $30K car with
| $12K margin or a $65K truck with $30K margin?
|
| Innovation is cute and everything. But profit is king.
| to11mtm wrote:
| One thing everyone forgets about the Volt and the timing
| of it's demise; the end of production coincided with the
| phasing out of a lot of the tax credits/incentives
| provided by the govt. For most of it's life it was a 40k
| vehicle you could get for closer to 33k.
|
| GM likely saw the writing on the wall, people probably
| weren't willing to pay the full MSRP. Especially when
| Kia/Hyundai is managing to provide plug-in hybrids for
| 30k. (As far as quality/fit, I sat in an early Niro
| Plugin and the interior was something in between the Bolt
| and a Sonata... but some people care more about price
| nowadays.)
| N1H1L wrote:
| Upvoted you. Don't know why you have been downvoted, as I
| agree with your comment 100%
| krosaen wrote:
| Anyone wishing to steel-man Toyota's strategy should read their
| chief scientist's (and former head of DARPA) Gill Pratt's posts:
|
| https://medium.com/toyotaresearch/carbon-is-our-enemy-lets-u...
|
| https://medium.com/toyotaresearch/more-straight-talk-about-t...
|
| > Maximizing the benefit of every battery cell produced requires
| that we distribute them smartly.
|
| > This means putting them into a greater number of "right sized"
| electrified vehicles, including HEVs and PHEVs, instead of
| placing them all into a fewer number of long-range BEVs, like my
| model X. This is particularly important because presently it is
| difficult to recycle the kinds of batteries used in BEVs. If we
| are to achieve carbon neutrality, we must pay attention to all
| parts of the "3R" process -- Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.
|
| > For example, we hardly ever put gas into our RAV4 Prime PHEV,
| which has a battery 1/6 as large as our Model X BEV. For the
| same investment in batteries as our single Model X, five other
| RAV4 Prime customers could reduce their carbon footprint too.
| LeegleechN wrote:
| Thanks for the links. This is a really well written case which
| relies on an easily swallowed fallacy. The argument is that the
| main limiter to improvement of batteries is research which
| needs time, so we shouldn't quickly scale up battery production
| and end up with suboptimal batteries.
|
| Of course the main way to improve batteries at this point is to
| make them cheaper, which comes directly from production scale
| (look at what happened with solar panels). And even if that
| wasn't the case, while we wait for improved tech before we
| scale up battery production, we're continuing to dig up and
| burn fossil fuels.
|
| This reminds me of some of the propaganda spread by fossil fuel
| companies decades ago. They position themselves as being on the
| side of environment, and yet the conclusion is always to delay,
| do more research, and continue with the status quo.
| VectorLock wrote:
| Hmm, what about BEVs make them more difficult to recycle?
|
| Tesla batteries are made out of individual cells - pretty much
| ripe for the Reuse in the 3R process.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| With the amount of glue holding the cells together, it's only
| practical to reuse the entire pack (or maybe individual
| modules).
| reducesuffering wrote:
| I'm surprised a Toyota chief scientist is admitting to driving
| a Model X...
| nose wrote:
| This also indirectly signals an exit from the consumer hydrogen
| fuel cell cars.
| lamnk wrote:
| I wonder what make Toyota changes their tone, because Toyota is
| known to be very reluctant against BEVs as they want to keep
| their inverstment in hybrids and continue to bet on hydrogen fuel
| cells.
| r00fus wrote:
| Perhaps it's the US states like CA that have basically shown
| that they can't support H2 fuel supply lines.
|
| Take a look at the current status of stations in CA [1]. Mostly
| offline, and who knows for how long. A symptom of the entire
| fuel-cell economy.
|
| [1] https://m.cafcp.org
| labster wrote:
| That's worse than the McFlurry machines. There was a big push
| for hydrogen when Schwarzenegger was governator, but the
| infrastructure for hydrogen hasn't expanded beyond that. Fuel
| cell technology for cars, like its emissions, are vaporware.
| thehappypm wrote:
| I don't think adding new infrastructure is even necessary
| anymore. In fact, in many places, we're seeing natural gas
| lines intentionally not being built for new homes. Why?
| Electric is enough. Heat pumps for your home, modern electric
| appliances are arguably better than natural gas, no need to
| maintain electric lines AND gas lines. Adding hydrogen into
| the mix means a whole parallel set of infrastructure. Look
| into what happened in Lawrence Massachusetts (hardly the
| sticks) when the gas company made a mistake -- the town quite
| literally burst into flames.
