Toyota bets big on hybrid-only models as EV demand slows | Hacker News Reader

Toyota bets big on hybrid-only models as EV demand slows

reuters.com

38 pointsalephnerd104 comments

This is why Toyota is the #1 automaker on the planet and will likely remain so for the next decade. This dovetails nicely with their strategy of evolution, not revolution. They've spent 30 years perfecting the hybrid drivetrain. Their current generation of hybrids are more gasoline-oriented vehicles. As they develop their EV platform they're going to transition to being more EV-oriented vehicles. Meanwhile, this gives several battery technologies that are in the pipeline a chance to mature.

Kudos! This is a brilliant strategy!

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not - Toyota is widely considered to have pioneered hybrid technologies and then completely squandered whatever technical lead they had. Their main EV at the moment is awful in terms of basic EV efficiency and value wise it's not competitive with anything, it's like it's made by someone who has 0 experience with EV building and it's really hurting Toyota to have such a weird product out - I'd ask who is actually buying these.

There's still a wide world out there where hybrids are more practical. Their EVs aren't great, but they have time to fix that.

OP complimented the hybrid strategy and your criticism is off an EV.

Sorry maybe my point isn't clear - Toyota has literally 30 years of experience building automotive EV motors(for their hybrid cars) and their first real EV has half the efficiency of a Tesla. So where is that 30 years of experience that Toyota has?

And just to go back to hybrids - Toyota was such a pioneer in what we call "mild" hybrids nowadays, but they were super late on the PHEV side, for years you could buy PHEVs from different manufacturers before Toyota finally made one.

Well, just a data point: I'll probably need to get a new car in the next 2 years, I've been looking at EVs and PHEVs and they simply don't make sense for my usage.

Maybe Toyota is trying to sell to me not to you...

That's fine, but the point is that they make hybrids and EVs so I don't see why we shouldn't discuss their engineering details regardless of whether me and you are personally interested in buying them.

Mm can we try some other manufacturer of EVs vs Toyota?

Teslas are so designed in California and badly manufactured that it's too bad about that efficient power train....

You may be building a straw man. None of your criticisms may be valid as they attempt to discredit Toyota for strategic decisions it didn't make, precisely because these decisions would not align with its operating philosophy which has allowed them to become one of the most valuable brands and emulated models in history.

You might be right of course, I've just replied to a comment which was giving such an unconditional praise to Toyota it read almost like sarcasm - by all accounts they were super late with key technologies when it comes to hybrids, which is just weird given their very long experience building cars like the Prius. The EV point was purely about the fact that IMHO their first EV should have been super strong given their experience and it's just.....awfully unerwhelming.

I agree however that this lateness probably didn't hurt their brand that much though, and long long term they will be fine.

They have decades experience building hybrids and have chosen the hybrid is best strategy

And you then complain their EV isn’t as good as the hybrids they have been building.

BEVs and hybrids use the same electric motor technology. All I'm saying is that it's shocking(to me anyway) that Toyota spent 30 years making millions of them and then they can't match half the efficiency of a Tesla, that's just weird and makes you wonder where is all that engineering experience gone.

>their first real EV has half the efficiency of a Tesla.

Which model is Toyota's first real EV? The BZ4X efficiency (131 city/107 hwy MPGe), while less than the Model 3 (138 city/126 hwy MPGe), isn't half the efficiency.

https://www.truecar.com/compare/tesla-model-3-vs-toyota-bz4x...

Top Gear averaged 2.7 miles/kWh over 10k miles[0], while a Tesla Model 3 and Y can easily do 4-5 miles/kWh in real life tests. TBF 2.7 is abysmal in any car, that's numbers from a Q8 E-Tron, a big heavy SUV, for a small crossover that's just not ok.

[0] https://www.topgear.com/long-term-car-reviews/toyota/bz4x/16...

Thanks, that's very interesting. Does Top Gear have a similar long term review for a Tesla model (with the average efficiency calculated over something like the 10,000 miles in the Toyota review and presumably with the same group of drivers/environmental conditions/mix of highway/city driving)? You are correct that the 2.7 miles/kwh is low. But I suppose it isn't too far off the EPA estimate of 107 MPGe (highway rating), which would be 3.175 miles/kwh.

Here's a pretty scathing mechanic's review of the BZ4X:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2tzln6UD-Q

> OP complimented the hybrid and your criticism pertains to an EV.

Also, a blind spot for the long game.

Idk, they have pushed hydrogen for long time and recently want to go into anhydrous ammonia or something even more brillianter.

