[HN Gopher] Shoichiro Toyoda, who turned Toyota into global auto...
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Shoichiro Toyoda, who turned Toyota into global automaker, has died
Author : isomorph
Score : 391 points
Date : 2023-02-15 10:44 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mainichi.jp)
(TXT) w3m dump (mainichi.jp)
| mjul wrote:
| The Toyota Production System was established during Shoichiro
| Toyoda's leadership. It is the company's "operating system" if
| you will, and has made an enormous impact, both in the auto
| industry and in other fields such as IT.
|
| "Lean" manufacturing, a term from Womack & Jones, is based on
| their research into this.
|
| If you want to dive in, here is my reading list for essential
| books on how Toyota came to build high quality cars at scale, and
| how it transfers to other disciplines.
|
| _W. Edwards Deming_ - the grand old man of the field, building
| on a strict statistical discipline. His book "Out of the Crisis"
| is a wonderful treatise on his thinking including his famous "14
| Points for Management". This is definitely a must read that will
| change the way you think about management and quality. Deming
| provided the inspiration for the quality movement that powered
| post-war Japanese manufacturing.
|
| _Taiichi Ohno_ - one of the greatest industrial innovators of
| the 20th century, the father of the Toyota Production System.
| After spending his career relentlessly optimizing manufacturing
| at Toyota he wrote the book "Toyota Production System: Beyond
| Large-scale Production" that describes his work.
|
| _Womack & Jones_ - Their books are great and it is well worth to
| read them all to see a lot of the principles and case studies for
| lean thinking. Also, it is quite interesting to see that software
| development is now rediscovering some of the things that
| manufacturing learned much earlier - in the case of Toyota as
| early as in the 1950s and 1960s. Begin your studies with "The
| Machine That Changed the World", a five-year study of the global
| auto industry from MIT and go on with the "Lean Thinking" and
| "Lean Solutions". They give a fascinating perspective on
| manufacturing and plenty of examples of the lean principles and
| they applications. These are the books that brought lean to the
| mainstream.
|
| _Mary and Tom Poppendieck_ - with a background in manufacturing
| and software they were leading the effort to translate the
| concepts of lean to software development. They have written two
| great books, "Implementing Lean Software Development" and "Lean
| Software Development - an Agile Toolkit". Both books are well
| worth reading a present a both the principles and lot of cases in
| a friendly, colloquial manner. Highly recommended!
|
| _Matthew May_ - I really like his approach to elegance and
| simplicity. May has worked with Toyota and their corporate
| university and his book "The Elegant Solution" offers insight
| into their innovation process - the principles it is built on and
| the practices that make it work.
|
| _Jeffrey Liker_ - his "The Toyota Way" is a very good
| introduction to the application of lean methods at Toyota. This
| is one of the best lean books I have read. Definitely a
| favourite!
|
| This list covers up to around 10 years ago. Please comment with
| recommendations for more recent books on the topic.
| radiator wrote:
| _Tetsuo Sakiya_ - Honda Motor the men, the management, the
| machines
|
| Tangential: there are many books on the Toyota system, so that
| they have stolen the show. I have always suspected that other
| Japanese factories might have also had interesting production
| systems but only found the above book about Honda. Honda
| apparently invested more in R&D and always took greater risks
| than Toyota. I believe some ideas from there can also be
| applied to IT.
|
| Anyone know of others?
| mjul wrote:
| _The Honda Myth_ by Masaaki Sato is an excellent book about
| Soichiro Honda and Takeo Fujisawa and the captivating history
| of how they built Honda, from motorcycles to Formula 1 and
| how they disrupted the US auto industry on the way with the
| low-emission fuel-efficient CVCC engine (the later Tesla
| story shares some of the same elements of new tech playing to
| environmental regulation).
|
| It was driven by the quest to create the best engines and
| fastest vehicles.
|
| Soichiro Honda had a great love for building and tuning his
| engines, saying something like, "It will be a sad day if
| engineers could go to lunch without needing to wash their
| hands".
| kqr wrote:
| Great list. I would strongly suggest reading Ward's _Lean
| Product and Process Developer_ , or if you have, adding it to
| the list. It focuses entirely on product development rather
| than manufacturing -- so easier to apply to software
| development!
| rr808 wrote:
| Lots of people saying Toyota missed the boat on EVs. I'm not
| convinced the technology, infrastructure or battery supply is
| ready for true mass production of EVs. Toyota makes 10 million
| cars a year, they'll be selling good EVs soon enough to put Tesla
| to shame.
| clouddrover wrote:
| Volkswagen makes 10 million cars a year and they're pushing
| hard for EVs now.
|
| The main difference between Volkswagen's and Toyota's situation
| is that Toyota is still in a good position to meet fleet
| emissions requirements globally because they've been selling
| hybrids for so long. But Volkswagen needs to pump out EVs now
| to meet their fleet emissions targets.
|
| Fleet emissions fines are simply dead money. You're much better
| off putting that money into your EV development program.
|
| Toyota has to sell EVs at scale eventually because new car ICE
| vehicle sales bans now and into the future mean that all car
| manufacturers have to.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| " Toyota has to sell EVs at scale eventually because new car
| ICE vehicle sales bans now and into the future..."
|
| The EU is pushing that 2035 date. Are other countries
| following?
| oblio wrote:
| The EU is about 450 million people with above average
| disposable income for global levels.
|
| I'm not sure if other countries are following, but they
| will :-)
| sethhochberg wrote:
| Somewhat similar story in the US with California and New
| York pursuing 2035 sale bans - other states don't
| necessarily have to even follow, California has been the
| benchmark for US vehicle emissions standards for decades.
| The state has big car culture and a big population.
| Automakers often build things to the California standard
| and sell the CA-standard cars in the rest of the country.
| Its just not cost effective for them to make minor
| variations in the models.
| clouddrover wrote:
| Other countries are leading. The UK is 2030. Norway is
| 2025.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > Volkswagen makes 10 million cars a year and they're pushing
| hard for EVs now.
|
| That decision was made under duress[1]. Thanks, Dieselgate!
|
| 1. The money VW Group was fined for Dieselgate in the US was
| directed to fund the "Electrify America" charging network. It
| would have been braindead for VW to give competition a leg-up
| by not electrify after paying for the infrastructure: the
| punishment was _very_ well thought-out.
| cowmix wrote:
| I guess I understand why Toyota hasn't gone full-hog into EVs.
| There's a lot of life left in their hybrid and ICE drivetrains.
|
| What I don't understand is why whatever BEVs they have tried so
| far, have been pretty crappy. For instance, the bZ4X is a total
| joke in almost all aspects -- features, range, etc.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| If Toyota misses the boat there's not much coming back from
| that. Once things shake out and brands develop reputations for
| certain classes of product it takes an act of god to change
| them.
|
| In the 1970s the US was really good at making fairly luxurious
| barges but then suddenly the consumers wanted smaller cars. The
| US automakers already made compacts and small cars but they
| were value-engineered to within an inch of their lives for
| people who couldn't afford better. Japanese automakers
| absolutely killed because they already made "nice cars for nice
| people" in the form factors people wanted. The US had plenty of
| nicer cars in production at the time but they weren't form
| factors anybody wanted. So when you look at the average car
| that actually got bought and put on the roads the Japanese cars
| were nicer all around (and priced accordingly). The reputations
| took off from there and the US automakers got left holding the
| bag of low end customers and the Japanese carmakers got the
| high end customers further cementing their place in the midsize
| and compact car market. Minivans and then SUV becoming the "new
| hotness" for those buyer demographics and some by all accounts
| spectacular midsize car platforms of the 80s and 90s (Taurus,
| Escort, W-body (e.g. Lumina), Neon) still didn't unseat the
| Japanese car-makers dominance of the higher priced and higher
| end portions of the midsize and compact car market.
|
| I would not bet against something similar happening to Toyota
| (and a couple other brands) with the transition to EVs. The big
| three look poised to capture the pickup and large SUV market.
| The Koreans look pretty well positioned in the crossover and
| hatchback segments. Tesla is king of high end sedans right now.
| I think there's room for another player in the crossover market
| and some room in the midsize SUV market (Honda Pilot, Ford
| Explorer type stuff) and there's probably room in the sedan
| market for a boring non-flashy EV (something Toyota already has
| a reputation for in the ICE segment). Will Toyota develop an EV
| or several that's a big enough winner to cement their place
| beside the current players in those segments? If I knew the
| answer to that question I'd be buying stocks.
