Why Toyota Isn't Rushing to Sell You an Electric Vehicle | Hacker News Reader

Why Toyota Isn't Rushing to Sell You an Electric Vehicle

jalopnik.com

9 pointsnixass7 comments

That's okay. The one they've built is not worth buying.

I know Toyota is loved and respected for their ICE cars, but they're really really bad at making EV power trains and battery management systems. In EVs the hard parts are efficiency and fast charging, and bz4x is a decade behind on both counts. Note that hybrids can easily hide inefficiency, and don't support fast charging. Toyota's hybrid experience did not help them build BEVs.

A 1000km drive[1] that takes 8h35m in an ICE car, 9h05m (charging time included) in a Tesla or Mercedes EQS, takes over 14 hours in the Toyota bz4x. Toyota's latest EV is worse than the Leaf and i3, which are the oldest EVs on the market. Even the old Ioniq (the hybrid without an ICE engine, not the new 5) with a 2.5 times smaller battery is 2h faster than Toyota on this challenge.

[1] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V6ucyFGKWuSQzvI8lMzv...

Then again (google translate works just fine if needed).

https://www.oeamtc.at/autotouring/auto/ladetest-zwei-strateg...

One EC driving 100km/h, other one 130km/h, third car is diesel. Trip is 650km. 100km/h EV car spent 69 Eur of electricity and drive took 9.5hrs. 130km/h EV car spent 159 Eur of electricity and 9.5hrs for wholw trip and finaly diesel car took less than 6hrs and 69 Eur for the fuel

As crazy as it sounds current EV drivers are still early adopters and are eating R&D costs for what's coming down the road. Especially those who don't have chargers at home

I've driven Megane E-tech for the last 3 months, and I wouldn't recommend it for long road trips either. It's a pleasant city car, the traditional car bits in it are very nice, but the EV tech in it is meh.

In practice it charges at ~60kW most of the time (Renault advertises peak speed twice as that, but that peak is very brief). I only got 2.6mi/kWh on highways in the UK weather. This is significantly worse than 150kW+ charging and 3.3mi/kWh efficiency I'm getting in Ioniq 5. Tesla can be even more efficient with similarly high charging speeds.

Road trip capabilities of BEVs on the market vary wildly from near-ICE performance to getting stranded.

“The amount of raw materials in one long-range battery electric vehicle could instead be used to make 6 plug-in hybrid electric vehicles or 90 hybrid electric vehicles. For the same limited resources, instead of replacing one internal combustion engine vehicle, you can replace 90.”

So we’re only concerned with the ‘raw materials’ in the battery, and not the materials in the body, motor, and other parts? Not to mention the fuel of course.

The idea that the limiting factor on Toyota making more hybrid vehicles is the availability of battery metals seems suspect .. there will always be a supply imbalance in growing markets, but supply is rapidly increasing, and it will increase faster if Toyota builds more cars with batteries in them.

Toyota won’t even sell me a hybrid - they’ve apparently not manufactured a sienna in months, not at the low trim.

That’s probably true. The Sienna is built in the same Princeton Indiana factory that builds the Highlander and Sequoia, and they’re retooling the factory to build two more (not-yet-revealed) 3-row SUVs.

It’s very believable that they are only building the highest margin mix of vehicles they can get away with.

why does Toyota even bother putting out the pamphlet with rationalizations?

they sell cars that meet mileage requirements, people buy them, and the people who buy Toyota usually have a favorable experience

its not like Tesla quality is going to push Toyota off the map...Toyota can take their time and jump into EVs when the stars align, their customers will go along with them

hybrids are a great product that still make sense...who wants to drive across the country in an EV? a Prius won't rocket down the freeway but you can refill it in 35 seconds

I also expect Ford and GM to back off of EV marketing soon, as they realize they've mostly fallen for their own hype

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