this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2024
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There's the rub. 'The market' is demanding EVs with massive range-per-charge, leading to huuuge batteries (of which only 10% capacity is used, most of the time) and high prices. It's all a bit crazy.
I'm very skeptical of anything Toyota says about EVs.
Toyota Rav4 PHEV 18.1kWh Toyota Rav4 Hybrid ~1.6kWh Model Y LR 81kWh
81 / 18.1 = 4.48 PHEV 81 / 1.6 = 50.6 Hybrids
** for one material, compared to one battery chemistry, for hypothetical vehicles
Did you catch the news a week or so ago about mining and ore processors shutting down because they got ahead of EV demand
Edit: fix auto-correct
Yes, I'm sure Toyota is massaging that statistic heavily. They are all about hybrids.
Truthfully, Toyota is all about ICE. They're okay with hybrids because hybrids still contain an ICE. For Toyota there's a good reason for this. They make a damn good ICE engine! They've spent decades and billions of dollars on refining efficiency of gasoline into motion, and into very long run times of those ICE engines for reliability. However, that also means cars without and ICE, like EVs are a threat to the ICE empire Toyota has spent its life building.
They have a history of actively working against EVs and even using their influence and money to affect public policy in government:
"Toyota has been lobbying governments to water-down emissions standards or oppose fossil-fuel vehicle phaseouts, according to a New York Times report. In the last four years, Toyota's political contributions to US politicians and PACs have more than doubled. Those contributions have gotten the company into hot water, too. By donating to congresspeople who oppose tighter emissions limits, the company funded lawmakers who objected to certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election. Though Toyota had promised to stop doing so in January, it was caught making donations to the controversial legislators as recently as last month." source
So Toyota is no friend of EVs.
That's because nobody could have foreseen that early adopters are willing to pay a premium price and it's not an unlimited market
Please tell me you're being sarcastic?
The market wants more Chevy Bolts. They didn't have a 200 mile range. The market wants them so badly that GM unkilled the production line.
Of course they're on the same EV platform as all of the other GM BEVs that's a lemon lottery.
Volvo is going to beat the pants off this market with their 36k EV. Assuming of course our government doesn't swoop in to protect GM and Ford.
Because protecting American car makers has worked so well the last time they tried...
Well somebody has to be the dumping ground for the oldest, least efficient, engines still in inventory. But yeah we don't even have a robust domestic market to protect anymore. It's effectively a triad.