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Comment by juujian | Hacker News Reader

Not just Tesla, all established brands we know are left behind. I never understood Volkswagen's pivot from 'wait and See's to 'were inversing billions' to 'we were too late, abort'. Largest brands n terms of units, completely left behind in an emerging segment that's already dominating it's largest market (China). So many executives in the industry just didn't see the writing on the wall. I don't what GM was thinking, trying a truck as their first platform for EVs, but it's another indicator. This industry has the worst executives. Just don't see the writing on the wall.

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This is what makes the innovator's dilemma repeat itself so many times in so many industries. It's not that the incumbent companies don't see the new technology; it's that they're so entrenched in what they know how to do that pivoting to the new technology is basically a Hail Mary no matter how you do it. Do it too early and your shareholders are going to think you're crazy. Do it too late, and you're risking entering a new market as the chaser with a bad hand of company, employees, and board that don't have any idea of what they're doing.

I think it’s less “pivoting is hard” and more “we know what’s right and we’re not going to pivot”.

It’s not hard to have smaller R&D teams work on these problems to keep the innovation going, but most executives are out there prioritizing cost cuttings so that the shareholders get the quarterly dopamine boosts on the earnings calls.

Exactly, usually the companies know what's coming up, like you said. But, properly shifting gears to play a new game requires that you act like a startup again. It likely requires foregoing the fat margins you were used to. And it likely requires going back to the drawing board and actually learning from the market.

And this is what companies find it hard to do. To be fair, I think that is not so bad a things. Companies should rise and die naturally. A few companies monopolizing markets forever does not seem good.

Kodak knew digital cameras were coming, my first digital camera was a Kodak from the late 90's. I guess it wasn't in their DNA to innovate and compete in this new medium.

I feel like being a publicly traded company prevents pivoting because of the focus on short term results.

Kodak didn't really have the option to compete. Their business was largely film, which just disappeared completely, and even digital cameras got replaced pretty quickly with phones. There was nothing to pivot too for Kodak.

What company does the digital camera sensor inside your phone come from? Why couldn't have that been Kodak?

Kodak had digital cameras but it would 10-15 years before digital sensors would be good enough.

But the film market collapsed in like 5-7 years.

and some simple math says that 10-15 minus 5-7 still leaves Kodak in the lurch. But it's now 2025, and Kodak the corporation is still around, so I don't know that my supposition: Kodak would be doing better today if they'd gone all in on digital camera sensor technology, is disproven by that fact.

car manufacturers can afford to experiment - it's not like they don't have room in the budget. and they did experiment.

if you don't know GM's history with electric cars: they were positioned to execute a successful transition about thirty years ago, but they simply chose not to.

As someone with a lot of family working in GM corporate, it seems like they were never really confident in it in the first place. So many of them scoffed at the entire idea of electric cars and most still do, even with their own lineup and having driven them themselves. They expected them to fail and never put in the actual effort to support it. It seemed like 80% of corporate were against it completely and without reason because they themselves were doing fine and could afford the gas on their free corporate car and massive discounted family purchased cars. And everyone below them fed their egos by spewing garbage about how well they are all doing with their high margin luxury trimmed cars without considering how they are pricing more and more people out of their entire brand each year.

Although Ford's CEO now gets it, Ford's product line doesn't reflect it yet. Farley has been bringing a few sample BYD cars to the US, for Ford people to drive around and to take apart. Farley dragged his executive team to China to see a BYD plant. They came back scared. But what Ford actually sells is 1) an F-150 converted to electric, 2) a Ford Mustang converted to electric, and 3) a Ford Transit converted to electric. They're all more expensive, and heavier, than their gasoline-powered versions.

BYD shows that electric cars are cheaper if designed properly from the ground up. The problem is that the US no longer makes many cars. Mostly giant trucks and SUVs. Hauling all that mass around requires a huge battery, resulting in 3-ton vehicles.

the mustang mach e is a purpose built EV. not a mustang with a battery back stuck in.