| b34r wrote:
| There are so many nuanced things that go into making a great
| EV: advanced software with OTA updates, highly efficient
| electric motors, material science breakthroughs in battery tech
| and other components. Toyota can get there in time but there's
| so many things to do and they're facing increasingly rough
| headwinds the longer they wait to properly electrify.
| pornel wrote:
| Their current offering is "meh" from the EV perspective. It
| doesn't look like their experience with small-battery low-
| voltage hybrids gave them skills and experience to execute a
| good BEV. ICE reliability is a different game than batteries,
| efficiency, and software game of BEVs.
|
| I think there's a high chance that Toyota will be sidelined by
| EV-first automakers from Korea and China just like US
| automakers were sidelined by Japanese automakers in the 20th
| century.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Good thing Europe doesn't produce cars any more.
| chasd00 wrote:
| i cant even imagine how hard it would be for an ICE
| manufacturer to pivot into EVs. Those decades of
| engine/transmission refinement expertise? out the window.
| Imagine trying to organize and pitch a new vehicle without
| including the powertrain people and, instead, a team with
| nothing on the road yet.
| Merad wrote:
| I think Toyota is in much better shape in this regard than
| you might expect. Most/all of their hybrid vehicles use an
| eCVT transmission to drive the front wheels that's
| radically different from a traditional transmission. And
| their AWD hybrid models provide the AWD via an electric
| motor on the rear axle (no connection to the ICE engine)
| that's essentially identical to the setup in electric cars.
| pornel wrote:
| Assumption that hybrids are essentially EVs glosses over
| all the fine details that make a _good_ EV. All ICE
| engines are "essentially identical" too, but there's a
| world of difference between ICE manufacturers. VW Beetle
| has an engine in the rear, but it doesn't make it a
| Lambo.
|
| Plug-in hybrids all use AC charging or at best equally
| slow DC charging. OTOH BEVs compete on maximizing the
| charging curve, which is something that has never been a
| consideration in PHEVs. This requires dealing with much
| higher voltages and stress on the battery.
|
| Hybrids don't need active temperature management for
| their batteries, because they never push the batteries
| that hard, and there's always an ICE engine to generate
| heat if needed. OTOH thermal management and battery
| conditioning, and efficient A/C is an important complex
| piece of BEVs.
|
| Hybrids don't need to maximize their efficiency, since
| their electric range isn't as important, and even a just-
| okay electric motor is going to improve efficiency of an
| ICE engine. OTOH in BEVs every last bit of efficiency
| matters, since that's a factor in range, weight, and
| cost. Toyota's bz4x efficiency looks poor compared to
| BEVs from VW and Hyundai, and they're all noticeably
| worse than Tesla's.
|
| Batteries in hybrids are relatively small, so they can
| get away with worse energy density. You can't put 10 PHEV
| batteries together to make a good BEV.
|
| And legacy automakers still treat software as a nuisance
| to outsource, instead of a critical component of an EV. I
| don't mean self-driving publicity stunts, but basics like
| route planning that includes appropriate charging stops.
| Software from legacy automakers treats chargers like gas
| stations, often without real-time speed and availability
| data. They will send you to some random hotel charger
| that takes 11 hours to charge, is customer-only and
| already taken, instead of a rapid 20-minute charger that
| is just a bit further away.
| clouddrover wrote:
| Volkswagen is the biggest EV maker in Europe:
|
| https://eu-evs.com/marketShare/ALL/Groups/Line/All-time-
| by-Y...
|
| I'd say they've pivoted.
| oblio wrote:
| Nobody said it's easy, but if you don't live in the US, you
| should be aware that there are already loads of EVs out on
| the road and available, all from _" legacy"_ car
| manufacturers.
|
| VW: https://www.arenaev.com/volkswagen-electric-
| vehicles-2.php (add Audi, Skoda, Seat, etc to that)
|
| Mercedes: https://www.arenaev.com/mercedes-electric-
| vehicles-6.php
|
| BMW, Kia, Hyunday, Volvo, Renault, BYD, Opel, Cupra, ...
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| The thing is that if Toyota wants to be a leader in this space,
| they should not wait for this to happen but be making it
| happen. The reality is that they have not been doing that. And
| others have.
|
| If they wanted to be a leader in this space, five years ago
| would have been late to start putting in place the strategy,
| infrastructure, supply chains, etc. you need to build EVs. They
| did not do much five years ago other than insisting that they
| did not need to. And really, ten years ago would have been
| better, that's when Tesla started looking like a serious
| company and making concrete plans for scaling their business.
|
| I don't see Toyota shipping EVs in volume any time soon. The
| new CEO is likely to have been tasked to actually start making
| this happen. But it's not going to happen overnight because
| they haven't built any factories yet, they haven't secured any
| battery supplies yet. They've built a few proof of concept /
| compliance cars that they are struggling to build in meaningful
| numbers and that they've had to withdraw from the market
| because of construction issues repeatedly. When they do start
| doing this, they'll have a little learning curve to master.
|
| So, the new CEO has his work cut out.
|
| As for being convinced about scale, the market volume is now
| millions of cars per year. Soon tens of millions. Tesla is a
| market leader with a target of getting to 2 million cars per
| year this year (up from 1 this year). And their cars are now
| the #1 best selling cars in many markets. They have really
| juicy margins on their products. It's a proven market with high
| margins and high volume at this point. Tesla is not alone in
| this market and there are quite a few other manufacturers also
| starting to move some serious volume. Any of those have what
| Toyota does not have: volume, scale, and proven products being
| sold as fast as they can be produced.
|
| The technology is there. The infrastructure is there and
| rapidly expanding to keep up with supply and demand. New
| battery factories are being announced and opened all the time.
| We'll soon be measuring the collective output of these
| factories in twh per year rather than the hundreds of gwh per
| year it is right now.
|
| Toyota if it wants in has a lot of catching up to do.
| brobdingnagians wrote:
| The future has a funny habit of being different than we
| anticipate. I think this might be one of those cases, but
| time will tell.
| starkd wrote:
| Going all in on EV's is also a very big gamble. Sure, there
| is probably a profitable segment in the market, but with so
| many other car companies going all-in, Toyota could be in a
| good position by having a wider line-up of products. There is
| something very strange about the herd mentality around EV's.
| As if we are going to fix the environment if only everybody
| gets an EV for ALL use cases.
| polalavik wrote:
| Why is it a gamble when almost 100% percentage of the
| largest auto makers have gone all in? They will do all they
| can to make sure EVs do not fail, infrastructure
| availability does not fail, laws are made, etc because it
| is now in their best financial interest to do so, together.
| starkd wrote:
| Because some people do not WANT it and prefer ICE or
| hybrid vehicles. It's a very big world with alot of
| different use cases. A smart business strategy
| diversifies.
| rr808 wrote:
| Toyota has a lot of PHEVs now. The RAV4 Prime is awesome if
| you can get one. It isn't very difficult to change a PHEV to
| an BEV.
| mgfist wrote:
| Millions of EVs are now sold per year. It's still a small
| percent of total car but increasing rapidly and while all other
| manufacturers are spending time and money building up expertise
| and infrastructure Toyota is ignoring it.
|
| Switching from ICE to EV is not easy and takes years to do so
| and the later Toyota delays it the more painful it will be.
| starkd wrote:
| There is no reason it all EV. There are legitimate use cases
| for both EV and ICE.
| matt_s wrote:
| I think Toyota's issues will just be supply chain around
| battery packs. They have already been designing and engineering
| hybrids for a decade or more. I don't think its a revolutionary
| change for them to remove combustion engine and accessories and
| go with all electric motors plus larger battery packs. If
| anything it might simplify internal designs. I'd rather they
| flow this through their internal typical processes and come out
| with a product that meets their historical standards rather
| than any "catch up" to the market.
|
| Once they have a Corolla like EV platform I bet it will outsell
| most competitors and likely won't have gimmicky features.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Only if they can produce it cost effectively and in large
| volume. This is going to be a learning curve that will take
| them years.
|
| Hybrid cars are not the same as an EV. Toyota needs to start
| worrying about their existing revenue not drying up before
| they can master the same learning curve that other
| manufacturers have been trying to master (with varying
| degrees of success).
|
| Corolla like EV platforms already exist. Several Chinese
| manufacturers sell those in their domestic market for prices
| as low as a few thousand per car. And several of those
| manufacturers are ramping up their exports to the US, Europe,
| and Australia.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Some analysts like Munro think legacies will take much longer
| to catch up to Tesla because they're evolving ICE
| designs/standards into their EVs and crippling them. Toyota
| is so huge they could have afforded a clean-sheet platform
| but waited too long so they'll fall into the same cycle.
| somerandomqaguy wrote:
| They do have a clean sheet design: e-TNGA. The Toyota bZ4X
| and the Subaru Soltarra are both based on the design, along
| with the bZ3 and the upcoming Lexus RZ.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| e-TNGA just appears to be an e- added to commonize with
| the TNGA gasoline architecture.
|
| > Now Terashi's group is considering whether to drop the
| three-year-old e-TNGA architecture, created by modifying
| a gasoline car platform, in favor of a dedicated EV
| platform, people with knowledge of that work have said.
|
| https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14790566
| fomine3 wrote:
| It was my thought before bZ4X was released. After I read
| reviews about it, I'm not sure.
