Shoichiro Toyoda, who turned Toyota into global automaker, has died
mainichi.jp
mainichi.jp
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.
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.
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.
How horrible! I’m glad the patent system saved us from this backwardness!
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.
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.
Or they go "they won, I guess we're obligated to try doing it their way at least once".
In that context it is not really surprising that Japan rejected many of its old institutions and ways.
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!
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.
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.
You can stream audio with a 5s delay and 10s jitter if you have a large enough buffer
JIT doesn’t mean instant. It means sizing to the first derivative (rate) and second derivative (jitter) of your f(x) (supply)
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.
I’m not sure about the impact of shipping though.
See: https://www.autoblog.com/2021/03/09/toyota-how-it-avoided-se...
https://www.toyota-industries.com/company/history/toyoda_sak...
Thanks for the correction!
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?"
What made the AE86 such a legendary car was the F/R (RWD) layout and a 16valve 4A-GE engine. These were made alongside the FWD Corollas of the same years, and were quite substantially different.
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.
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...
完璧な車で、誠にありがとございます。
https://www.theonion.com/toyota-recalls-1993-camry-due-to-fa...
If
From that statement, I'm guessing you've never owned a Camry?
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.
Something that you can hardly say about Apple.
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.
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.
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-...
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.
This marketing video from Toyota on the 2nd gen Century is a good summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1erJ1eVmLo
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Pretty much every 90s compact was putting down similar power numbers and got 80% the fuel economy...
It could also be the case that electric/battery tech ushers in new modes of transport that aren't "car", "motorcycle" or "bicycle" thus upending the status quo.
I think Toyota's approach would save more emissions so long as we are battery constrained.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
https://uk.motor1.com/news/276595/uk-hybrids-never-plugged-i...
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a40827514/toyota-bz4x-whee...
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.
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.
They delivered a well-liked pure EV in the 90s that had a queue of people who wanted one. Chevron bought up a company with key battery patents, sued the RAV4 out of existence, wrote licensing arrangements such that no vehicle battery could be more than a couple of kWh in capacity, and went to court to have the results of their legal action kept quiet.
Toyota's hybrids have had the maximum battery allowed by that Chevron lawsuit. I am not surprised that they would be reluctant to get involved in being on any kind of electric leading edge again given that the evidence is that their entire product line could be destroyed on a whim.
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.
Subaru is also building their EVs on Toyota's EV platform.
How can you make a car in 2018+ that does not work with the most popular smartphone OS?
I don't plan to buy another one, unless they can make a good EV.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI
Tesla has now taken over the NUMMI facilities.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
This is not a sentimental view of good old times, the cars were really bad, killed many people etc, but the fact is because people didn't have a choice they hanged on to them as long as they could. Once modern cars became available, everyone ditched the old ones as fast as they could afford it.
What is currently happenning with cars is not that they last shorter, but after the first life mostly in western/central Europe they are sold to the east and south where they continue to work for many more years, but out of our sight.
Can you elaborate?
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.
>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.
It's math.
There are 21 Tesla charging sites in Finland and 14 of them are now open to all EVs. So you could be making use of two thirds of Tesla's Finnish charging sites with your Skoda Enyaq right now.
It just seems like a lot of your problems are self-inflicted. You could be doing things easier.
Even public transportation trams and buses in Eastern Europe have NFC terminals on board to buy tickets. Why is it so hard for a damn charger in Western Europe to have one?
Imagine if every time you tried to use a gas station you needed to install a buggy, crashing phone App that required you to type in your credit card and other personal information. Imagine if 50% of gas stations simply didn’t work and you get stranded somewhere far from home having to sleep in your car. This is the reality of owning a non-Tesla EV. After a year of this and owning a rapidly depreciating car I said screw it and went back to gas.
Instead of wishing for what isn't, you could be doing a lot better with what is.
I don't need a "practical" application of local supermarket chain to buy grocieries.
Why should I tolerate buggy applications to charge an electric car on incompatible chargers? Why there isn't an NFC terminal which I can find almost in any store in EU and today even on vending machines? The chargers already have internet connection, so where is the problem? I am not a masochist and I am refusing to live in this customer hell. This is one of the reasons why I am selling this joke of a car and going back to ICE.
I think you are. Why else would you buy something you didn't understand? You plainly didn't think through the practicalities before you bought it.
I bought the car using my own money to get the experience with BEV and I found out, that it sucks big time. I was expecting that it might be a little bit inconvenient, but I was not expecting to be such a massive bag of problems with BEV proponents like you trying to gaslight me that user is the problem.
They won't have the same issues like you do. You're doing a lot of this to yourself.