| danny_taco wrote:
| Because Japan for some reason went all out on hydrogen, so
| Toyota being Japanese followed suit. What makes me wonder is
| why didn't they just look outside of Japan to realize this was
| not a good bet.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| Unless they know something that the rest of the world doesn't,
| hydrogen fuels cells is a bad bet.
|
| There is not enough time/space to explain all the reasons why;
| it is a very long list of factors working against hydrogen ---
| and it starts with the fundamental laws of thermodynamics.
| stcredzero wrote:
| If there's a context where power density is way more
| important than efficiency, then hydrogen starts looking
| pretty good. As batteries get better, the number of those
| shrinks, however.
| ncmncm wrote:
| Hydrogen -- liquified hydrogen -- makes sense for large
| aircraft, rockets, and eventually bulk storage, and not much
| else.
|
| The reason hydrogen makes sense for aircraft is the huge
| advantage of carrying enormously less weight of fuel up to
| the stratosphere. Add to that, that it will be produced and
| stored directly at airports from surplus peak electric power,
| thus obviating need for a great deal of other storage
| capacity, and of expense extracting, refining, and
| transporting petroleum.
|
| Its downside is it needs much more space on board, thus new
| airframes with aerogel-insulated tankage somewhere other than
| in skinny wings.
|
| We need a government-led initiative to get major airports
| outfitted with LH2 production and storage systems, to solve
| the inherent chicken-and-egg problem and get those new
| airframes into the pipeline. Any extra storage capacity an
| airport builds out substitutes for storage elsewhere.
| Airports could afford to get into the load-balancing business
| in a big way.
| scythe wrote:
| You can't simply ignore that liquid hydrogen is stored at
| 700 bar. That increases the system weight substantially.
| Direct ammonia fuel cells have competitive system weights
| even though NH3 is only 17% hydrogen:
|
| https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/review19/arpae11_abbas
| i...
| ncmncm wrote:
| That document refers to compressed, not liquified
| hydrogen. I don't know of any reason to keep LH2 under
| extreme pressure, other than to increase its boiling
| point to a more comfortable temperature, or to stiffen
| tank walls.
|
| The last would probably be a consideration mainly for
| rockets.
| boringg wrote:
| I'm not sure I would take this bet as them betting against
| hydrogen that everyone seems hellbent on making the narrative.
| I would take it as there is clearly a rise in EV that they can
| capitalize on. We will have both hydrogen and EV. Different use
| cases.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| According to Ars, they're aiming for 180-200 GWh annual capacity
| by 2030. By 2030 Tesla is aiming for 3 TWh and VW is aiming for 2
| TWh. It's only about twice what Tesla consumed last year.
|
| They're still not serious about EV's.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/09/toyota-finally-gets-ser...
| martythemaniak wrote:
| These are the numbers that matter, and they're not good.
| They're _proudly_ declaring that they will be producing a bit
| over 2 million EVs per year by 2030. Tesla is currently
| shipping at a rate of 1m per year.
|
| I'm afraid they're going to use their brand power and customer
| loyalty to drag everyone else down.
| Retric wrote:
| We are still talking 8 years at this point. Toyota is going
| to respond to actual sales not just what they think sales are
| going to be. Assuming they produce a desirable EV they could
| still ramp up production well past that by 2030.
|
| It's one thing not to be the company on a new technology,
| it's another not to ramp up production when your selling out
| month after month.
| deelowe wrote:
| > Assuming they produce a desirable EV
|
| If they aren't serious about EVs, why would they do this? I
| honestly don't understand Toyota and Honda here. Something
| is causing them to fight EVs and push for Hydrogen.
| Patents? Geopolitics? Existing supply chain and
| manufacturing processes?
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| I love the Japanese, but there is a culture of deference
| that cuts both ways. In the right circumstances you get
| consistent high quality from a master that knows what
| he's doing and eager proteges trying their best to head
| their every word. In the wrong circumstances it leads to
| Fukushima.
|
| Say what you will about Americans, this is not their way.
| Musk was wrong about the vertical doors and over
| automation and his team kept screaming at him until he
| didn't just relent he frequently brings it up in
| interviews as an area where he messed up.
|
| The flip side is that for years Japanese automotive
| manufacturers prized engineering graduates as managers
| and beat the pants off of over financialized leadership
| at GM and Ford.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| You can't ramp up production if you don't have the
| batteries to do so.
| Retric wrote:
| It doesn't take 8 years to build a battery factory.