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| As an owner of BEV (Skoda Enyaq) I agree with this sentiment.
| My experience is that BEVs are expensive to purchase and
| expensive to use. This is a niche car for rich people, not
| Toyota Prius for common folk. I am currently getting rid of the
| car and going back to ICE because my whole experience was a
| painful joke.
|
| Toyota is getting ridiculed today, but they will be last one
| who will be laughing, when prices for BEV and for batteries are
| currently going up [0]
|
| [0] https://about.bnef.com/blog/increase-in-battery-prices-
| could...
| tpm wrote:
| However the whole EU market can't return to ICEs because of
| fleet emission limits, which are now 95g CO2/km and from 2025
| will be 15% lower, with other changes too. So my guess is,
| people who can afford it (including charging infra) will have
| EVs which will get better and more expensive and the rest
| will not buy new cars. Maybe the market will shift to smaller
| forms of mobility, we'll see.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| The EU also, just within the last few days, banned new
| combustion vehicle sales starting 2035. Burn the ships,
| there will be no going back.
| radiator wrote:
| The EU had also banned and stopped operating coal
| generators, but now they are back in operation.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://www.iea.org/news/defying-expectations-
| co2-emissions-...
|
| > The European Union's CO2 emissions are on course to
| decline this year despite an increase in coal emissions.
| The rise in European coal use is expected to be
| temporary, with a strong pipeline of new renewable
| projects forecast to add around 50 gigawatts of capacity
| in 2023. These additions would generate more electricity
| than the expected increase in coal-fired power generation
| in the EU in 2022.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/dec/22/eus-
| emis...
|
| > EU's emissions continue to fall despite return to coal
|
| My note: those coal plants are only increasing emissions
| a few percentage points temporarily. Trajectory deviation
| is ever so sleight.
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| I am coming from an Eastern Block. It was quite common
| during communism to drive 20-30 years old cars. I think
| that Eastern Europe will teach the western part how to
| properly stagnate.
| cmh89 wrote:
| Cars should last more than 20 years. It's only recently
| with planned obsolescence that the manufacturers have
| gotten that number down.
| haspok wrote:
| It was not. Cars of that era didn't last, as a matter of
| fact, they would last much less (and require far more
| maintenance) than the cars of today.
|
| It is true that certain cars (Trabi comes to mind) could
| be fixed roadside with a screwdriver and a hammer
| usually, but >100k kilometers life was still rare -
| people simply used their cars less and for shorter trips
| those days.
| chinathrow wrote:
| > I am currently getting rid of the car and going back to ICE
| because my whole experience was a painful joke.
|
| Can you elaborate?
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| Charging - Expensive and epic waste of time. Ionity leading
| the way with 0.79EUR/kWh and still you are there for 40
| minutes and that's charger which can give me 150kW on start
| of charging. Slower chargers, like stupid 50kW? Yeah, 2
| hours charging and they are wide and far. 20kW and weaker
| chargers? You are playing lottery with compatibility buddy.
| Yes it is there, yes it is on, but it does not like your
| car. What's the point of CCS when there are different
| incompatible software stacks in power delivery protocol?
|
| Car almost left me stranded in middle of France north of
| Troyes, when it lead me to charge to Freshmile, which was
| not compatible at all (car navigation was thinking
| otherwise). I needed to charge at local Citroen dealership
| to get 30km so I can get to Ionity in Troyes.
|
| Applications - Frustrating chapter for itself. New charger,
| new app to be installed, account created in etc.... And new
| problems to be solved, like their pay gate does not like
| your Visa card. Huh? Or they will happily take your money
| as a credit for charging and then you will figure out that
| your car is not compatible with the charger. Money back? F
| You!
|
| This could have been resolved by installing normal debit
| card terminals, like are in stores. Just let me use my NFC
| card / phone to pay what I have charged. Like on an
| automated gas pump or when I am buying groceries. IT COULD
| BE THAT SIMPLE.
|
| Driving - 2 hours going 130km/h on highway, then you need
| to charge for cca 1 hour. So your average traveling speed
| can't exceed 90km/h. That's an epic waste of time.
|
| Charging at home - I moved to another country, where I
| can't charge at a driveway, because now I am living in the
| apartment. So I am forced to charge 2km away on a 20kW
| charger. Completely uncomfortable.
|
| And then seeing ban on ICE cars 12 years away and there is
| 50% of people in EU living in apartments... yeah after my
| experience, I am confident that this will get postponed.
| Yaggo wrote:
| I think your experience reflects more your choise of car
| than EVs as technology. I have been driving Tesla happily
| for 3.5 years. I regularly make long distance trips to
| remote areas of Finland. No problems whatsoever. I pay 25
| snt/kWh for on-the-road charging with Elli membership,
| about 12 snt at home.
| clircle wrote:
| "The user is the problem"
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| The moment when you will get off the supercharger network
| with your tesla you are in the same crap as the rest of
| the BEV owners.
|
| >on-the-road charging with Elli membership
|
| Why should I buy some stupid membership so I can pay
| monthly fee + charging fee? I am not buying memberships
| for taking gas either.
| neon_electro wrote:
| Net cost of energy, and a quick payback on your monthly
| fee based on the savings vs. not paying the monthly fee.
|
| It's math.
| clouddrover wrote:
| > _when it lead me to charge to Freshmile_
|
| Try A Better Routeplanner and configure it to plan routes
| which prioritize your preferred charging providers:
|
| https://abetterrouteplanner.com/
|
| You'll probably have an easier time of it with ABRP.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| Not the parent you're replying to, but this comment is
| very indicative of the problem being addressed. With an
| ICE car, or even a hybrid, this is just not a
| consideration. I don't need to plan my route around fuel
| stops unless I'm going somewhere well away from
| 'civilization'.
|
| The issues described are not insolvable, but dismissing
| that they aren't currently solved is a little bit like
| sticking your head in the sand. Suggesting a better route
| planner just seems a little naive in that context.
| clouddrover wrote:
| What a bizarre thing to say. EV charging infrastructure
| is still being built out. It's still the case that there
| aren't EV chargers absolutely everywhere.
|
| Until there are many more EV chargers in more locations
| such that you don't have to think about it, you use a
| route planner to easily find the charger locations that
| exist now.
| Vvector wrote:
| If you don't charge at home at least 90% of the time, the
| EV loses most of the benefits. This will slowly change as
| more EVs are sold and the charging infrastructure
| improves.
| nixass wrote:
| > This will slowly change as more EVs are sold and the
| charging infrastructure improves.
|
| Yeah.. no. Especially not in old big towns around Europe
| where hundreds of thousands (even millions) of people
| live without underground garage and there's literally no
| place to install street side chargers on every corner.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| I'm living in the center of Munich, and they've built out
| _a lot_ of curb-side chargers over the last years here.
|
| My personal hope is that advances in technology and grid
| upgrades will eventually lead to every single lamp post
| being a charge socket - a lot of the cars here belong to
| residents and stay parked for days, so they can get away
| with 3.6 kW charging just fine.
|
| In the end, however, the solution likely will be a
| massive expansion of public transport, to a point where
| almost no one but people with disabilities and
| tradespeople will have their own cars.
| [deleted]
| Tade0 wrote:
| I don't think that last thing will ever happen. Even in
| Denmark, where cycling culture predates the car and there
| used to be (or is - I'm not up to date), among other
| disincentives, a hefty 180% registration tax people still
| drive.
|
| All in all it's a useful tool if used in moderation.