Japan has invested heavily in hydrogen energy, across multiple sectors. It makes sense for a Japanese automotive manufacturer to research hydrogen-powered vehicles. They probably received a lot of government research money to do so.

Though people may not be familiar with it, Toyota does have a commercial truck division. Hydrogen power makes a lot of sense in that market. Whenever you hear about Toyota making improvements in hydrogen engines - think commercial trucks and industrial engines such as bulldozers, end loaders, etc.

The bottom line is personal transportation is being electrified, but that's not "settled science" in the commercial and industrial sectors.

Toyota Mirai

https://my.caredge.com/buy?radius=7000&rows=20&zip=99301&mak...

I predict that Toyota is likely to get steamrolled by BYD, who already employs twice as many workers as Toyota. China already produces enough battery cells to put a 50kw pack in every vehicle built, and manufacturing capacity continues to increase.

https://electrek.co/2024/07/30/toyota-sales-slide-byds-aggre...

https://electrek.co/2024/07/16/byd-breaks-toyota-dominated-j...

China has a local market 5-10x pretty much everywhere else, a huge trade surplus, the ability to borrow tech and people from around the world, a cheap labour base, and massive government incentive to dominate a new industry.

Anyone doubting China will steamroll most markets given the current situation is in for a shock.

Australia has already experienced China weaponising trade (banning wine and beef imports). Other small countries will experience similar.

This strikes me as extremely sensible. It's worth considering how hybrids and EVs relate to various driving patterns:

  * All short range trips
  * Mostly short range trips, occasional long range trip
  * Long daily commute

EVs manage that first option fine, but struggle with the latter two, especially cheaper EVs with smaller batteries. Hybrids work just as well as traditional engines for all of these patterns, while consuming less fuel.

Plug-in hybrids are particularly great at that middle option. Most of the time they behave like an EV, but on the occasional long haul they just switch to gas so there's no range anxiety. In that scenario, plug-in hybrids offer the best of both worlds.

It's also a transition technology, because Japanese battery manufacturers like Idemetsu Kosan, AGC, and TDK need around 5-7 years to begin mass-producing solid state batteries (and have already started constructing factories for them in JP, US, and SK).

You’ll add lots more charge cycles to the small hybrid battery. A 30 mile commute is only 15% of a 200mile battery but would be 100% of some PHEVs. If an LFP battery gets 2,000 cycles lifetime then that’s 400,000 miles vs 60,000.

You’ll also have more things to service when you still have an ICE so it’s not all upsides.

More fast chargers is the way to go. I’d love to see the car manufacturers working together to roll out super chargers everywhere.

Toyota has been building plug-in hybrids for about a quarter century. Their evolution is slow but steady. They are made to be maintained easily—far more than any other modern car. After all this time there is no evidence that the hybrid batteries are wear out particularly fast AFAIK. In fact, older Prius models hold up incredibly well.

Expanding upon this, in a PHEV the battery is relatively small and inexpensive compared to an EV. In the event it does fail it's a financial inconvenience and not effectively totaling the vehicle.

Which is also he case for any EV starting ~now. Yes batteries have been ~50% of the build cost of an EV, but they are also dropping by 20%/year. The last 5 years or so this was basically absorbed in extending the range, but you really don’t need much more than 100kWh batteries in a car. I don’t think this bet will be working out

I just want to add some real-world experience to this as the owner of an early hybrid, a 6th gen Honda Civic Hybrid.

It's a terrible hybrid, full stop — but it's still a decent car because it's a Civic. It's as old as an early Prius, and those have held up pretty well, but Honda did a terrible job with their hybrid batteries. Mine was replaced under warranty at 60K miles, and the replacement is already noticeably worn only ~50k miles in.

If the replacement battery fails, the car is totaled. It's just not worth paying ~4k for a refurbished and flawed battery.

But the reason I bring this up, is that we're still in the early stages of EVs, and it still feels like luck of the draw on who's releasing a truly reliable EV product. Early Tesla batteries seem to be holding up long term, but at the same time those early cars have a ton of non-battery related issues. Maybe new ones are great, but there's no way to know until it happens. I thought I was buying something great because Honda typically builds long lasting cars (My last accord had ~300k miles before I sold it).

My next car will probably be an EV over a hybrid based on my experience.

