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Comment by ramesh31 | Hacker News Reader

I think they bet perfectly fine, if you ignore the silly hydrogen efforts. Toyota has never been a technological front runner. They take the Apple approach; wait for something to be truly ready for prime time, then execute it better than anyone else. EV's are still 2% of the US market. And it will be a decade more until a 60+kwH EV is being sold for <$30k total upfront price out the door, which is where they need to be for mass adoption. That gives them time to keep perfecting the solid state batteries that will be crucial to getting Toyota levels of reliability, safety, and longevity from an EV.

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And it will be a decade more until a 60+kwH EV is being sold for <$30k total upfront price out the door, which is where they need to be for mass adoption.

“A decade more” seems way too pessimistic given current EV prices and battery capacities. The 2022 Bolt will have a starting price of $32k with a 65kWh battery, for example.

>The 2022 Bolt will have a starting price of $32k with a 65kWh battery, for example.

That's still a totally different class of car buyers. A "starting price" of $32k means no one is walking out the door with one under $40k total upfront cost. When I can walk into a dealership and finance something like that at $25k total loan amount, that changes everything.

When I leased my 2020 Bolt, I could have walked out the door with it on a 24K loan instead. Given that GM chose to stick with the same basic drivetrain on the latest update, I don't expect that to change for the next few years. Excepting the current weird car market that has been momentarily turned upside down by the pandemic-related supply problems.

Even back in 2019, without federal incentives, people were walking out the door with new Bolts under $30k (including tax and registration). It’s more than possible - it’s already happened. The problem is that most Americans buying new vehicles don’t want an EV hatchback - they want either a Tesla or a non-EV SUV.

I literally bought a new Chevy Bolt in April for $22k total ($20k financed).

Is this including some kind of tax credit or subsidy or did you actually manage to get them to come down like $8k below MSRP??

It was a 2020 model, but it was all discounts by GM. The 2020s(and 2021s) had a higher MSRP, so it was actually closer to only 50% of MSRP that I paid. The extra $2k I didn't finance was tax, reg, etc.

>Is this including some kind of tax credit or subsidy or did you actually manage to get them to come down like $8k below MSRP??

Chevy is doing an $8k consumer cash program right now to clear the lots because they literally cannot sell the things >$30k.

Damn if I’d known about that I would have bought one instead of getting a Camry last month

haha. as far as new car tech goes Toyota is okay on adoption. You should see the tech from the past that VW has in its cars.

Disagree.

2016 VW:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-eoEKrjAtM

2016 4runner:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcm1nz_Zwn8

The VW looks similar to my FCA uConnect system. The 4runner looks like an Alpine head unit I put in my 2002 4 runner in the 2008/9 timeframe. Pretty sure Toyota killed the CD player in the last 3-4 years.

Yeah Toyota literally did not offer Apple CarPlay on any trim level of any vehicle until the 2020 model year, it was insane.

to be fair Apple CarPlay was vaporware until recently. Some may say it’s still not the best experience/integration.

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