> a Ford Mustang converted to electric

I agree with your comment, but I'll be a little pedantic for a minute:

As a Charger Daytona owner, I'd love to call the Mach-E a mustang, but it's really just borrowing the brand. Ford has said unequivocally that they'll never make an all-electric muscle car, which is a real shame. The Mach-E is a great car if you're turned off by a Model Y, but you wouldn't choose it over a mustang GT or a charger Daytona or a Camaro.

> Ford has said unequivocally that they'll never make an all-electric muscle car

What’s the thinking here? Pandering to some market segment? It sounds like they are organising the deck chairs in the titanic.

Edit: I tried looking into the comment. It seems he was referring to Mustangs specifically, which is weird as they do make an electric one (assuming you agree it’s a ‘real’ mustang).

I’m confused.

It’s not though. Just borrowing the name as they said.

That’s just it though. If the name doesn’t make it a Mustang, what does?

Nothing, thats the problem. The Ship of Theseus can't have all of its parts replaced at the same time in order to still be called the Ship of Theseus.

If I take a Ford Focus and call it a Mustang, is it? Arguably, no. Mustangs have a distinctive style, feel, feature set, intended audience. It's a matter of what people expect when they buy the thing.

The Mach-E kind of snuck in. I believe they intended to make more electric Mustang-branded cars, but things changed internally and priorities shifted. Lots of women really like Mustangs, and the Mach-E is positioned to appeal to many of the same people: it makes sense to use it as a kind of Trojan horse to ease folks into EVs with a brand they already like. But if you took a Mach-E and hid the name and asked folks "is this a Mustang?" The answer you'd get is "No".

The Mach-E isn't a muscle car. The comment was specifically around the Mustang sedan, which they do not have an electric version of.

Honestly, it's befuddling to me. There's a lot of folks who could get talked into an electric muscle car, they just have to know how to sell it. I own a Charger Daytona and literally every car guy I show it to has interest; I genuinely think Dodge just doesn't know how to market and sell it. I'm 100% confident that the right marketing agency could sell 100k of these, but the cohort of "it'll never be a Mustang" is far louder than the "wow that thing rips" crowd.

"Americans only want trucks and SUVs." (I hear people say.)

Cool. Then allow BYD non-trucks, non-SUVs into the U.S. then.

The Japanese back in the 70's showed U.S. automakers that price and mileage (in that decade anyway) were important to Americans. I suspect price is still important.

Why would they allow it? It would destroy the remaining car industry in the US. Better to at least maintain a car industry, even if it’s inefficient.

Why is that better?

A jobs subsidy program that focused on more productive industries would be better than subsidizing an auto industry that never aimed for international competitiveness.

We have exceptionally productive fields in the US tumor are the envy of the world. If we can't be productive in auto manufacturing, devoting a ton of our workforce too it is a misallocation of our limited resources.

If we are going to be subsidizing unprofitable industry fro national security purposes, we need to either 1) ruthlessly cut the least productive manufacturers from access to subsidies, or 2) nationalize it. Any other choices would be very inefficient.

The historical track record of that kind of thing is terrible. You end up with a bloated, inefficient industry that produces bad products. Britain, pre-EU, did a lot of that. British Steel, British Rail, British Overseas Airways Corporation, British Petroleum, English Electric computers, etc. Then they needed bailouts. This resulted in what's called "lemon socialism" - the state owns all the dud industries.

I wish I could get a BYD Dolphin hatch for ~10k USD. Somehow my 12 year old Prius is worth 9k on KBB and that's insane.

Dolphins don't sell for $10k outside of China. Dolphins in South/Central America are ~$22k. Even if there weren't tariffs on them I wouldn't expect to see them out the door for less than $25k in the US.

Why the 120% price difference between China and South America?

Different government subsidies, different manufacturing costs, different regulatory requirements, and different markets have different market competition.

Think about this concept. It costs you $1 to make a widget. It costs your competitors $1.25 to make a similar widget. They sell theirs for $5. Do you sell yours for $1.50 or $4.75? Obviously, other things could be in play for the market for widgets, but if you could sell all your widgets for $4.75 wouldn't you do that?