I don't know what era a 6th gen Honda Civic comes from, but I just bought a 2011 Honda CR-Z hybrid sports car this year, and I love it. I bought it to supplement my 2012 Toyota Prius-C, which is a pretty awesome hybrid. The Toyota gets way better gas mileage and can cruise in all-electric mode in the city, but the Honda has way more zooms. And the Honda Integrated Motor Assist (IMA) system allows the transmission to be a 6-speed manual (more fun).

On the CR-Z forums and CR-Z subreddit, every prospective buyer worries about the hybrid batteries, but virtually no owner has ever had to replace them. The older NiMH batteries are more reliable than the newer LiON, and the former are that much cheaper to refurbish.

A plugin hybrid seems to be the best way to go for someone who lives in northern Canada and is not a city person. But I don't want to pay the new-car premium price, nor do I want an Internet-connected vehicle sending all that personal data back to the mothership, which they all seem to do.

6th gen Civics are the ones from 2006-2010, which are fantastic, and notably better than the following generation that was drastically cut down thanks to Honda freaking out about the great recession.

The CR-Zs are awesome! I believe the 2011s use LiON batteries, which ironically are supposedly more reliable than the NiMH batteries they were using prior (and in my Civic). Apparently Toyota had patents on their prismatic batteries, and Honda was stuck using D-cell style NiMH ones which were poorly cooled.

The poor cooling caused them to slowly drift their state of charge, but because they were wired in series, there was no way for the battery management system to rebalance them, resulting in horrible capacity loss. Worse yet, Honda didn't include an alternator in my Civic, and the 12v battery was intended to be charged by the hybrid battery + IMA.

Guess who had a fun time when the car shut off in the middle of the highway (!!) on the way to work? Thankfully CA mandates a 10y/150k mi warranty on PZEV powertrains!

Everything but the hybrid part of my Civic is great, and I no longer need to drive to work, so I don't use it all that much. Hoping it lasts long enough that by the time I need to replace it I have tons of options to pick from.

The Rav4 Prime (idk about other PHEVs) accounts for this by having a 10% buffer at full charge and a 13% buffer at low charge which are where a lot of the degradation comes from. You're right they likely won't last as long but it will be far longer than 60k miles. The tiny (~1.5kWh) batteries in Priuses routinely make it past 150k while getting thrashed from 20% to 80% their whole life.

How many miles do you get if you make an even worse assumption about the hybrid battery?

the small battery in a Sienna is a nickel-metal hydride (Ni-MH).

Yep, fully EV for 99.99% of trips but functions exactly as an ICE car for edge cases is a no-brainer purchase. I don't really care about servicing the batteries more often because there's fewer of them and the ICE engine is likely to get 1/10th the miles of the car overall so it probably won't be the source of problems.

Over the summer, my son had a baseball tournament in Detroit, and we were driving from Chicago. I have never driven an EV before, and I wanted to see what it was like before a lease is up on one of our cars, so I decided to rent one and try the long distance trip.

It was horrific. I had no idea you needed separate apps for nearly every station. Every station had broken stalls, or a single stall with a line, and what's the difference between AC and DC for charging, or charging stations ONLY for a single brand (Rivian, how tf is this legal?). The stations were in the middle of nowhere; I thought my son and I could at least stop and get some food while it charged, but we didn't find any of those. Just one at a truck stop outside of Kalamazoo, and another at the end of the runway at the airport outside of Ann Arbor (we got tired of the trickle charge at Kalamazoo and left after 30 minutes, and needed to recharge in Ann Arbor).

Downtown Detroit had a handful of charging stations, and I ended up spending 45 minutes at the GM building to charge to 85%. When returning the car in Chicago, it is nearly impossible to get to 100% charge at the place near my house because the stations seem to start trickling after 80%, so it took over 60 minutes to go from 20% to 95% with a "fast" charger, then a 20 minute drive to O'Hare got it below 90% again. And I now have 3 apps on my phone each with a "wallet" with money I will not be using any time in the near future.

I know that long-distance isn't necessarily a selling point for EV, but that was only part of it. Every step of the way it was like companies took the worst parts of the internet and app culture and enshitified refeuling/charging. The car itself was pretty nice (Hyandai Ioniq 5), and I enjoyed driving it. But I felt like it was a CONSTANT stress worrying about where we will charge when needed, because of all of the issues; I felt like I had to thinking about finding a charging station when I got under 20% because who knows how long I will have to search for a good station.

I can't commit to an EV until they are more prevalent and I can just pull up and use a credit card without an app. Say what you will about Shell or BP, but at least I don't need to worry about them leaking my data in some hack because they have a shitty app or something. We'll definitely be buying a hybrid, probably plug-in, and I'll look at EVs again in 10 years or something.