| LgWoodenBadger wrote:
| But I thought the advantage of European towns was that
| you didn't need a vehicle because you could walk to
| everything you need?
| nixass wrote:
| I certainly do walk and cycle. That doesn't mean millions
| of other don't and not everyone has workplace 5min away
| by foot
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| How will we ever deliver 240VAC electricity to locations
| that are directly adjacent to urban city streets. Seems
| like an intractable problem. /s
| [deleted]
| Vvector wrote:
| How much space do you think an EV charger takes? They are
| the size of parking meters. They are built into lamp
| posts.
| nixass wrote:
| And of course, electricity will come out of unicorn's
| farts straight into your car. You literally need to
| rework complete infrastructure to support EV cars. It
| also motivates car culture even further, while we should
| be working other way around
| sokoloff wrote:
| I've had a Nissan LEAF for 8.5 years. It was more expensive
| to buy than the alternative I was considering (a used ICE),
| but wasn't that much more expensive than a comparable new car
| (ignoring incentives, which made the LEAF cheaper). Plenty of
| people were spending ~$30K on new 4-door sedans in 2014.
|
| The running costs have been noticeably lower, driven by lower
| (almost non-existent) maintenance costs. I'm about to buy two
| tires for it, but other than that, my #1 maintenance expense
| has been wiper blades and #2 expense washer fluid.
| abakker wrote:
| AND!!! compared to a similar sized car with an anemic
| little 4 cylinder, the leaf is much better to drive, IMO.
| (I have a 2020 model). Its not a mercedes, but the torque
| off the line is so much better.
| oblio wrote:
| My guess is that this is highly dependent on where you
| live, incentives/subsidies, local infrastructure,
| electricity cost.
|
| Based on the car presented by OP, Skoda Enyaq, I'm guessing
| they're in Europe where electricity is expensive.
|
| If the charging infrastructure isn't there, both at
| home/work and fast chargers, BEVs most likely suck.
| RodGodKiller wrote:
| Gasoline and Diesel is also very pricey. If you charge at
| home, electric cars are a (small) fraction of the price
| to 'fill up', even in Europe; if not, likely not worth
| it.
| urduntupu wrote:
| Toyota is building one of the most reliable and robust cars for
| the masses. With attitude to build cars they will be
| competitive for very long.
| Snitch-Thursday wrote:
| Agreed. I'm hopeful to see if their research into
| synthetically created hydrogen fuel powered cars will get us
| fuel created by green energy that we can run in hydrogen fuel
| cell cars so we get the best of both cutting fuel emissions
| to net zero and still have the flexibility of cross-country
| drives and fast fuelings without having to have all our
| (agriculture, industrial, etc.) vehicles be BEVs.
| sbradford26 wrote:
| So Hydrogen's perk would be quicker fueling but I don't
| know how many people are going to be willing to pay the
| fairly large additional cost for that convenience.
|
| Toyota Mirai:
|
| Tank Size: 5.6 kg of hydrogen
|
| Cost per kg of hydrogen: $13.11
|
| Miles of range: 402
|
| Cost per mile: $0.18
|
| Ioniq 5:
|
| Battery Size: 77.4 kWh
|
| Range: 302 miles
|
| Miles per kWh: 3.5
|
| Cost per kWh (Currently at my house): $0.27 per kWh
|
| Cost per mile: $0.08
|
| Ford Maverick Hybrid (My current vehicle):
|
| Tank size: 13.6 Gallons
|
| Range: ~500 miles
|
| Average fuel economy: 38.5 mpg (my average currently)
|
| Cost per gallon: $3.40 (last price I saw on the way into
| work)
|
| Cost per mile: $0.088
|
| To get an equivalent cost per mile electricity would have
| to $0.63 per kWh. Largely though that is currently with
| hydrogen made from natural gas, versus green hydrogen which
| will end up being intrinsically lin.18/ked to the cost of
| electricity. From what I have seen it is somewhere around 3
| watts of electricity to get 1 W equivalent of hydrogen
| which might be able to get a 2 to 1 ratio in the future. I
| think certain sectors like aerospace will be okay with the
| additional cost due to other advantages but regular
| consumers it seems less likely.
|
| Cost for Hydrogen (I went with the lower number):
| https://h2fcp.org/content/cost-refill
| speedgoose wrote:
| But Toyota isn't on top of the reliability rankings.
| clouddrover wrote:
| Toyota scored 1st and 2nd (Toyota and Lexus) in Consumers
| reports 2022 reliability rankings:
| https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-
| satisf...
|
| Lexus is number one in JD Power's 2023 rankings:
| https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2023-us-
| vehi...
| [deleted]
| qclibre22 wrote:
| https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-
| satisf... : "Toyota, Lexus, and BMW are the top three most
| reliable brands in our annual auto reliability brand
| rankings"
|
| https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/consumer-reports-
| reliabil... : 5 of top 10 are Toyota
| [deleted]
| switch007 wrote:
| BMW, number 3?! They must build them different in the US,
| surely.
| _huayra_ wrote:
| BMW = "Bring My Wallet" because those multi-thousand $$$
| shocks won't replace themselves for free after 4 years
|
| In the US it seems like they're built to barely make it
| to the end of the leasing period and then implode.
| They're really going to town with the "snap-in" fittings
| for hoses in the engine because putting a metal hose
| clamp on seems to increase COGS I guess.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| > They're really going to town with the "snap-in"
| fittings for hoses in the engine because putting a metal
| hose clamp on seems to increase COGS
|
| It's a labor saving thing. It's cheaper to design a fancy
| snap-together plastic connector once, buy a few million
| from overseas and than it is to have expensive first
| world labor tighten hose clamps.
| Eumenes wrote:
| My new Tacoma is garbage, so many electric/computer
| problems and under 20k miles. Has spent at least 4 weeks in
| shop during first year of owning it.
| kube-system wrote:
| They are consistently at the top of reliability rankings.
| https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-
| satisf...
| [deleted]
| speedgoose wrote:
| My bad, I got a wrong source.
| Aloha wrote:
| I dont disagree - I think it's true of all of the large
| manufacturers.
|
| They'll wait til the infrastructure develops a little bit
| closer to maturity, then go all in. I think the transition to
| electric cars will take about a generation, but I think overall
| it'll be a good thing.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| Yep. Related to their principle of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genchi_Genbutsu
| lvl102 wrote:
| Made in Japan Toyota are built different. There's something
| special about manufacturing in Japan even down to a simple screw.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Made in America Camrys had (don't know if it's still true)
| additional structural reinforcement for crash protection.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| My first manager was an ex-military crew-chief who was
| stationed in Japan for a bit.
|
| In his words, "Whatever your job is, you take pride in it and
| try to do it the best you can every day. If you're a gas
| station attendant, you try to be the best gas station attendant
| you can be."
|
| His description obviously stuck with me, as it's a nice summary
| of a fundamental social bargain: everyone is important and
| valued, and in exchange everyone will put in effort.
|
| I know everything isn't peaches and roses in Japanese culture
| and society, but it makes a good point that excellence is
| pervasive throughout an organization... or not at all.
| Aperocky wrote:
| > everyone is important and valued
|
| This statement is in seeming conflict well documented
| hierarchical nature of Japanese society.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| That's a very western lens still. Hierarchy doesn't mean
| you view those under you with contempt. The entire concept
| of a team, on a micro scale, is that it has a leader who is
| invested in the group's success and people who choose to
| follow them because they think the leader respects them and
| can provide the necessary coordination.
|
| Toxic individualism doesn't get things done, nor does it
| encourage excellence. A hierarchy with mutual respect does,
| though it must be fair and tempered with reasonable
| mobility.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I think this was the needle Kant was trying to thread
| with the categorical imperative.
|
| Hierarchies are efficient and necessary, but ethically
| dubious and subject to abuse. Ergo, a hierarchy where
| everyone acts as though their position in it may be
| randomly swapped at any time is the optimal
| configuration.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| My understand is it's more complicated than that: while
| inequitable, there's also a corresponding expectation of
| duty to those below one.
|
| E.g. jobs for life
| redwall_hp wrote:
| That's why I make sure the VIN starts with J before I even
| consider buying a car. And US owned companies are not even
| worth considering.
| jacquesm wrote:
| You see the same with Yamaha. Japanese manufactured Yamaha's
| are a notch above those produced elsewhere in quality. It
| doesn't really show in the first couple of years but later on
| the difference becomes more and more pronounced. The resale
| value of a Japanese made Yamaha piano is much better than the
| rest as well on account of this.