| Kicking things off with new models that need extra
| battery capacity and a factory to manufacture them is a
| larger hurdle than scaling things after everything is in
| production.
| devnulll wrote:
| > larger hurdle than scaling things after everything is
| in production
|
| The relevant data points we have on this are from Tesla.
| Elon has been beating the "scaling production is the
| hardest thing" drum. His callouts around the cost of
| design vs manufacturing are quite interesting.
|
| Now Toyota has been in the at-scale manufacturing game a
| long time, so perhaps they're just better at this. Either
| way battery capacity will hold them back for a decade.
|
| The investments we're seeing in batteries (LG, Philips,
| Tesla, VW) are 10x+ what Toyota is doing. I don't see how
| this results in Toyota able to ship cars in volume as the
| transition to electric accelerates.
| Retric wrote:
| I don't mean that one or the other is harder, just that
| doing both takes longer. If Toyota has a battery pack
| design and factory layout their happy with then they can
| "just" copy it which saves time over designing the
| equipment then factory and then building it.
|
| As to your 10+x comment that's very true today, but
| Toyota isn't selling any EV's. It's perfectly reasonable
| for them to have a conservative adoption curve right now
| rather than assuming their going to sell 10m EV's in 8
| years and then potentially massively over build capacity.
| This is especially true if their aiming for true
| mainstream cars without significant markup to justify
| more risky investments.
| meragrin_ wrote:
| > It's only about twice what Tesla consumed last year.
|
| I don't think it is a fair comparison. How many of those
| batteries made it into their vehicles vs their other products?
| adventured wrote:
| What's relevant is the scale of production, that's what it
| helps shed light on. Toyota is a behemoth in terms of
| industrial size and output, and extraordinarily profitable
| for an automaker (meaning they have ridiculous financial
| resources to push toward battery production). And over there
| is little 'ol Tesla's rapidly expanding battery output; a
| company that as recently as 2017 had 5% the sales of Toyota.
| It reveals that Toyota clearly still isn't serious about EVs,
| or they'd be a lot more serious about battery production.
| meragrin_ wrote:
| What is Toyota producing batteries for? Vehicles. What is
| Tesla producing batteries for? Vehicles, charging network,
| home storage, business storage, small grid storage, large
| scale grid storage, and probably other things. Tesla is
| shooting to become an energy company that maybe still makes
| cars while Toyota is an automotive manufacturer with no
| known intentions of getting into energy. Comparing the two
| based on batteries produced is like comparing a banana to
| an iPhone.
| beambot wrote:
| From March 17th, 2021: "Toyota lobbies US government in its
| increasingly delusional effort to slow down electric vehicles"
|
| https://electrek.co/2021/03/17/toyota-lobbies-us-government-...
|
| Seems like they're late to the party & know it.
| cronix wrote:
| It kind of reminds me of Intel's dismissive attitude
| throughout the tail end of the '90's and early 2000's about
| ARM and mobile processing. They completely misjudged it, got
| dethroned as the best chip manufacturer as a result and are
| still playing catch-up while paying out the nose trying to do
| so.
| jseliger wrote:
| Better late than never, it would seem: Toyota pioneering hybrid
| systems and then ignoring electrification seems strange. Even the
| "Prius Prime" today only has what appears to be an 8.8 kWh
| battery in it, for about $30K (Toyota says it gets about 25
| electric miles), and the regular Prius only has a .8 kWh battery.
| The first-generation Chevy Volt had a 16 kWh battery back in 2011
| --ten years ago!--and the second generation 18.4 kWh. Battery
| costs have fallen by 90% or more over the last ten years. Where's
| the higher range and/or lower cost Prius? The $30K Prius Prime is
| in the same price range as a new Chevy Bolt, which gets 259 miles
| of range.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| I drive a prius prime: problem is where to put the battery. The
| 8.8kwH takes up considerable space in the rear cargo area (no
| room for a spare tire, you are left with a fix a flat kit)
|
| Throwing out the gasoline motor in a full redesign will be
| great to see (ev mode almost feels sporty already), but in the
| meantime I'm enjoying my 550mi range on a 10 gallon tank +
| never using gas on days I don't leave town.
| rconti wrote:
| To be fair, I have 3 cars, none of which have spare tires.
| Teslas don't have spares, either.
| pradn wrote:
| For most people, calling AAA is probably the way they're
| gonna go, instead of changing their own tire.
| foobiekr wrote:
| I am fascinated by this world we've created where
| something as basic as carrying a spare is now considered
| unusual.