> I had no idea you needed separate apps for nearly every station.

The fact that you need an app at all is a serious issue for me.

THIS! THIS! THIS! THIS! THIS! THIS! THIS!

If I need an app to charge an EV, then I'm not buying an EV - period end.

I hear people say Tesla is great because they have the largest charging network. What a load of BS! THAT'S A GIANT STEP BACKWARDS! Right now, I can take my dino car and fill up anywhere. I don't need a station branded for my make of car. I also don't need an app to buy gas.

As long as this situation persists, you can count me out of EVs. When I can go to a BP station (just a well-known vendor for discussion) and charge my car using a credit card - I'm in.

Well, technically EVs have much larger "filling up" network than your dino car, since you can charge it from literally any socket anywhere in the world. It's not like Teslas can only be charged at superchargers. If you can charge at home every night it's likely you will never use a public charger in the lifetime of the car(unless you absolutely have to).

But yes, we need government regulation that says any EV charger should just have a card reader and start charging without requiring any kind of app/authentication.

> since you can charge it from literally any socket anywhere in the world.

Technically, I suppose. In reality, no. You aren't allowed to use almost all of those outlets.

> If you can charge at home every night

Sure, but there is a huge number of people who can't. For them, charging at commercial stations is the only option, so how available that is, and how they work, might be the most important consideration.

Running it through a calculator, I am getting 24 hours on a standard 120V 15AMP socket. from 20% to 80% on a Model 3 2024 Tesla. I am using calc at https://evadept.com/calc/ev-charging-time-calculator

So I can charge in my garage but only if I upgrade to 240V?

Well, are you going to use 60% of charge in your model 3 every single day? Because that would mean driving ~120-150 miles every day, and that's a lot more driving than people normally do. Fair enough if you do, I just mean people don't realize that actually, if you plug your car in every day it's like someone comes in at night and refuels your car - if you need to drive 120 miles one day but only 20 the next day, you are probably still fine just charging the car overnight using the slowest socket. And that's ignoring the possibility of having an actual charger station installed at home.

45mi drive to work so 90 round trip. There is no way to charge there. Most weeks will be 4 days 90 miles (WFH Friday). So, less than 60% but similar ballpark.

Circuit breaker is in the garage so not too hard to modify but sounds like I do need 240V if I want to get an EV. Thanks.

No you don’t. (You may very well be happier if you do the upgrade though). You have Fridays and weekends to top up too. Yes the charge you start with every day will decrease over the course of the week, but you’ll still have enough to do the commute on Thursday. But if you do not do the upgrade, check whether your outlet can be run at top load continuously. Most outlets aren’t rated for that

Wow, as a non EV owner I had no idea you needed a smartphone and app to charge your car out in public. And that some charging stations didn't work with some brands of car. How could the industry screw this up so badly? I'll also be sticking with my gas car until this crap gets sorted out.

This video basically sums it up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92w5doU68D8

TLDR, the guy does an identical drive in both Polestar 2 and a Tesla, the Tesla just works at every supercharger, he plugs in and that's it, no app no nothing, the car charges at maximum available speed every time. With the Polestar every charger requires a different app, the chargers themselves are not built properly(advertising higher charging rates than the cables they have been installed with can support), broken stalls, and the car almost never charged anywhere close to its maximum charging speed.

I love EVs(I own one!) but the state of public infrastructure is absolutely dire, unless you own a tesla and can use superchargers.

> he plugs in and that's it, no app no nothing

There's still an app. It's just running in the car instead of your phone.

Yes, of course - I just mean from an external perspective you don't really need to do anything, other than plugging the car in - Teslas's network knows exactly who to bill for the electricity usage, there's no faffing about with a barely usable app on your phone to even just start the charge first. But yes, ultimately it still has the problem that all charging sessions require tracking and your personal data, you can't use a supercharger anonymously(not as far as I know anyway).

EV is perfectly fine for a daily commute unless you're driving 100s of miles a day.

It really comes down to whether you can conveniently charge the car or need to take very long trips and can't manage the overhead or availability of charging mid trip.

I've done 4 3000km trips in a Tesla, and they were pleasant experiences. Only once did we ever wait 15 minutes for a charge, every other time the charging session was shorter than our bathroom and/or meal and/or hotel stop. We ended up doing most of the trip on the top half of the battery simply because the battery lasted longer than young bladders. Your experience may differ if you're not traveling with a family, but if you are, an EV on a route covered by superchargers is hassle and extra wait free.

