Toyota's Chairman Is Having His 'I Told You So Moment' About EVs
jalopnik.com
jalopnik.com
China's EV transition is flying, they're arguably well past a tipping point, and Toyota is not executing well in that market.[1]
> However, sales slumped almost 13% from a year earlier in China, where a lack of electric models is seeing global automakers like Toyota and Volkswagen AG lose ground to domestic automakers like BYD Co.
> Production in China fell 18% to 167,987 vehicles. Toyota earlier this week said it had dismissed roughly 1,000 contracted factory workers in China.
And while the US isn't performing a competent rollout of EV infrastructure in the near term, I wouldn't bet the rent that it'll be a technology backwater forever.
Preventing climate change is a not an ideal, but a concrete, real, absolutely essential act. It will save far more lives than 'ideals' about automotive safety, such as making sure gas tanks don't explode on impact.
However it is being argued (and I agree) that regulations must take practical facts into consideration. A switch from IC to EV cold turkey approach ignores a lot more facts about where we were before the industry shift than a gradual IC to hybrid approach, no?
Stating that EVs are the way to prevent climate change, and to take the further step to equate that with saving lives, is too zealous.
"things like un-affordability"
Battery prices are still dropping as more production capacity comes online. It's premature to call time on this. The idea that you can have multiple sets of fuelling/charging infrastructure (petrol, gas, hydrogen and electric) across every fuel station in a nation is laughable. Considering electricity doesn't need to be trucked around it's probably the only next frontier we can reasonably ask for.