If the cheapest car in the US is about $20k and is a complete POS, why would you sell your better car for $10k when you could still sell it for $22k and still sell just about all the ones you build?

A lot of this makes sense. But why would South America's consumer market be less competitive than China? If China's low prices are caused by, say, 3 Chinese brands competing with each other, why can't those 3 Chinese brands also compete with each other in South America?

Chinese brands are in a horrible price war ATM in China, with many cars being sold at losses (and tricks to get around government imposed price controls, like selling a new car as used!). In a less competitive market where they have more pricing power, they simply aren’t going to do that. And even if 3 brands have enough resources to go abroad, they left 10+ brands behind that couldn’t (every 3rd or greater tier city has their own brand, so even saying 10 is probably an underestimate, heck you have cities like Liuzhou that aren’t even 3rd tier!).

They will also sell higher end configurations abroad to make it worth their time. They won’t sell the absolute bare bones option that comes with almost no profit (if not a loss).

Your post is so muddled. The cheapest new EV on the US market is a Nissan Leaf at ~30k MSRP new, but I found a used 2025 model with 1341 miles for $17,899 in a cursory search. Nissan has a dealership in my city so I know it can be serviced here or at worst the next largest city near here while a Chinese brand would be a crapshoot until it spreads to my medium-small city. I can only imagine the stink people will put on Chinese cars, even hybrids and American made EVs get poo-poo'd.

I imagine that a Chinese automaker such as BYD would price itself low, something like an EV at ICE prices, to get a foothold in the American market. I really wish BYD was around here so I could drive one and look at the build quality myself, it's almost like the domestic Automakers and the CIA are putting out hit pieces about the brand.

> The cheapest new EV on the US market is a Nissan Leaf

I said the cheapest car not the cheapest EV. And of that I meant new car. That would be the Nissan Versa, which has an MSRP of $18,385. After TTL, depending on your market you're probably looking at something around $20k out the door.

When BYD makes an affordable clone of the Crown Vic that doesn’t phone home to the PRC, I’ll look at them.

Why the Crown Vic? Even Ford doesn't make them anymore!

The statement is likely to be justification propaganda from those companies that have focused on trucks and SUVs. There is still a car market in the U.S., and for that matter, in South America and Canada.

Something else that is not being told in the mainstream media, is the U.S. bias and negative attitude towards South American countries has left the door wide open to China. And China is firmly establishing itself there, where it is unlikely that the U.S. can compete for at least a decade, if not a generation.

> a Ford Mustang converted to electric

The Mustang Mach-e isn't like any other Mustang. It just has the Mustang branding.

Ford is a bad example because they’ve pretty much abandoned all their non truck and transit van segments for years. Even if EVs weren’t a thing, they do not compete in any of the segments and haven’t for almost a decade. First it was Japanese and German companies eating their lunch, now it’s the Chinese.

Also, F150 lightening is such a failure. There was a recent video of it trying to haul very minimal load and it pretty much drained the battery in less than 100 miles.

> Also, F150 lightening is such a failure. There was a recent video of it trying to haul very minimal load and it pretty much drained the battery in less than 100 miles.

Was that due to something specific with the Lightning, or was it just due to the intrinsic energy requirements of hauling loads? (Or in other words, does an EV even exist that's notably better at hauling loads?)

Probably both. It was a consumer review, so hard to say from an engineering perspective.

TBH, those tests are mostly marketing failures. EV trucks aren't really good at hauling trailers over large distances, as the aerodynamics produce a massive impact on range.

Multiple tests have shown this by showing 50% or more range reduction from pulling lightweight, non-aerodynamic loads.

The marketing failure is that the companies have allowed consumers to incorrectly extrapolate from this to thinking that heavy loads in the bed have the same issue. They actually don't as weight is a minimal impact on range.