I have 2 concerns when looking at say a BMW X5 eDrive50 (or whatever name it has).

1) The fuel tank is 3.7 gallons smaller than their gasoline counterparts. Since these plugin-hybrids charge slowly, you're still suffering from having a hybrid while doing these long road-trips.

2) I often wonder how these engines are protected against wear when the engine is cold, but the battery runs out and they need to rev up from dead-cold.

I'm not a Toyota fan by any stretch, the last Toyota I owned was over 20 years ago. We've been ride or die Honda vehicle appliances since then as an entire family. But Honda's offerings just aren't doing it for us anymore. It seems like the entire industry is moving past them with the company being dragged along with:

- very subpar offerings in the EV space (I mean the Honda e, really?)

- almost no plug-in hybrids

- hybrid tech that hasn't really advanced in a decade

- a bunch of effort spent farting around with LPG and hydrogen vehicles which are going to go approximately nowhere as a market

- a completely empty small vehicle category (in the U.S.), I'd even be compelled to maybe buy an iCE fit/jazz just for the convenience for the semi-urban area I live in

We can't figure them out as a company anymore and they seem to have no strategy.

At the moment, if we had to go buy a car today, I'd hit the Toyota dealerships for a Prius Prime, and if they were out of stock probably go hit the Hyundai dealerships for a hybrid or an EV. If Hyundai ever tops Toyota for general reliability, I'm going there first, that's a company attacking on all fronts.

I live in "Honda land" - the headquarters of Honda America. All their engineering is here and many of their cars and motorcycles are made here. I know several engineers and IT folks working for Honda.

Here's the thing - Honda is renowned for their small engines, including car engines. They're small engines are far more reliable than those made by Briggs & Stratton and Suzuki. Lots of manufacturers, such as Toro, use Honda engines. Even other automakers have used Honda engines in their vehicles.

The other thing is Honda is a world-leading motorcycle manufacturer. Honda is the leading motorcycle manufacturer in the world and the quality and reliability of their bikes are legendary. They're recognized as a technology leader in this space and are always the first to market with new capabilities. Their sales are heads above every other motorcycle manufacturer and are increasing. Honda has a big presence in motorcycle racing and has the most Grand Prix wins of all makes.

Finally, their cars have always been about engineering excellence, quality, and value - not developing new technology. In the automotive space, Honda is content to let others lead in new technology adoption. In the sea change going on in the automotive world at the moment, it may appear that Honda has no strategy. They do, it's the same strategy they've been following for decades: let others lead, they'll enhance the technology and deliver value.

As far as "farting around" with hydrogen, that's a Japanese thing. They've undoubtedly received lots of government research grants to research hydrogen engines - which probably makes no sense in the small engine space in which Honda plays.

I don't fundamentally disagree with anything you've said here. In fact many of your points are the reasons we've been ride-or-die Honda for decades. Beyond anything, we prioritize reliability above almost every other metric (with reliability to mean "doesn't break at all" not "easy to repair" -- though the second meaning also applies here).

But to be honest, I don't really care about their small engine prowess, or motorcycle business. I really need great, ultra-reliable, reasonably-priced, four-wheel mobility -- and thought Honda has always been somewhat conservative in their offerings in many ways, one could always think that the strategy was simply Honda wanting to make anything they put in their cars as reliable as possible.

When Hyundai was putting in electric window shades and cup coolers and radars and TVs in their cars, Honda put a simple camera in the passenger-side mirror and displayed some lines to help the driver estimate distances on their own to make lane changes safer. It was simple, effective, basically bug free. I could really appreciate that sort of practical, conservative, thoughtful, engineering.

But I think they're veering from that. These competencies really seem to have ossified as the company has struggled to figure out where to go next. For example, the Honda e showed really beautiful visual design, but had poor specs, and was so expensive almost nobody bought it -- it never made sense as a product and showed almost none of Honda's talent for conservative consumer vehicle design. It didn't even last 4 years as an entire vehicle line and only moved like 12,000 units globally without ever even making it to the U.S. market. It was previewed at trade shows for longer than it was an entire vehicle line. In any line-up against competitor vehicles, there was no reason to buy it, and that's what the market did. There just wasn't really any of that Honda DNA in this vehicle.

The thing is, the Koreans today are also exploring LPG and Hydrogen, but they're also bringing to market a steady stream of everything else, and those offerings are competitive in the market. Toyota is also doing these things minus highly competent EVs.