| RigelKentaurus wrote:
| RIP Mr. Toyoda.
|
| 2 random thoughts-
|
| 1. I owned a 1987 Corolla FX GTS coupe hatchback. Manual
| transmission, brilliant red, with fantastic sporty design and
| handling. Will never love a car like I did that one.
|
| 2. The JIT revolution that Toyota did so well in the 70s took a
| long time to spread to the US. I worked on a GM project in
| 2002-03 where I saw some crazy problems. The same part would be
| called different names in different countries, so while the South
| African plant was awash in some obscure part, the NJ factory had
| a shortage and was buying it at super expensive rates from a
| Japanese manufacturer. Their supply chain was an absolute shit
| show. More than 400k SKUs with duplicates, and in many cases,
| their cars were using different parts when they could have
| standardized to a common part. They had a poster in one of their
| meeting rooms saying "What would Toyota do?"
| linsomniac wrote:
| TIL: Toyota is spelled with a "t" rather than "d" because with a
| "t" it has 8 strokes (in Japanese), which is a lucky number.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| Jeffrey Liker wrote a number of books on Toyota and his
| involvement(The Toyota Way for example).
|
| What is so inspiring is seeing all the generations of Toyoda
| build upon each other's work creating something so respected in
| the industry and extends to many people's personal development
| based on their principles alone.
|
| So many great things have come from their philosophy. What a
| titan.
| losvedir wrote:
| I had a Toyota. It was a great car, and a real testament to the
| engineering prowess Toyoda established.
|
| I see very clear, very interesting Innovator's Dilemma vibes,
| though, in how widely they've missed the boat on EVs. I wouldn't
| be surprised if we see Toyota lose its dominance in the coming
| decade. It's sad, since the Prius was such a gamechanger.
|
| Maybe the passing of the torch here will let them start to catch
| up.
| ravagat wrote:
| I'm still in the camp that they did not in fact miss the boat
| on EVs. We, globally, are still very far off until EV adoption
| and probably better off focusing on more important things
| versus directly on EVs. Also Toyota was pioneer in EVs and I
| think you've discounted that if you're really looked at it on a
| bigger view of things
| duffyjp wrote:
| I agree. I have a 2013 Prius C that cost me $20K brand new
| and gets 50mpg without even trying. My fuel expenses are
| negligible. The new 2023 Prius gets even better milage and
| has TWICE the horsepower (99 vs 196).
|
| Before the Prius I had a 2000 Lexus ES with 200HP and I got
| about 17MPG. The advancement in ~20 years is incredible. Gas
| savings alone covered more than half of my loan payments each
| month.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| > The advancement in ~20 years is incredible.
|
| Pretty much every 90s compact was putting down similar
| power numbers and got 80% the fuel economy...
| molsongolden wrote:
| Toyota is building EVs, they just don't believe all-in on EV is
| what the market really wants right now.
|
| Subaru is also building their EVs on Toyota's EV platform.
| manmal wrote:
| My Ioniq is a great EV (though dated) and it's not even a pure
| EV platform (also available as PHEV and ICE). Toyota only need
| to throw the ICE out of a PHEV and increase battery size, and
| they'll have an EV that's probably better build quality than
| 90% of the market.
| speby wrote:
| It's possible, yes. Empires rise. Empires fall. Toyota will
| adapt and 'missed the boat' implies that that's it; they're
| done. They're absolutely not done. They were also miles ahead
| of others when they introduced the Prius in the 90s. It's not
| as if they haven't been engineering and mass-producing electric
| powertrains for a long time. One strong reason they have not
| missed the boat? No one yet producing an EV right now even
| comes within arms-reach of Toyota's quality. People forget that
| it is, in fact, Toyota's legendary quality+reliability+value
| that makes it a brand people adore and come back to again, and
| again, and again. When they make an EV (and they will,
| eventually) that it is as good as the quality Toyota has built
| its foundation on, they will absolutely CRUSH it.
| NDizzle wrote:
| Why would they lose their dominance? Are other manufacturers
| quality standards coming close to Toyota? I think not...
|
| EVs don't work for me and my use case. I plan on keeping my
| Land Cruiser forever. My kids are starting to drive now, with
| one starting these past few months. In a Toyota, of course. As
| will the next two.
| unregistereddev wrote:
| Toyota does not - and as far as I can tell, has never - led the
| world in cutting-edge technology. They are a very conservative
| company. This does not mean they have missed the boat. Even
| their hybrids were not first-to-market. Toyota did not invent
| the hybrid ICE/electric car; they simply implemented it better
| than their competitors.
|
| Around 10 years ago, direct injection was the new thing for ICE
| vehicles. It improved engine efficiency at the cost of extra
| complexity. Toyota initially refused to add direct injection to
| their engines. Automotive writers at the time believed Toyota
| was falling behind with its outdated engine technology. They
| believed other automakers would surpass Toyota's efficiency.
|
| What actually happened was a line of bad engines for VW, GM,
| and Kia/Hyundai. They lost a considerable amount of money and
| reputation due to engine failures caused by carbon buildup in
| their direct injected engines. Meanwhile, Toyota eventually
| launched their own implementation of direct injection. It was a
| combination of both high-pressure direct injection and port
| injection. The engine ran in different modes depending on the
| load and operating temperature. This gave them the same
| efficiency gains (though several years later than their
| competition) while avoiding the common failure modes of other
| companies' engines.
|
| Don't write off the sleeping giant. Maybe Toyota will lose its
| dominance, or maybe they'll show up late to the party having
| learned from everyone else's mistakes.
| Paianni wrote:
| The 1AZ-FSE was their first GDI engine, it was fitted to the
| T220 Avensis back in the early noughts.
|
| Incidentally, the implementation you describe is the 'D-4S'
| system, Toyota D-4 engines are purely direct injection with
| the same carbon buildup issues as all the others...which
| isn't the end of the world as the inlet valves and manifold
| can be walnut blasted to remove the deposits but it's not the
| easiest job to do.
| namdnay wrote:
| I think there's enough time for them to catch up, look how far
| the Koreans have come in less than ten years
| Dalewyn wrote:
| I'm happy to bet it's not happening. Japan is far too busy
| fighting amongst themselves and/or catering to themselves
| first and foremost.
|
| South Korea, Taiwan, and China slayed Japan because they
| played for keeps and pulled no punches. Japan simply does not
| have the correct mindset to deliberately (re)conquer and
| succeed.
|
| If this sounds brutal and/or flippant, allow me to say that
| I'm saying this as a Japanese-American. I will happily use my
| blood to shit talk my heritage, because honestly it's a
| fucking shame and it's even more shameful that Japan can't
| (read: won't) dig themselves out.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| But don't Toyota and Honda still own the sedan market in
| the US (Corolla/Prius/Camry/Civic/Accord)? I'm pretty sure
| they're stronger than the Koreans in the compact/midsize
| SUV market too (CRV, RAV4). Koreans might be stronger
| elsewhere, not sure.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Cars are one of the few industries Japan still holds the
| crown of, but if past track records in other industries
| are anything to go by I expect that a changing of the
| crown is only a matter of time.
|
| Anyone who is familiar with computing history should know
| of Japan's practically disasterous fall from grace in
| nearly everything related to the computer industry. I've
| also seen that exact cycle of falling play out countless
| times in their other industries.
|
| I'm sick and tired of Japan continuing to lose and eat
| dirt, I would be ecstatic to be proven wrong. But Japan
| just doesn't have the mindset to (re)win customers in the
| 21st century.
| rvba wrote:
| Someone from my family has a nice Toyota bought few years ago
| but the car has constant problems with Android Auto.
|
| How can you make a car in 2018+ that does not work with the
| most popular smartphone OS?
| cma wrote:
| For the batteries in each EV, you could make 7 plug-in hybrids.
| That's 1 full electric and 6 gas cars, vs 7 plug-in hybrids.
|
| I think Toyota's approach would save more emissions so long as
| we are battery constrained.
| yanellena wrote:
| Depends on how the energy is generated and transmitted
| really.
| chris222 wrote:
| This was true several years ago but if you look now there are
| hundreds of GWh of cell plants coming online over the next 3
| years. Toyota is very late here and won't be able to produce
| dedicated BEVs at scale until 2026+. Competitors will already
| be on their 2nd or 3rd generation BEV platforms by then.