| bluGill wrote:
| Tires don't fail often anymore. A blow out was a regular
| thing that happened to everyone once in a while, in that
| world everyone had a spare and knew how to change it.
| Today tires are a lot better (and last a lot longer),
| most tires make it to end of life with no problems. It
| thus doesn't make sense to dedicate volume and weight
| (read fuel mileage) to a spare tire that won't even be
| used. As such it doesn't make sense to have a spare or
| know how to change it, just let someone else do it.
| reportingsjr wrote:
| I was curious about how much more Toyota could fit in that
| same volume if using state of the art batteries.
|
| The 2021 Tesla Model 3 LR has a pack volumetric energy
| density of roughly 240Wh/l.
|
| The 2017 Prius Prime has a pack volumetric energy density of
| roughly 150Wh/l.
|
| So ignoring Toyota's poor battery placement, you could fit
| ~14kWh in that same space in the Prime using a better pack
| design with more modern batteries.
|
| If Toyota pulled their heads out of their asses and actually
| designed a car to be an EV, they could match Tesla's battery
| pack sizes and still have reasonable trunk space.
|
| I say this as someone who owns two Priuses and do not
| understand why they didn't capitalize on their advantage to
| design a decent EV years ago.
|
| The number of Priuses sold per year in the US tells a story
| of Toyota absolutely failing to capitalize on new technology
| when they had the lead: https://motorandwheels.com/10-toyota-
| prius-statistics-facts/
| [deleted]
| nomoreplease wrote:
| Are other auto companies pursuing in-home batteries like Tesla?
| I'm hoping for more competition in the Powerwall space
| davedx wrote:
| Generac and Enphase are in that space, I'm pretty sure there
| are more too
| kyahuabhai1 wrote:
| This is a very interesting change of direction. Considering they
| and through their lobbying Japanese Govt. were pushing for
| Hydrogen cars.
| jqpabc123 wrote:
| Really disappointing to see them go down the hydrogen rabbit
| hole. I was a Toyota fan but this shook my confidence in the
| company. They had the lead and squandered it. They are really
| behind the curve now.
| smallerfish wrote:
| Maybe it's a "bet on both horses" strategy. Hydrogen cells have
| some advantages over battery cells (e.g. energy density,
| refueling time) but if there's no infrastructure they won't
| sell any significant amount of cars on that platform.
| boringg wrote:
| Agreed - everyone is trying to frame this as a they are no
| longer betting on Hydrogen. They are betting on both horses -
| and moving away from O&G. Smart move since they work across
| different industries/use-cases and different countries
| (policy drivers).
| aduitsis wrote:
| I live in an urban area in a EU country. Some thoughts:
|
| * There is a huge subset of motorized vehicles that are
| spending a considerable percentage of their daily time on the
| road. Thinking about taxis, buses, trucks, etc.
|
| * A large percentage of private cars are parked on the
| streets.
|
| Those two observations alone make the case for electric
| vehicles slightly problematic.
|
| Of course, a private individual with a garage can get an
| electric vehicle and use it almost like an ICE one, with a
| large environmental but also budgetary gain.
|
| But for these other classes of vehicles, hydrogen could
| provide a better alternative.
|
| Apologies if I'm missing something, but I cannot think what
| other zero emission technology could give the solution at
| this point, for these types of vehicle usage.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > There is a huge subset of motorized vehicles that are
| spending a considerable percentage of their daily time on
| the road. Thinking about taxis, buses, trucks, etc.
|
| Model 3 currently has a range up to 353 miles. At 40MPH
| city driving that's more than 8 hours. Then you need ~20
| minutes at a supercharger.
|
| Eventually somebody is going to make an electric SUV with
| more batteries in it which will then have a >480 mile range
| when not towing anything, which gets you 12 hours between
| charges. That's a typical shift for a cab, and they already
| have the 20 minutes of down time during the shift change to
| clean the vehicle etc.
|
| Trucks and buses will be the same. They'll fit larger
| batteries and then get enough range to last the full shift.
| It also wouldn't be surprising to see cities fit main
| thoroughfares with overhead lines and then have electric
| buses with pantographs so they can charge while in motion.
|
| > A large percentage of private cars are parked on the
| streets.
|
| So as electric vehicles get more common they'll start
| installing chargers on streets. The more vehicles there
| are, the more chargers they can justify. The more chargers
| there are, the more people buy electric vehicles. It
| doesn't have to go from zero chargers to every urban
| parking space has a charger overnight, but that's where you
| end up in a few decades.