But here is where Honda really lost me [1]. Why would Honda, a company who's brand is "highly reliable and competent engineering" sign a strategic partnership with GM who's brand is "large and fading U.S. car company that builds cheaply built and unreliable cars that people buy because of fleet deals with car rental companies and local police forces". This just tells me that Honda:

1 - Doesn't know who they are anymore, they've lost their brand self-awareness

2 - Can't get their engineering department to figure out EV technology on their own, their engineering competency is diminishing

The thing is, the Koreans have done it, from making highly unreliable mobile scrap piles 25 years ago, they now nip at the heels of Toyota and VW, while offering well designed, reasonably reliable products in basically every category (including EVs, LPG, Hydrogen, iCE, Hybrid, Plug-in Hybrid, small cars to buses) and their products are also moving in the market and finding customers.

Honda needs to step it up, they no longer followers with other leading in new adoption, they're wallowing around, absolutely aimless and I hate it.

1 - https://news.gm.com/newsroom.detail.html/Pages/news/us/en/20...

> Why would Honda, a company who's brand is "highly reliable and competent engineering" sign a strategic partnership with GM

A major reason for Honda's laggardness is because it is much smaller compared to other Japanese competitors, and lacks the horizontal integration that other Japanese competitors have.

In Japan, the entire economy is basically directly or indirectly owned by Mitsubishi Group, Mitsui Group, Fuyo Group, and Sumimoto Group. These are conglomerates that are so big that they de facto own entire districts and cities

Honda is nowhere near the size of those Keiretsus.

Toyota Motors (Toyota Group + Fuyo Group), Mitsubishi Motors (Mitsubishi Group), Nissan Motors (Fuyo Group + Renault), and Suzuki Motors (Mitsubishi Group + Toyota Group) are massive Keiretsus that are able to make strategic partnerships or have ownership stakes in other players like Idemetsu Kosan (Toyota), Panasonic (Toyota), AGC (Mitsubishi), TDK (Mitsubishi), CATL (TDK/Mitsubishi), Hitachi (Nissan/Fuyo), AESC (Nissan/Fuyo), NEC (Sumimoto), etc that puts players like Honda on the backfoot.

Nissan at least made a partnership with NEC (Sumimoto Group) and AESC (formerly part of Nissan Group) for battery R&D much earlier than other players in Japan (partially thanks to help from Renault Group).

Honda was just too small of a player to make strategic partnerships or gain ownership stakes in the battery supply chain, and by partnering with GM they are able to indirectly piggyback off of Samsung SDI (who are the Battery manufacturer for GM and now Honda, and were the tech partner for BYD back when it was getting started as a South Korean-Chinese JV).

Thanks for this insight!

Yep! That's why Honda decided relatively early to expand abroad.

It's basically an American (cars), Chinese (cars), and Indian (motorcycles and cars) automotive company for all intents and purposes, but it's China and India businesses are rapidly falling behind due to lack of technical inputs due to the reasons mentioned above.

Their small engines really are great. My local fire department uses Honda models for all the small forestry-style water pumps, for example.

You do have to watch out though, where some other brands have Honda-branded engines that are _not_ the same. My local small-engine mechanic derisively refers to some as "Chondas", basically meaning cheap, Chinese-built engines. When he serviced my Ryobi pressure washer, he'd had to hold the whole thing upside down to drain the old oil, because the "Honda" engine didn't come with an oil drain. Seems like quite the lack for any sort of internal combustion engine.

That's common for a lot of small engines. The location of the sump doesn't allow for the addition of a drain plug.

Well, for small-enough engines, that's probably fine. I mean, nobody's going to care when it's just a weed-whacker or something. Less so when it's an awkward 60 pounds or so, that still needs to be maintained. My mechanic had other complaints as well, but that one stuck from our conversation. No wonder he's got a bad back...

I have a lawnmower and snowblower, both Toro, that have to have their oil drained this way. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Haha, nice.

Seems like a good bet for now.

I just put down a deposit on a 2025 Camry after test driving one. The dealer cannot keep these on the lot - almost every single one is being sold before it even gets there (including mine). And we aren't a particularly big market.

Surprised no one has mentioned the outrageous cost of the average EV on the US market. We just bought a second hybrid last year because the EVs we wanted were all in the $60k range. That’s not affordable for much of the US population.

I always find this narrative funny.

Toyota didnt invest in EVs. Now they look like geniuses.