| NDizzle wrote:
| 2nd or 3rd generation anything will still score lower than
| even a launch year Toyota when it comes to quality.
| chris222 wrote:
| Actually they are having huge quality problems with their
| first BEV.
|
| https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a40827514/toyota-
| bz4x-whee...
| scotty79 wrote:
| A lot of people who own plug-in hybrids don't really ever
| plug them in which makes them worse than gasoline cars or
| non-plugin hybrids because of added weight.
| duffyjp wrote:
| My wife had a plug-in Ford C-Max Energi for a few years. We
| always plugged it in but it only did ~20 miles on pure EV
| so long term our mileage was around 40MPG. My Prius easily
| beats that and I'm not paying an extra $20 a month on my
| electric bill.
|
| You're right though, when we bought it according the the
| computer the previous owner had never charged it. The
| charge cable wasn't even out of it's plastic. When we sold
| it to Car Max the new owner never setup their Ford Sync so
| we kept getting reports by email and they never charged it
| once.
| NDizzle wrote:
| There's a sweet spot that Ford missed with the C-Max.
|
| I have a 2nd gen Volt. 50-60 miles on all electric when
| it's warm, 30-40 when it's cold. That, by the way, will
| bite a lot of people in the ass as they try EVs.
|
| Anyways, 62,000 miles on the Volt, lifetime MPG is in the
| 170s.
| duffyjp wrote:
| I think the key is the Volt was designed to be a great
| plug in hybrid from the start. The C-Max had an ICE only,
| standard hybrid, and plug-in hybrid version. Our plug-in
| literally had two separate high voltage batteries. Half
| the cargo bay was just a carpeted box full of batteries.
|
| It was also terribly engineered. Plugging the car into
| the wall didn't top off the 12V battery and whatever
| mechanism it used to do so was inadequate so you'd go out
| in the morning to a stone dead car quite often. The
| number of recalls was insane, though we got a lot of free
| oil changes out of that as the dealer usually threw them
| in free during recall services.
|
| First and last Ford I'll ever buy.
| melony wrote:
| They shouldn't have discontinued the Fusion. It could
| have used a revamp though, like what Toyota did for the
| Venza.
| francisofascii wrote:
| What? That doesn't sound right. I would have to think the
| majority of people plug them in. That is the whole point of
| paying more for a plug-in.
| exhilaration wrote:
| There was a bunch of reporting on this study like this:
| https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/features/phev-owners-
| not...
|
| Here's the actual study (PDF): https://theicct.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2022/12/real-world-ph...
|
| We may have talked about it on HN.
| sbradford26 wrote:
| I believe this stems from a paper that came out about how
| some large percentage of PHEVs never plugged in. The
| large caveat was that a large amount of that data was
| from company vehicles for employees. Which those
| employees have very little incentive to actually plug in
| since typically the company pays for fuel costs.
| jacquesm wrote:
| In plenty of countries those plug-in hybrids were sold
| with lots of up front subsidies and reduced running costs
| due to lower taxation for the first five years.
| oblio wrote:
| Do we actually have proof for this or is just FUD, to be
| frank?
|
| I heard the same thing but then after talking to some
| owners, sure, the ones that couldn't easily charge them did
| that, but everyone that could charge them, did, and liked
| it.
|
| The electric motor is zippy, the car is silent, the range
| is enough for the average commute.
|
| They generally like it and what you're saying sounds more
| like a early days myth.
|
| I could be wrong, the world is a big place.
| scotty79 wrote:
| No idea if that's just the FUD or not. Sounds like
| something that might happen.
|
| https://uk.motor1.com/news/276595/uk-hybrids-never-
| plugged-i...
| pfdietz wrote:
| We've bought Toyotas for years. All our family cars are Toyotas.
|
| I don't plan to buy another one, unless they can make a good EV.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Hah, I am waiting for Toyota to make a well reviewed EV to buy
| one. Otherwise, I am fine with their ICE/hybrid options.
| BizarreByte wrote:
| Toyota is probably the only brand loyalty I have and yah,
| I'll happily keep buying either gas or hybrids from them.
|
| I'm in no rush for electric, but when Toyota makes an EV
| Corolla that'll be a sign to me EVs are actually ready for
| normal people. They've rightfully gained my trust and their
| seal of approval on car tech does matter to me.
| neon_electro wrote:
| What do you think of GM's Bolt E(U)V?
| drumhead wrote:
| Taking a small local car manufacturer and turning it into the one
| of the worlds biggest car makers, , overtaking all the US giants
| and creating the JIT process to revolutionise manufacturing is
| remarkable.
| epolanski wrote:
| Toyota isn't just "one of the worlds biggest car makers" it is
| THE biggest car maker on the planet.
|
| They sell 25% more cars than the Volkswagen group (second
| biggest car maker on the planet) which includes Volkswagen,
| SEAT, Skoda, Porsche, Bentley and Audi and 50% more than
| Stellantins (which includes Fiat, Citroen, Peaugeot, Jeep, Ram,
| Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Opel and another 6 manufacturers).
|
| It's just impressive how many cars Toyota sells.
|
| Toyota and Lexus also generally turn buyers into recurrent
| customers as few brands on this planet do.
|
| If "no one got fired for buying Intel", I think it's fair to
| say that "no one got it wrong by buying a Toyota/Lexus". I just
| can't think any car manufacturer that gives you as much as
| Toyota for the price you pay.
| clouddrover wrote:
| > _They sell 25% more cars than the Volkswagen group (second
| biggest car maker on the planet)_
|
| No. Volkswagen and Toyota are pretty even. They swap
| positions as the biggest car maker. Volkswagen became the
| biggest in 2017 but Toyota became the biggest again in 2021:
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/28/business/toyota-
| volkswage...
| blululu wrote:
| It's even better than that: I am not a recurrent customer
| since my 2004 Corolla is still rolling along after all these
| years. Who knows maybe I'll buy another one someday, but it
| hasn't been an urgent priority.
| blevin wrote:
| It really is amazing. Another way to visualize this success is
| to consider how physically close you are to one of Toyota's
| products right now, sort of a K-nearest neighbors idea. And how
| many of those were manufactured in Japan, and considered
| notable within their category (ex: 4Runner, RAV4 Prime).
| psychomugs wrote:
| Their '90s sedans were the pinnacle of cars, so perfect that The
| Onion wrote their first non-satire piece on why a '93 Camry will
| outlive you and your bloodline.
|
| Wan Bi naChe de, Cheng niarigatogozaimasu.
|
| https://www.theonion.com/toyota-recalls-1993-camry-due-to-fa...
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| My uncle still has a '93 Camry, to boot. I sent him that
| article like five years ago. He still has it. When it dies he
| will switch full-time to his backup vehicle, a 2005 Camry.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| > When it dies
|
| If
| gowld wrote:
| How is that non-satire?
| notlukesky wrote:
| I remember being shocked in the 90s at finding out the Toyota
| Corolla had the highest value retention of any car according to
| the Kelly Blue Book. And then there was the NUMMI joint-venture
| of Toyota and GM and the same exact cars that would come out of
| that factory would have different value retention. Obviously the
| GM car would depreciate more in value. Brand reputation clearly
| matters.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI
|
| Tesla has now taken over the NUMMI facilities.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| Brand reputation is a positive feedback loop.
|
| Better reputation -> charge more money -> poorer people who are
| gonna use your product at 11/10ths and try and skate by with
| the bare minimum of proactive maintenance buy it less -> the
| average example on the road is in better condition for its age
| -> high end consumers go "hey those things are lasting well
| I'll buy one" -> your average customer is richer so you don't
| have to cheap out in as many places on your product ->
| GoTo(step 2).
|
| Of course the process needs to be kick started with a couple
| actual good products but once it takes off you're basically
| home free if you don't f it up.
|
| The whole "the same GM car deprecated more" makes for great
| online virtue points from fanboys but it's not exactly
| illustrative of anything that isn't well known to be from other
| factors. The versions of otherwise identical cars that are
| preferred by higher end consumers will hold value better
| because they get treated better and kept nicer resulting in
| higher value at any given age/mileage. You can see this trend
| in action if you cross shop badge engineered cars that are old
| enough that purchase price no longer has any bearing on price.
| kube-system wrote:
| Yep. The opposite feedback loop is "big Altima energy". The
| $1000 cheaper new cars become the preferred cars of those who
| don't care or can't really afford it, which end up being the
| cheapest and most abused used cars. Which end up on buy-here-
| pay-here lots. And repeat.