| asdff wrote:
| >It also wouldn't be surprising to see cities fit main
| thoroughfares with overhead lines and then have electric
| buses with pantographs so they can charge while in
| motion.
|
| These are already a thing but not done because Americans
| complain about things like wires in the sky and public
| transportation
| emkoemko wrote:
| how can trucks work on batteries? and be economical? you
| do know roads have a load rating you can't go over? so
| Trucks will have to carry less and we will have to make
| and use more trucks? driving up the cost of everything.
| Animats wrote:
| Siemens actually set up a road with overhead wire and put
| a pantograph on a truck.[1] Probably not a great idea.
|
| Tried in Super Mario Brothers, the movie (1983) [2]
|
| [1] https://insideevs.com/photo/3938111/siemens-to-
| conduct-ehigh...
|
| [2] https://youtu.be/G7GUvttfe0k
| skeletal88 wrote:
| These are called trolleybuses and they exist.
| [deleted]
| glogla wrote:
| > * There is a huge subset of motorized vehicles that are
| spending a considerable percentage of their daily time on
| the road. Thinking about taxis, buses, trucks, etc.
|
| Those also often spend the nights in specialized depots or
| garages. Moreover, lot of those public transport and
| utility vehicles spend a lot of time idling (think garbage
| truck or bus at stop) which makes them especially wasteful
| if ICE.
|
| Around here, bus depots are colocated with tram and train
| depots so they already have powerful electricity lines.
|
| > * A large percentage of private cars are parked on the
| streets.
|
| I'm convinced there's a correlation between "parking on the
| street near condos" and driving relatively little day to
| day. The cars that drive the most distance would be the
| ones owned by people living in suburbs or villages. But
| people with houses can probably charge at home, right?
|
| ...
|
| For me specifically, my commute is 15 km one way, so even
| with something with not much range like Peugeot e-208 I
| would have to charge it about every two weeks if I'm onsite
| daily, or about once a month if I'm mostly remote. I'm
| still not planning to buy one because I'd rather use bike
| or public transport, but it would work.
| Rapzid wrote:
| There is something to be said about shipping around the
| energy source for quick refuel.
|
| If there is anything to these new electrolytes and shipping
| them around to "gas" stations, I think they could end up
| replacing charging stations for sure.
| ryanisnan wrote:
| It does seem like that's the play. Pretty sad that it took
| them this long to make this investment, but I am excited for
| what Toyota might bring to the EV market.
| la_oveja wrote:
| I'm really hyped to see their hydrogen "combustion" engines <3
| thehappypm wrote:
| Why? I'm way more excited to get an EV -- no oil changes,
| transmission problems, way better acceleration, quieter, etc.
| Combustion is going to be obsolete soon.
| clipradiowallet wrote:
| FYI, 1.5 trillion yen equates to 13,607,664,000.00 USD.
| jhgb wrote:
| I thought it was just one yen, but one that was highly
| magnetic.
| gplusnews wrote:
| Toyota sounds more like blackberry these days!
| ffggvv wrote:
| weird how everyone is an "expert" about hydrogen vs EV and knows
| more than the biggest car company in the world.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| The results speak for themselves. For years Toyota and Honda
| have been playing around with Hydrogen cars in tiny production
| numbers, lease-only, and with little progress, while Tesla is
| increasingly shipping more and more cars, 400x the Toyota Mirai
| numbers, to almost limitless demand.
| ffggvv wrote:
| didn't know the competition was over. We're still at less
| than 1% adoption. Thats like saying that the results speak
| for themselves about AOL winning the ISP wars in the 90s.
| Hypx_ wrote:
| This. Electric cars are currently at the dialup internet
| phase of adoption. It's unlikely the current leaders will
| be the future leaders. Nor will the current technology be
| the stuff we will use in the future.
| greenonions wrote:
| Sure, but I reckon the leader is even less likely to be
| Toyota than Tesla.
| Hypx_ wrote:
| Toyota is much more likely to be a major player in the
| future than Tesla. I don't think Toyota plans on being a
| leader of anything.
| asdff wrote:
| Who knew there were so many polymaths on hackernews
| thehappypm wrote:
| Just yesterday there was a conversation about college
| degrees. Why is it that so many people here feel like they're
| an expert in absolutely everything? Condescending people who
| are vaccine skeptical, for one, as if they themselves were
| literal vaccine experts. There's so much hubris in the top
| tier of society it's almost sickening.