They made a mistake lol

Toyota is, and has always been, playing the long game. They have been making electrified vehicles for longer than just about any automaker on the planet. Serious people argue Toyota didn't make a mistake.

It helps they have a crazy reliable hybrid transmission

Its simple, but almost defies understanding

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmHpSyTsfm0

As long as they finally start adding plugin hybrids to the lineup. I'm itching to buy a PHEV tacoma, but it looks like midsize trucks will be the last form factor to get any decent options.

A small plugin hybrid would be nice. All the options seem to be SUVs.

There is a PHEV Prius which is not an SUV. It's not a small hatchback either, but yeah it's not a big car. And there is a PHEV C-HR too, which is more like a crossover than a proper SUV.

A small plugin hybrid doesn't make sense. It still needs room for both the ICE _and_ electrical parts. So the whole car is not scaling down, only the passenger compartment and luggage area.

I have a Chevy Volt (second gen). It looks like a normal car, has a 50-mile range on the battery and also has a gas engine. The passenger and luggage area are pretty normal, maybe the center rear seat isn't usable, but it isn't really usable in most sedans. I really want a previous-gen sized Ford Ranger or current Ford Maverick with the same battery range.

IMHO the Maverick hybrid is a phenomenal vehicle. I've averaged 460+ miles per tank of gas (13.8 gal and I don't run it to E). The 2025 looks better all around except IMHO the bigger screen.

I've watched a few review videos on the Maverick and while it does seem like the closest replacement for my (now totaled) Ford Ranger, I still wish it was a plugin/range extended drive train. It's nice not having to stop at a gas station except for when I'm on road trips 2-3 times a year.

BMW i3 with range extender is basically that, and I don't think the compromises to make that happen were that bad.

I wish more manufacturers made models like the i3. It's such a clever design.

I love the i3 but there were some substantial compromises.

On the manufacturing side: For weight and space reasons its the only non sports car to have ever been built with a carbon fiber monocoque which is pretty expensive compared to a traditional unibody. Extremely cool but not a realistic benchmark for cheap, mass-market vehicles.

User experience wise: Its a great car until the battery starts getting low. The range extender can't put out the same power as the battery so it goes into a fairly severe limp mode until it charges. The range extender is pretty inefficient in part because it just spins a generator instead of the wheels directly, so it only gets ~40mpg on gas. It also has an extremely small gas tank (2.4 gal) so the range extender only buys you another 120 or so miles before you have to stop and refill. It also only supports 50kWh charging so fast charging is not very fast at all.

I'm wondering where you experienced the "fairly severe limp mode" -- our REx can keep up with 75mph driving on a level highway, and will recharge the battery even at 65. Rain and hills have been able to overpower our REx, but never anything that prevented us from maintaining 55mph. Not really limping.

I grant that other climates and situations may have different experiences. We're on the west coast.

The Prius Prime is a plug-in hybrid with about 45 miles of electric range and runs about $35k. It's not a "small" car, but by North American standards it isn't exactly large either.

Unfortunately that's 2.5x what I paid for my current Toyota hybrid (brand new), and while I know prices for cars have gone up a lot since 2019, it still makes no sense for me to get another Toyota if that's what's on offer.

It's useful to compare that the average new car purchased today in the U.S. is something like $50k.

> A small plugin hybrid doesn't make sense.

On the contrary, a small plugin hybrid makes perfect sense. You get all the benefits of the EV (somewhere between 40 to 60 miles of non-gasoline driving, every night, with no emissions) and you get all the benefits of an ICE (easy road trips, two-minute refills, etc). And yes, it incurs the costs and maintenance of both, but traditional hybrid cars have already proved for decades now that it's possible to handle that well.

I love my Gen 2 Chevy Volt (had the Gen1 Volt before that, and a 2009 Toyota Yaris before that). If my Gen2 Volt died, I legitimately don't know what I'd do, most cars are a huge downgrade, there's only a few decent PHEV's still on the market.

Toyota should have been pursuing this strategy from the beginning, and I'm told their current Prius PHEV is pretty good, but all that means is that it's finally competitive with 2013-era Chevrolet. Chevy killing Voltec is probably their biggest strategic failure in the past decade -- they stopped it just a few years before those vehicles became popular.

The article says the first plugin hybrid on the new EV platform will likely be a Corolla plug-in hybrid that should be available in the US in 2027.