> BEV proponents like you trying to gaslight me that user is the problem.
No one's gaslighting you. You're refusing to use the tools that will make it easier for you.
Are you using A Better Routeplanner yet? Configure it to prioritise your preferred charging networks so you don't end up trying to charge on Freshmile again.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
Or I use an ICE car and not have to deal with this, like at all.
The whole point of suggesting a route planner is to reduce the effort on their part.
Any change of vehicle is a tradeoff - maybe it's faster but has worse fuel economy. Maybe it's got more passenger space but the navigation is worse. Ways to mitigate the downsides are a good thing.
> Or I use an ICE car and not have to deal with this, like at all.
Sure, but there are significant downsides to ICE. The tradeoffs may be worth it or they may not. Would you call it naive to talk about e.g. catalytic converters on ICEs to reduce their emissions (which then end up getting stolen - whereas I can use an electric car and not have to deal with that, like at all)
How would having to use a route planner be less effort than not having to use one at all? With my ICE car, I very rarely have to concern myself with being able to find a gas station in range. I also very rarely would need to use any sort of route planning software to find a gas station in range.
> Ways to mitigate the downsides are a good thing.
Yes, but the problem arises when you're mitigating downsides you added yourself. For a _lot_ of people, EVs have many downsides that they currently do not need to suffer from with ICE or hybrid cars. Yes, route planning software might mitigate the issue; I can imagine having a mode in Google or Apple maps that lets you route plan around charging stations could work quite well. But you're still stacking having to do that on top of the other downsides EVs currently have. Gas stations on the other hand are widely available, and on longer routes (in the US at least) often marked on roadside signage that makes them very accessible. If you're planning around charging stations you may also not have opportunities to take more interesting or faster routes, which could be a downside depending on the purpose of your trip.
> Sure, but there are significant downsides to ICE.
No disagreement from me there. But these downsides are largely well known, and either very diffuse or tend to have well-known mitigations at this point. When you change that set of downsides, there will be an adjustment period.
> Would you call it naive [...]
No, absolutely not. Those are real problems too. What I was referring to was the way you seemed to offer a dismissive solution to the problem that the GP described. A lot of EV proponents I've found are very dismissive of the real-world issues of EVs that currently exist, and the additional challenges many people would face if they were to switch to an EV right now. Dismissing these things makes it harder to address and improve them.
To be clear, a century ago we might have been having the same discussion about ICE cars, and how the infrastructure is not ready yet; In a way, this reminds me of refactoring core components of a large intertwined codebase. Often you can't just flip a switch and just change everything, it has to be gradual, building up it's own support over time and effort -- but many an inexperienced (and dare I say naive) engineer would still try to change it all at once.
If you're too scared to own an EV, if the EV chargers frighten you, if you find the leading edge too edgy, if the adoption is too early for you, then the solution in your case is simple: don't buy an EV.
In the meantime, EV owners can use A Better Routeplanner and configure it to prioritise their preferred charging networks (via Settings -> Charging Networks -> Network Preferences) to find charging sites from charging providers they like to use.
So, in TheLoafOfBread's case, if he prefers to use let's say Ionity, Tesla, BP, and FastNed with his Skoda Enyaq he can add them to the network preferences in ABRP.
Then when TheLoafOfBread plans his next road trip, A Better Routeplanner will plan a route which uses those charging sites in preference to other charging sites. TheLoafOfBread will find that most of the time he'll be charging at one of his preferred charging providers and he'll be much happier.
Which is exactly what I have done. Driving an EV is great, owning one in my situation would introduce more problems than it solves. Many of the factors that affect this decision for me are very common and likely apply to a large fraction of the population.
> So, in TheLoafOfBread's case, if he prefers to use let's say Ionity, Tesla, BP, and FastNed with his Skoda Enyaq he can add them to the network preferences in ABRP.
I understood the complaint to be partially that they would prefer to not have to deal with any of that at all, or at least that it could and should be far far simpler.
It is far, far simpler. A Better Routeplanner will make it simpler for TheLoafOfBread.
Instead of talking in circles, just try A Better Routeplanner.
Here's my idea of simple: No apps needed, I pull up to the charger, any charger, I get out of the car, tap my credit card on the payment terminal, plug the charging cable into my car, stand around for 2-3 minutes while my car recharges to 100%, unplug, grab my receipt and drive off. If I'm on a long trip and starting to get low on charge, I look for the next charge station sign I see. Basically, exactly like a gas station is right now. My understand of TheLoafOfBread's comment was that they were thinking along the same lines as me.