| smolder wrote:
| You could say some of the top tier of society has a
| presence here, but I don't think it describes most of HN's
| audience and commentariat.
|
| Anyway, comment quality does vary a lot by subject matter.
| Industry insiders aren't likely to say anything new in this
| case, whether because of NDAs or language barriers or
| disinterest in HN, yet there is broad interest in the
| direction of automobile development. It's something people
| here are trying pretty hard to understand themselves, so
| they often feel they have gained enough insight to share,
| just as they do with COVID. I'm no sociologist though, this
| is just a layman's take. :)
| [deleted]
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| There was an interesting discussion here the other day about what
| makes a company a tech company. Reading here about R&D
| investments like this from a company that isn't considered a
| 'tech company,' I can't help but think back to that discussion
| and chuckle.
| acchow wrote:
| Toyota's revenue is 27T JPY. This 1.5T figure over 9 years is
| 0.16T per year or about 0.6% of their annual revenue. That this
| even makes the news is indeed worth chuckling about.
| brianwawok wrote:
| Why? Do you think anything new will come out of this? The
| market is pretty far past them in battery tech, hard to catch
| up for the price of 1 tesla battery factory.
| echelon wrote:
| The world isn't instantly switching to batteries. There's no
| infrastructure where I live and I can't charge an electric
| vehicle at either of my condos.
|
| My mom lives in the suburbs and I see very few Teslas there.
| Mostly pickup trucks. Cybertruck is not going to appeal to
| those folks.
|
| There is plenty of time for the incumbents to catch up.
| Especially when Japan will stand behind their car industry.
|
| EVs are still in the _Virtual Reality_ phase of the adoption
| curve.
|
| I'm not going to bet against Tesla, but I'd be happy to buy
| your Toyota shares at a discount.
| brianwawok wrote:
| Teslas are still selling like hotcakes, and have a 4-6
| month wait right now. I see a few more every month in my
| flyover state. New service center being made in my town.
|
| I have only owned 1 condo, but power meters were right by
| my deeded parking spot. Would have been very easy to slap a
| charger in.
|
| Cannot imagine going back to a Toyota after this. The
| future is now. Just a matter of if Toyota is able to catch
| up, or if they have missed the train. They had a huge lead
| with Prius, and so far have squandered it on fuel cell
| chasing.
| Rapzid wrote:
| Yeah.. It's clear that the incumbents are paying very close
| attention to trends. Not sure why anyone would bet against
| them, particularly Japanese auto.. I can guess though haha.
|
| Heck, the first EV I would look into if I were in the
| market ATM would be the Chevy Bolt EV/EUV haha.
| gibolt wrote:
| So you don't have power in those condos? 95% of charging
| happens at home.
|
| Long trips are well served by the Super/destination charger
| network. You'll be surprised how much availability there
| is: https://www.tesla.com/findus
| dnissley wrote:
| Thinking through the particulars in my case: How do I
| charge if I only have street parking? Can I rely on
| superchargers only? What's the price of those vs charging
| at home vs gas? Will I destroy my battery over time if I
| do that? Am I giving up the thing I like most about my
| current car (2013 civic -- never leaves me stranded +
| basically only have to get the oil changed + replace
| wearable items)?
| gibolt wrote:
| Lots of places (theaters, grocery stores) have
| destination chargers (some are even free). If you go to
| those once or twice a week, top up there. If you don't
| drive much, a weekly supercharger visit is fine. Keep in
| mind that charging is currently worst case. It will
| improve by ~50% each year.
|
| Battery degradation is not something you should be
| worried about. It will remain above 85-90% for hundreds
| of thousands of miles.
|
| Don't forget about depreciation. Gas cars will be worth
| nothing soon as millions become undesirable. Electric
| will be so in demand that they'll barely depreciate. Used
| Model 3s right now are selling for thousands more than a
| new one.
| echelon wrote:
| > Gas cars will be worth nothing soon as millions become
| undesirable.
|
| Long bet: in 10 years you're wrong.
| phaemon wrote:
| Vague bet. What does "worth nothing" mean? Obviously
| collectibles will be worth something and even crappy cars
| will have scrap value.
| brianwawok wrote:
| I would put some money on this. There are very few
| inherit benefits to gas right now except "faster to
| refill" and "more range between stops". Both get solved
| by increasing battery densities, charging speeds, etc. At
| 300 miles range, I have 1 common trip I need to charge
| for 5 minutes. At 400 miles range (which I can get on an
| S), all my common trips are charge free. Vacation trips
| already work great with 300 miles range.
| gibolt wrote:
| Gas stations will start going under. Gas prices will
| increase. Parts will stop being made or have prices
| increase. Used market will be flooded, in a race to the
| bottom. New electric cars will become cheaper and
| charging ubiquitous. Battery charging speeds will
| improve.
|
| This means that within the decade, EVs will be more
| convenient and cheaper (already cheaper including
| lifetime costs).