There is going to be no small PHEVs because it is cheaper to build small BEVs. Case example in Finland:

Cheapest new BEVs start at 25.000€ (Citroen e-c3, Nissan Leaf)

Cheapest PHEV Start at 33.000€ (Kia CEED, Renault captur)

People think PHEV makes things cheaper than BEV. But really mixing two powertrains is expensive and complex, and can only be fit in big cars. Plug-in hybrid is a luxury feature that allows you not worry about charging on the road.

> But really mixing two powertrains is expensive and complex, and can only be fit in big cars.

So "big, expensive, and complex", that Toyota's only been doing it since 2003. (Or 1997, in Japan).

Yes, it's a luxury to have both drivetrains and a sizable battery. But it's not a huge one. (using USA MSRP pricing, a Nissan Leaf starts at $30k, a Toyota Prius Prime PHEV starts at $34k).

Chicken Tax makes that impossible

Not just the Chicken Tax but Obama era (revived under Biden) fuel efficiency standards that are ridiculous for vehicles under a certain weight. Those regs are more to blame than the Chicken Tax these days (and I'm NO fan of the Chicken Tax).

Agreed. Thanks for the enhancement.

What would be great is a PHEV where you could slowly add more batteries over time. Or had the space and vendor support to up the EV only range.

That would be amazing, except the manufacturer incentives to do so are not there :-( I have a Volvo XC60 T8 with an 11.6kWh battery, and apparently their new 18.8kWh battery fits in the same space - but Volvo doesn't support that as an upgrade, because obviously they would rather sell you a new car than a new battery.

Some government required standardisation seems in order.

> plugin hybrids

That's the plan once their battery factory in NC goes online.

Toyota's battery partner Idemetsu Kosan is also on the verge of mass producing solid-state batteries too, along with Mitsubishi's AGC along with CATL's founder TDK.

Japan's Public-Private Solid-State Battery R&D Strategy is a great template for how these kinds of research programs should be lead [0][1][2] but doesn't get enough limelight because most info is in Japanese

[0] - https://www.meti.go.jp/policy/energy_environment/global_warm...

[1] - https://www.meti.go.jp/english/report/pdf/0520_001a.pdf

[2] - https://www.meti.go.jp/english/policy/energy_environment/glo...

They've been selling them since 2012.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Prius_Plug-in_Hybrid

GP specified Tacoma

Is it only Toyota who doesn't have PHEV pickups? BYD does and The RAM 1500 is coming but that's all I can find.

They have their niche. The competition in EV is strong from China and Tesla. They’ll need heavy government subsidies to break into that market. But they can be the reliable low cost ICE producer and outcompete everyone else. In fact they’ll have less competition when demand gets lower for ICE.

Hardly. EV sales are slowing down. All the people willing to put up with EVs have bought; the market is saturated. Demand for ICE isn't going anywhere.

> Demand for ICE isn't going anywhere.

Yes it is. People are tired of the high prices, the smog, and sending their sons and daughters to fight and die in wars for oil while Big Oil executives rake in millions.

No thanks. Yes, we're transitioning and that will take time - longer than I think some people are hoping for, but we're transitioning nonetheless.

EV sales will pick up again as they continue to get cheaper and become less expensive than ICEVs.

The idea of a hybrid light truck (Tacoma) interested me. When I looked into it, the hybrid mileage was only 23mpg, compared to 20 for the regular model. What’s the point of that?

Mileage doesn't really make sense as a measure for hybrids. Usually the electro motor handles the speed/power ranges where the fuel engine would perform badly. Rule of thumb: low velocity stuff. If you do a lot of that (and braking), then the hybrid is going to save you fuel. If you do a lot of relatively constant speed driving (such as I expect for light trucks), a fueled engine doesn't really benefit much from e-support, as you see in your numbers.

Aren’t light trucks mostly driven around the city, pretty much like any other vehicle?

For whatever reason Toyota seems to be designing their hybrid truck options as power upgrades rather than efficiency upgrades. They often put the exact same engine in and just add 50HP and 150 ft/lb of torque with an electric motor. I'm sure its great for towing and for low-end torque off-road but it feels like a weird strategy to target the MORE POWER MORE TORQUE I NEED TO TOW 5 TONS ON SHORT NOTICE crowd with a product category associated with boring slow green commuter cars.

I would imagine that some of that is going to be because trucks don’t just compete on fuel efficiency like economy sedans, they compete on power as well.

In an Accord Hybrid the only number they are trying to push up is mpg. In a Tacoma they also are trying to maximize torque,hp, towing capacity etc.

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