| creaturemachine wrote:
| I have to wonder if maybe it was the way GM and their
| dealers marketed these vehicles. The Prizm wasn't sold in
| my market so I don't truly know, but I think brand loyalty
| on the dealers' side saw them push customers to the more
| true-blue options like the cavalier. One doesn't have to
| spend long at your average street corner to see how that
| turned out for the customer.
| kube-system wrote:
| Yeah, it totally starts with marketing, and how
| manufacturers target their markets:
|
| https://jalopnik.com/nissan-is-going-to-pay-dealers-more-
| to-...
|
| Walk into a Honda/Toyota dealership and you'll probably
| be offered 48 or 60, and a short warranty to match.
| swottler wrote:
| There's an excellent episode of This American Life about the
| NUUMI experiment and why it failed to change GM.
|
| https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015
| throwntoday wrote:
| I've always been a die-hard Japanese auto fan, and I'd say cars
| were a huge influence to my interest in engineering. What he did
| for the industry at large alongside Honda is immeasurable. Always
| sad to see giants go.
|
| sayonaraLi Tian sama
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> establishing a culture of quality control that helped Toyota
| evolve into a world-leading automaker._
|
| A lot of the JIT stuff that is so common, these days, was
| revolutionary, when he introduced it.
|
| I'm told that many agile techniques also had their genesis in his
| work.
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| It was mainly Taiichi Ohno who thought and created their
| production system and philosophy, not Toyoda.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Ah. I was always under the impression that it was Toyoda.
|
| Thanks for the correction!
| hef19898 wrote:
| It was , as all big achievements, a team effort. And
| apparently Ohno is getting not that much of coverage in
| internal Toyota documents and history. He also did seem to
| EDIT: not EDIT be the nicest of persons. He absolutely was
| one of the drivers during the early days of TPS.
| ericalexander0 wrote:
| Who learned the Toyota/Toyoda way from Sakichi Toyoda.
|
| https://www.toyota-
| industries.com/company/history/toyoda_sak...
| oblio wrote:
| I wonder if Deming
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Japan)
| contributed to the Toyota Way? A lot of the Toyota Way seems
| inspired by his teachings.
| bischofs wrote:
| I work at Toyota, and they credit him on day one of training
| on the Toyota philosophy. Toyota's success is just a function
| of them listening to western consultants after the war when
| western companies would not.
| blululu wrote:
| There are also some broader macroeconomic reasons that
| these philosophies took root in post-war Japan. The
| combination of a weakened currency and strong New Deal
| style labor laws (that were proposed but thwarted by
| Detroit) was unique. Labor was cheap but politically
| dominant and materials were in short supply (I believe
| Shoichiro took power in the wake of a nearly catastrophic
| strike that gave him very few options beyond innovating on
| process).
| jlg23 wrote:
| Or maybe it is the result of filling hollow, generic advice
| with some meaning. I'd really love to hear the original
| advice given by western consultants.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I believe so.
|
| He is almost revered, in Japan.
|
| I'm told he was laughed out of the US, which is why he set up
| shop in Japan.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Now you imagine, how good do your ideas have to be an
| American coming to Japan just after World War II, and all
| the industry leaders of somewhere that was famously insular
| go "yeah, actually, this is good, this is what we should
| do, let's get this guy to meet everyone"?
| astrange wrote:
| A strange variant of this is Japan's reaction to getting
| anti-Semitic propaganda from Europe was that these people
| secretly controlling the world sounded pretty cool and
| competent, so they tried getting them to immigrate.
| Though, it didn't really work out.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Japan already did that in the 19th century when they were
| shopping around for foreign experts in industry and the
| military for their modernization. Not a stretch to do it
| again considering people involved in that process were
| still alive.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| >yeah, actually, this is good, this is what we should do,
| let's get this guy to meet everyone"
|
| Or they go "they won, I guess we're obligated to try
| doing it their way at least once".
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Japan's destruction was extremely total; even if you did
| not get hit by the nukes, your city was most likely
| firebombed to the ground. The economy was in shambles,
| everyone who was still alive was struggling to eat as the
| logistics chain had totally broken down, etc.
|
| In that context it is not really surprising that Japan
| rejected many of its old institutions and ways.
| yulker wrote:
| He probably had an influence but I find it curious that he
| always gets brought up around these topics, as if he's the
| primary explanatory variable for Japanese manufacturing
| success.
| oblio wrote:
| I learned about him only recently and despite his
| supposedly strong influence, he isn't talked about much.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| Fwiw, I hear about Deming so often that my bias is that
| he's over represented! Then again, my dad was in the
| field so he was practically revered in my childhood.
| julianz wrote:
| Yep, same. My dad introduced "total quality management"
| into New Zealand and I heard about Deming a hell of a lot
| growing up.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| I am curious how many people are rethinking how aggressively to
| set up a JIT system in the wake of COVID and the supply chain
| issues, given it clearly cost many companies an astronomical
| amount of money in the end. Obviously you shouldn't build your
| entire company around rare, worst case scenarios, but there
| should probably be _some_ consideration budgeted in for them
| IMO and it seems few companies were ready for rainy days.
|
| A very very tiny (maybe not even applicable) example is how I
| always keep a camera or two when I buy new ones and don't sell
| them all off. You never know when your workhorse is going to
| breakdown. Just something I'm mulling over I guess!
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I remember a chap I know, who married a Russian, and he said
| the Iron-Curtain Soviet ethos was, to make two of everything,
| so that, when one inevitably borks, the other one can be
| used, or cannibalized for parts.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| JIT made sense for Toyota and they took steps to ensure their
| suppliers were beholden to them (that is they shipped
| whenever Toyota needed it).
|
| JIT doesn't make sense for global supply chains when the
| suppliers i.e. China or Russia government can impose
| embargoes at will with little warning.
| quartesixte wrote:
| JIT also works really well when all your major
| manufacturing centers are an average 3-4 hour drive from
| each other. 6-8 at the furthest maybe.
|
| JIT breaks down over global distances because "in time" and
| "instant" mean very different things even when moving
| nearly at the speed of sound. Even if no one embargoed
| anyone, you can't beat the laws of physics.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| > JIT made sense for Toyota and they took steps to ensure
| their suppliers were beholden to them (that is they shipped
| whenever Toyota needed it).
|
| Did that still hold true during the pandemic? I mean if you
| can't get stuff on the ships (huge part of the chain) they
| can't go out. It's not always a choice for suppliers as we
| saw.
| ughitsaaron wrote:
| > I'm told that many agile techniques also had their genesis in
| his work
|
| The "kanban" interfaces definitely originate from Toyota. Scrum
| was influenced by Toyota's management techniques, among others.
| I believe other familiar concepts, e.g. "kaizen" or continuous
| improvement, also originate from Toyota.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Toyota wasn't first.
|
| But it was them learning a lot from working on looms, and
| other stuff at textile mills taught them how to max
| productivity.
|
| Textiles making was already a very competitive industry in
| late 19th century, and the only way to push forward in
| productivity after looms were optimized to the max was to cut
| slack in between machines -- management techniques.
|
| There the manufacturers were stealing each other's ideas
| "within months" as Japan had no enforceable Western style
| patent system yet.
|
| The electric andon was for example copied from Suzuki looms,
| where it prevented looms from dethreading when the machine
| runs out of thread, and requiring hours to manually rethread
| it again.
|
| Stopping the entire mill for a few minutes to recharge a loom
| begins to make much more sense when you understand that the
| alternative is to stop it for hours.
| radiator wrote:
| There are many books on the Toyota system, so that they
| have stolen the show. I have always suspected that other
| Japanese factories might have also had interesting
| production systems but only found one book about Honda. How
| did you know this detail about the electric andon
| originating at Suzuki? Can you suggest books on this topic?
| szundi wrote:
| Toyota learned it from western consultants, but made it work
| like a charm. I think they are the real champions of the lean
| philosophy, kanban, kaizen, 5s, etc.
| wil421 wrote:
| My father worked for a defense manufacturer making airplanes
| and other stuff. One of his first projects was scheduling parts
| for manufacturing in the late 80s.
|
| They joked at the time they used JIC (just in case) because
| they had so many random parts with no method to the madness.
| The scheduler worked out and they were able to move it off some
| high performance IBM (or similar) computer onto a PC that
| didn't require a specialized IBM tech or support contract,
| written in C.