Unfortunately, every thread about carrying sheetrock, rocks, mulch, etc shows how misinformed the average consumer has become in this space. It has to be a significant impact on sales, given that in the US these are the only heavy loads carried by >50% of the half ton pickups sold here.

Yep, so many people think hauling weight kills your gas mileage, but it doesn't really have that big of an effect unless you are hauling a massive load through stop and go traffic while in a hurry. The vast majority of people do most of their hauling of things down the highway, not through the middle of cities, and 90% of the losses from hauling load is just wind resistance against the poorly aerodynamic trailer which is a lot while at highway speeds. If someone is traveling down the highway at 70 MPH in their SUV with 1500 lbs in the back hatch, the only extra fuel it takes over the same SUV being empty is a tiny amount of extra friction in the tires that comes out to a fraction of a MPG.

Not to be nitpicky, but that's only really true if you're driving down a perfectly flat, straight highway at a constant speed. Any hills or traffic slowdowns and your car or truck is doing more work the more it weighs.

True, but regenerative braking eliminates most of that as well.

> EV trucks aren't really good at hauling trailers over large distances, as the aerodynamics produce a massive impact on range.

Maybe I'm being stupid, but how could that possibly just be a problem for EVs? The aerodynamic physics don't care what's powering the car so the impact on range should be roughly the same.

Or is the problem that even if EV range impact is similar to fossil fuel range impact, the extra time required to recharge vs refuel makes that range impact more, uh, impactful for drivers?

Yes, that's exactly it. A lot of people have shown that gas trucks suffer range loss as well, but they start off with higher range and get refilled in <5 minutes.

The EVs lose enough range that they often need to be charged deep into the pack to make it to the next station, which leads to >40 minute charging sessions every 100-120 miles.

It’s an intrinsic issue with hauling loads, combined with the relatively low range of F150L.

By comparison the the Chevy Silverado EV gets ~450mi of range unloaded and testing seems to have it able to tow ~250mi of range at 70mph, which seems plenty between stops: https://www.hotcars.com/chevrolet-silverado-ev-towing/

I want an electric drive train with the engine that works like a generator at a fixed speed. Don't think anyone offers something like this.

They exist, but I don't think there's currently any new models for sale in the US. I think they're generally called "series hybrid," or sometimes it's marketed as an electric vehicle with range extender.

I believe the Chevy Volt worked this way - you can see used ones for sale for around $15k.

That's the BMW i3 with range extender. It works pretty good for long trips. Probably 95% of my miles are electric though.

I think Dodge is planning a serial hybrid truck called RAM charger.

Some hybrid cars almost work this way. I know at least Honda's hybrids basically do what you're suggesting but at constant highway speeds will directly couple the engine to the drive wheels. They presumably could use electric motors powered by the engine in all driving scenarios, but I believe direct engine drive at highway speeds is more energy efficient.

This is probably why most hybrid systems I'm aware of don't only use electric motors to power the drive wheels. The idea sounds cool and I've also wondered why you can't buy something like that in the US (I think it exists elsewhere), but the math doesn't really work out. Even in terms of engineering complexity, because the engine is only directly driving the wheels at certain speeds, you can get by without a lot of the mechanical drivetrain components like transmissions.

Highway towing range hit is largely an aerodynamic drag issue. Any EV truck (or any car really, even gas cars have a big range hit) is going to get a massive ding in its range towing anything increasing it's aero drag even if it's an empty box. It's just with a gas truck you're starting with 300+mi often for a well equipped truck so you lose 100mi of range you're still over 200mi per tank.

But an EV, on a long range road trip you're rarely charging to 100%, you're often going like 5%->80% because the charging speeds fall off a cliff after a certain percentage. So you start off with maybe 300mi, but not really because after the first leg you're only using 75% of it, but now you're also using like 25% more energy because of the massively increased drag. So what was 300mi on a full charge became maybe 150mi on a full charge once you're on that second leg. Coupled with the fact what used to be free energy (heating the cabin with waste engine heat) if you're towing in cold weather you're not even going to get that 150mi.