ABRP does very little to move the needle towards this version of simple. It can't make charging times shorter than what is physically possible, it can't offer you charging stations that are as ubiquitous as gas stations, it can't enforce having the same easy to use connector at every charge station. It has a role to play, a small one, and frankly not terribly interesting one.
We are talking in circles, so perhaps it's time to finish the conversation.
Hey, super. Show the trip and the car. Let's see it.
> So yes, I will agree, ABRP does simplify things. I couldn't imagine having to deal with finding the charging stations and planning out my route without a tool like that.
Good. So there was nothing for you to argue about from the beginning.
It's not, it's less effort than whatever they were doing to find charging stations before.
> What I was referring to was the way you seemed to offer a dismissive solution to the problem that the GP described.
I didn't offer it, but I don't see anything dismissive about it. It looked like a genuine effort to help someone mitigate one of the downsides of an EV (which was clearly something that had some upsides for them, otherwise why would they have bought one in the first place).
I understood the GP's comment to also be a commentary on the difference between what they had to deal with when driving an EV and how that was different than their previous experiences with ICE/Hybrids.
> I didn't offer it
Oops, that is my mistake indeed.
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.
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.
All in all it's a useful tool if used in moderation.
You need a minimum 3 phase 480v electrical source to charge even a small battery in under an hour. We are talking 150-200Kw, or the equivalent energy to run around 170 American sized households to fast charge a single car. You think that’s happening in Europe, pretty much ever?
What we do need is ubiquitous Level 2 (240V AC) charging present at the locations where most drivers store their cars. For drivers who store their cars on public city streets, that means installing new cable runs and charging poles. Obviously this infrastructure isn't going to be "free", but it's not some kind of intractable technical challenge. Moreover it will eventually pay for itself through a modest surcharge on the electricity consumers use for charging.
The Tesla 3 Long Range AWD has a 76 kWh battery with a range of 358 miles (576 km). The average European car drives 18,000 km/year, or 72 km/day or 10 kWh/day with Tesla's efficiency.
If everyone has giant EV pickups with 200kWh batteries driving 500 miles every day, yeah you have a problem. But that's the tiny minority.
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.
This is not about herd mentality but about not ignoring very real and tangible trends in the market that are starting to affect Toyota's core business in very real ways. Mumbling about hydrogen and vaguely asserting there might be some EVs in the distant future is no longer good enough as a plan. And as a stop gap solution, hybrids are not growing as fast as EVs and mostly at the cost of ICE vehicles. Which means an overall decline for Toyota. Hybrids are no longer good enough and might be banned from key markets entirely along with ICE vehicles on a time line that is getting uncomfortably close for Toyota.
That's the reason for the change of leadership at Toyota. This stuff is starting to make share holders very nervous.
EV's are still inferior products for many users. EV Advocates like to point to fast acceleration as somehow proof they are superior. But what they leave out is that every time you accelerate you see the charge capacity noticeably drop to significant degree. On extended trips, EV drivers will be making conscious efforts to engage in slower more moderate driving. Some people are fine with it, but the fact that many choose to go back to ICE vehicles should not be ignored.
Once they have a Corolla like EV platform I bet it will outsell most competitors and likely won't have gimmicky features.
> 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.
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.
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.
The EU is pushing that 2035 date. Are other countries following?
I'm not sure if other countries are following, but they will :-)
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.
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
Lexus is number one in JD Power's 2023 rankings: https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2023-us-vehi...
https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/consumer-reports-reliabil... : 5 of top 10 are Toyota
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.
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.
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.
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, ...
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.
https://eu-evs.com/marketShare/ALL/Groups/Line/All-time-by-Y...
I'd say they've pivoted.
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.
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.
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.
EVs are already (in most cases) cheaper than equivalent ICE vehicles over the lifetime of a vehicle. Soon they will become cheaper upfront as well. ICE won't compete very well after that, except in the luxury/enthusiast market.
Consumers choose automobiles over horse and buggy. They are choosing EV over ICE too, in greater quantities every year.
An electric engine is pretty unanimously superior to ICE for all but ICE enthusiasts (akin to horse enthusiasts). EVs have superior performance characteristics, lack pollution (both carbon and noise), and are much cheaper to maintain. And for most people who have charging infrastructure where they live, and EV means never having to actively go charge/fuel your car.
People didn't believe in the automobile either, at first. Yet no one would say "car vs horse" is a consumer preference choice.
I know people that don't like cars, and still have them. It's not a very compelling point.
You know what would be compelling? Telling me why ICE cars are superior to EVs, beyond what I've already discussed. I suspect you don't have any evidence however.
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.
"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.
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?
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”.
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.
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.
This statement is in seeming conflict well documented hierarchical nature of Japanese society.
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.
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.
E.g. jobs for life
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