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The greater reliability of EVs is one of the factors
| pushing business uptake in areas like taxis.
|
| If you dont drive many miles then todays EVs are already
| fine for your use case. If you drive a lot then the fuel
| savings are enough for you to want to make it work.
| RobLach wrote:
| You don't need to catch up, you need to get 95% of the way
| there, which Toyota is definitely capable of doing. Then you
| compete beyond batteries and overcome the differences and
| then some, which Toyota also very much can.
| [deleted]
| genericone wrote:
| Was there a new innovation or discovery that triggered this
| direction change, information the public at large is not yet
| aware of? I hate to see this move as subject to the whims of the
| leadership, a decision that could change 5 years from now... If
| this change has, as a foundation, a scientific / engineering
| basis, I would feel a lot more assured in Toyota's EV
| aspirations.
| ncmncm wrote:
| It's not a direction change. They are just hedging.
| jeffbee wrote:
| As 14 billion US dollars over a decade it sounds less dramatic.
| thehappypm wrote:
| That's still quite a lot, but yeah, trillions are more exciting
| than tens of billions.
| foobarian wrote:
| Too bad they didn't build it in Vietnam paid in their local
| currency! <mutters at int32 types used for VND prices>
| jtvjan wrote:
| 1.5T JPY 11.5G EUR 13.6G USD 9.9G GBP 18.4G AUD
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| G for Giga (10^9)? This confused me. I was expecting Billions
| (B)
| jtvjan wrote:
| Oh yeah I assumed the T stood for tera. ~>
| units '1.5 teraJPY' gigaEUR * 11.511012
| bserge wrote:
| Yeah, real helpful. Use (B) for billion not whatever G stands
| for.
| p1mrx wrote:
| Tera/giga are globally standardized; trillion/billion are
| ambiguous.
| bserge wrote:
| Aight, I'll ask my manager to raise my salary by a few
| kiloeuros.
|
| Fucking ridiculous.
| phaemon wrote:
| Have you genuinely never seen people refer to, say, $10k
| to mean ten thousand dollars? It's very common.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| no really, billion has different meaning around the
| world. personally I'm a fan of gigabucks, way shorter to
| say than "billions of dollars"
| glogla wrote:
| Yup, the long and short scale[1].
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scale
| r00fus wrote:
| In France, they use "milliard" for billions.
| r00fus wrote:
| Amusingly I think he'd understand your request at
| least...
| sedatk wrote:
| How are trillion and billion ambiguous?
| acchow wrote:
| "billion" in the US means 10^9, but in France, Germany,
| Austria, Belgium, etc means 10^12.
|
| Trillion means 10^12 in the US but means 10^18 in the
| above places.
| notJim wrote:
| Is this true even if you're speaking English in France? I
| would assume in English, it always means 10^9.
| [deleted]
| hackeraccount wrote:
| Is a billion a million million, or one followed by twelve
| noughts (1,000,000,000,000) or is a billion a thousand
| million?
|
| Same thing for a trillion. I think the first is or maybe
| was a UK'ism. Maybe the rest of the world does that too?
| [deleted]
| nathancahill wrote:
| Good bot.
| sdze wrote:
| What the heck is G ?
| the8472 wrote:
| surely this is taught in various science classes in every
| country?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Metric prefixes aren't typically adjacent to numbers but
| space separated from the modified units in sciences
| (typical, the reverse is true), so, no, that usage isn't
| taught in most science classrooms.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I have never seen anyone use metric prefixes with money.
| reportingsjr wrote:
| Every now and again I'll talk to someone who uses
| kilobuck for various things. It's not common, but it's
| common enough that informal dictionaries have definitions
| for it.
| jagger27 wrote:
| My grandmother (who just passed away a few weeks ago)
| used to say "megabucks" a lot when talking about
| expensive things or rich people. I wonder if that's what
| she meant.
| danw1979 wrote:
| Gigaquids
| Nbox9 wrote:
| Is it reading 1.5T yen as 1.5 Tera yen instead of 1.5Trillion
| yen?