| [deleted]
| gkanai wrote:
| I've seen this news of Toyoda's passing posted across various
| social media channels and it's incredible to see how many Toyota
| owners have thanked him posthumously. I remember that when Steve
| Jobs died. This seems similar in a sense.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| >This seems similar in a sense.
|
| They exist in very similar segments portions of their
| respective industries serving very similar customer
| demographics (in North America). Naturally there is going to be
| quite a bit of evolutionary convergence.
| neoromantique wrote:
| Are there though? Toyota is never perceived as a luxury
| brand, it is associated with quality, reliability and
| maintainability.
|
| Something that you can hardly say about Apple.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I disagree. The main reason I buy Apple laptops is the
| physical reliability... they absolutely make low end
| (feature wise) models that still have top notch physical
| quality and longevity, including historically making super
| bare bones school/education targeted models. I know it's a
| premium model, but my 2010 Macbook Pro is still going
| strong with zero repairs other than two battery
| replacements that took about 5 minutes each, after over a
| decade of regular hard travel use. I think I'd be lucky to
| get 6 months from the average PC laptop with use like that.
|
| I'd argue that my iPhone SE2 is also a product that is very
| much a low end non-luxury phone, but with unparalleled
| physical build quality. I purchased it from a budget box
| store as part of a cheap prepaid cell phone plan- total
| ownership cost will be far less than the cheapest Android
| phones targeted at the 3rd world, if you consider how much
| longer it will likely last.
| scrlk wrote:
| > I know it's a premium model, but my 2010 Macbook Pro is
| still going strong with zero repairs other than two
| battery replacements that took about 5 minutes each,
| after over a decade of regular hard travel use. I think
| I'd be lucky to get 6 months from the average PC laptop
| with use like that.
|
| Tip: don't bother with consumer grade PC laptops if you
| are after longevity. Only buy "business grade" machines
| like Lenovo ThinkPads, Dell Latitudes, HP
| EliteBook/ZBooks.
| lukas099 wrote:
| It is also nice how long Apple continues to release
| security updates for their phones, which I believe is
| longer than any Android phone manufacturer.
| filoleg wrote:
| Yeah, they go quite a bit back when it comes to full iOS
| updates, and even further back when it comes to security
| updates.[0]
|
| The oldest iPhone that supports the most recent full iOS
| version update (iOS 16) is iPhone 8, which was released
| in 2017. And they released a security update for iOS 12
| in August of 2022 that supports iPhone 5s (released in
| 2013).
|
| That would make it 5 years for full OS updates and 9
| years for security updates.
|
| 0. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222
| zik wrote:
| > The main reason I buy Apple laptops is the physical
| reliability...
|
| My impression is that they've had several years of poor
| quality and bad design decisions with their laptops. Some
| models were banned from flights due to battery fire
| issues [1]. They had keyboard problems for many years
| [2]. And they've had a lot of recalls [3].
|
| Fortunately the quality seems to have improved with the
| M1/M2 macbooks.
|
| [1] https://www.techradar.com/news/macbook-pro-flight-
| ban-everyt...
|
| [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/19/apple-settles-
| macbook-butter...
|
| [3] https://www.macworld.com/article/673631/macbook-
| recalls-and-...
| fomine3 wrote:
| Apple iPhone is not only luxury brand but also reliability
| brand.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| They didn't distribute most of their luxury platforms
| worldwide.
|
| E.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Century
| scrlk wrote:
| The Century is such a wonderfully understated car. The
| European equivalent would probably be something like a VW
| Phaeton with the W12 engine.
|
| This marketing video from Toyota on the 2nd gen Century
| is a good summary:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1erJ1eVmLo
| skhr0680 wrote:
| Lexus entering Japan started the slow decline of Toyota-
| badged luxury sedans. The Alphard is still an upper-
| middle class status symbol, but the people who saw Toyota
| as a luxury brand bought their last Crown ten years ago
| and are fast approaching 80. I suspect that is also the
| reason for the unification of Toyota badges and the Hail
| Mary design of the new Crown.
| Octoth0rpe wrote:
| That's highly dependent upon which country you're in. In
| the United States, Toyota has a separate brand for their
| luxury offerings (Lexus), and so what you say is true. But
| in other countries, those nice Lexus cars are sold as
| Toyotas.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Yes, I came to say that if I were to buy a luxury car, it
| would be a fancy Toyota AKA Lexus. I wonder if most
| people aren't aware of that? And Cadillac is just GM?
| It's hardly unusual in the American market - I believe
| it's been called badge engineering for at least as long
| as I've been alive.
| neoromantique wrote:
| There is a reason why Toyota separated their luxury
| segment into a different brand.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| Apple doesn't prioritize reliability because that's not
| what their subset of upper middle class consumers want in a
| phone. Toyota doesn't prioritize cost or
| feature/performance parity because that's not what their
| subset of upper middle class consumers want in a vehicle.
|
| They both make products that are about as high as you can
| go in their respective market segments without getting into
| pure luxury and conspicuous consumption type purchases and
| refuse to go down-market lest they sully their brand image.
| In both cases they lather it up with a pretext so buyers
| don't feel like they're indulging in a luxury purchase. In
| apple's case they tightly integrate the hardware and
| software to assure a homogeneous user experience. In
| Toyota's case they try and dominate the 3rd party rankings
| on reliability. Of course, when you compare to the "next
| best" think in their class, like a Google or Samsung
| flagship phone or a Honda Accord you'll find that the
| actual difference is razor thin and that not having any
| "value priced garbage products" is really what's doing the
| reputational heavy lifting. Not wading into value priced
| territory is also very useful to the great many of each
| brand's respective customers who are willing to pay a huge
| premium to not have to think about it. A Toyota product may
| be overpriced for it's features/performance but if you just
| want an A to B appliance in a particular form factor it
| will do so with minimal maintenance expense. You won't have
| to waste your precious brainpower thinking about an
| expensive 100k service or fiddling with some gimmick
| feature. And on the apple side of things their tight
| control over the hardware-software combo results in a
| pretty strong guarantee of a high minimum user experience.
| If you just want a "nice phone" and don't wanna think about
| software versions, various flavors of android OS and stuff
| like that you can simply buy whatever iphone is in your
| budget? Is it the nicest phone in your budget, no. But you
| didn't have to waste precious brain-power comparing all the
| various Android options.
|
| Basically they both charge a premium for products that
| "just work" and they refuse to get into market niches where
| they can't do that, much to the benefit of their brand
| image.
|
| The above applies to North America only. Toyota makes a
| more diverse set of stuff globally and Apple doesn't
| dominate the same buyer demographics globally.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I don't know if Apple _prioritizes_ reliability in their
| phones, but that seems to be an _outcome_ of whatever
| they do prioritize.
|
| My family's four iPhones are: 2 iPhone X (Nov 2017), 1 XS
| Max (Sept 2018), and 1 13 (Sept 2021, only bought in
| order to hand-down one of the X to our kid). Those phones
| are 5, 5, 4.5, and 1.5 years old. Each of the 3 older
| phones was bought used when the next phone generation was
| released. Across our ownership, I've replaced two screens
| and three batteries (two were needed and one was "while
| I'm replacing the screen, it's easy and would be needed
| soon"), all DIY.
|
| I doubt we'll replace any of these phones in the next 2
| years. The iPhone 8 is still getting software updates to
| iOS 16, so I expect the X will keep getting updates for
| several more years.
| triceratops wrote:
| iPhones and Macbooks last a long time and get software
| updates way longer than comparable products.
| thfuran wrote:
| iPhones have a far longer service live than androids.
| cruano wrote:
| Something that you can hardly say about the industry*
| sva_ wrote:
| That's one way of triggering HN.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| In the US, Lexus is on par with Merc/BMW/Audi
| neoromantique wrote:
| There is a reason why Toyota separated their luxury
| segment into a different brand.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I would say the first 2 qualities are definitely associated
| with Apple esp compared to other phones and laptops.
| dorfsmay wrote:
| > it's incredible to see
|
| From that statement, I'm guessing you've never owned a Camry?
| ericalexander0 wrote:
| It's no coincidence. Jobs was influenced by quality
| philosophers like Toyoda, Deming, etc.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kib6uXQsxBA
| astrange wrote:
| You could say Apple is basically an American copy of Sony.
| That's why he wore a uniform even if he couldn't get anyone
| else to do it.
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