| froh wrote:
| Tera and Trillion gives the same number of digits, 12...
| notJim wrote:
| I agree that this is a silly way to state this info, but it's
| hilarious to me how irritated it makes people.
| tsjq wrote:
| How many million USD is that?
| boboche wrote:
| Ex Corrola and Celica owner, and ex Toyota fanboy. I was on the
| market and considering a Supra once the car craze would settle.
| After seeing all the lobby money against right to repair, trying
| slowing down Tesla with congress and all, I decided I would not
| contribute to a brand that used to be a leader in quality and
| innovation, but now acts as a desperate trainwreck and instead of
| focussing on improving seriously, they are playing games with
| numbers (and not being any better than Bezos with SpaceX on the
| political side) Shame.
|
| Must hurt them bad having sold those TSLA shares when they were
| worth a fraction of today's price.
|
| I hope they bounce back, drop the attitude and become competitive
| again. They made the mistake of being overconfident without
| acknowledging the competition or (ex) partners, clean competition
| is always good. Especially in this segment for our planet's sake.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| > considering a Supra
|
| Not a Toyota.
| Forbo wrote:
| Am I missing something?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Supra
| boboche wrote:
| Joint venture with BMW, lots of BMW tech, so not a
| "natural" Supra just like the ft86/fr-s is a joint venture
| with Subaru, people call 'em a Toyobaru around here :).
| Forbo wrote:
| I'm reminded of the "GNU plus Linux" copypasta.
| ArtemZ wrote:
| Sorry, but as someone who knows little about U.S politics and
| lobbying there, I don't understand how you are putting Tesla
| and "the right to repair" in a single sentence. What will you
| do if the electronics in Tesla fails? What will you do if the
| motor fails? Battery? You won't be able to fix that on your
| own.
|
| Teslas can be only repaired in a professional shop, whereas
| Toyotas can be fixed by a moderately skilled individual in a
| private garage. You can order all the parts for Toyota online
| and do everything from engine rebuild to any kind of
| maintenance.
| boboche wrote:
| Simple, 2 separate issues tickling me.
|
| Not saying Tesla are not terrible at RTR, they are. But they
| are also accelerating electrification and catching everybody
| off guard. Including auto repair shops. Some are actually
| starting to be the Rossman of teslas and I beleive the
| momentum RTR is getting will naturally creep in and bite them
| too soon or later.
|
| For now I can just agree and its one of the reasons I won't
| buy a Tesla as I like to keep my cars until they completely
| die (usually rusted beyond repair with 300kkm+) while keeping
| my repair costs down.
|
| Toyota was pointed as a major lobyist against right to repair
| and financed FUD ads in the US on ballot initiatives btw,
| Tesla was not in that group.
| micah63 wrote:
| I think it's too little too late. It's so much more than EV now,
| it's about FSD, AI, data collection, charging networks, owning
| mass battery production, automation of manufacturing, remote
| software updates, the center screen interface, service to the
| home networks, direct to customer sales infrastructure, solar
| panels on your home to charge your car, etc... I believe every
| car company is 10 years late responding and Tesla will destroy
| them like Apple iPhone destroyed Blackberry, Nokia, etc... If
| Ford can mass produce the electric F-150 before cybertruck hits,
| they may stand a chance (#1 selling vehicle in NA), but again,
| they are behind on so many of the other factors. I think Tesla
| will do it in a more streamlined way, more profitability and are
| ultimately heading towards a robo taxi network which isn't even
| in the competitors' visions.
| emkoemko wrote:
| you seem to be a little too biased towards Tesla? are you
| invested? some of your points make no sense and "robo taxi
| network which isn't even in the competitors' visions." and yet
| Waymo has already done exactly this... Tesla can't even
| navigate in a closed loop tunnel...
| bluGill wrote:
| Vertical integration like that sounds good, but often ends up a
| distraction. Toyota tends to be more of we do the Engine and
| frame, and outsource the rest.
| specialist wrote:
| Yes and:
|
| Tesla is integrating vertically, like mining lithium. Both as
| hedge against supply disruptions and to squeeze efficiency.
|
| > _...like Apple iPhone destroyed..._
|
| Also copying Apple's monopsony playbook. Tesla bought booked
| the production of "gigacasting" gear. Just like Apple bought
| all the CNC machines (for making unibody cases) and miniature
| harddrives (for iPod) and... So competitors can't emulate, even
| if they wanted to and had the capital.
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