> Ford is a bad example because they’ve pretty much abandoned all their non truck and transit van segments for years.

Perhaps in the US. Here in the UK you see a lot of Focuses and Fiestas, especially the ST models, and the "ST Line" models, which have ST trim but boring engines.

Quite often you see the latter on their side a surprisingly long way from the tarmac, surrounded by bits of obliterated cattle fence, with a very patient farmer rolling it back onto its wheels with the Manitou to make the recovery guy's day easier.

The Lightning really isn’t meant for towing a horse trailer cross country. It’s meant for hauling a new vanity or a couple sheets of drywall from Home Depot. It does that suburban warrior stuff quite competently.

I've got a Lightning and I think I like the 'converted to electric' aspect. Everything that fits on a regular ICE F-150 fits on my truck. The interior is the same (okay, some trims have a big screen, but not all do). It would be nice if it had a bit more range, but when I look at the efficiency of an R1T or a CT, I don't see that being purpose-built would automatically be a win for Ford. Pickups are not ever going to be competitive with sedans and CUVs for efficiency.

The problem with the Lightning is mostly that it's a money-loser for Ford.

I've never seen a good number on this. Is it money losing per vehicle, or because of the amortized R&D included in the cost? The problem from my perspective is that it hasn't turned out as popular as they hoped -- truck buyers are a hard to convert bunch of people. Which is too bad, because my Lightning is my favorite of all the pickups I've owned over the years. It's a fantastic truck.

> Is it money losing per vehicle, or because of the amortized R&D included in the cost?

Certainly the latter, but I don't think it was ever going to be money-making, even in the Ford's best-case sales/production scenario it was really a gen1 platform (along with the Mach-E) to get their foot in the door with EV production, supply chains, sales, etc.

Then they got hit with various external events (low gas prices, higher electricity prices, EV credit cancellations, higher tariffs, etc.) that made their numbers even worse.

FWIW I'm also a fan of the Lightning - it's obviously not a drop-in replacement for 100% of things an F150 can do, and the pricing is tough, but just on its own merits it's a very nice truck. (I was recently car shopping, but had no need/inclination for a full-size truck, so ended up with a hybrid Maverick instead - very impressed with that too so far.)

> the pricing is tough

Ford certainly didn't do themselves any favors, that's for sure. Even today, the street price is not commonly known -- I talk to people all the time who think it's a 70K+ truck even though it's been continuously available for 15-20K less for a year or more. I'm guilty of that myself, I was going to settle for a used hybrid powerboost F-150 for about 55K before someone casually mentioned that the Lightning could be had for just over 50K brand new (and not the base model!). Dodged a bullet on that one I think, the powerboost has an awful reputation for reliability.

> ended up with a hybrid Maverick instead

That's a very solid choice. When my kids move on with their own lives in a few years, I'll be very open to a smaller truck. Maybe not Maverick small, but it's still very appealing (and doubly so if Ford makes an electric version). I am hoping Ford has plans for an electric Ranger.

The lightning isn’t selling, almost at all.

You’re mischaracterizing the Mustang Mach-E which never should have been named that because it has nothing to do with the ICE Mustang at all aside from the horsey badge.

> resulting in 3-ton vehicles

And a surge in road deaths.

The small part in me understands that, they are banking on three things 1) oil will be cheap because of EV boom and hence EV dominance will be slow and could take couple of decades 2) electric Energy cost will rise significantly because so much charging and energy infrastructure required. 3) Battery will reach at par with gasoline and matured standardised comodity, that will be the perfect time to enter.

I think #1 will probably play out to a certain extent. Perhaps as an oscillation between low and high as each wave knocks more gas stations out of business and refinery capacity offline. But I have to say, even low prices on gas won't make me go back -- I prefer my EVs in all regards to the ICE equivalents, with the sole exception of marathon (>450 miles per day) road trips, which is not my use case.

I hope #2 won't be the future. It's not as easy to just jack up electric prices because EVs are charging, because they are regulated, and electricity is used for way more than cars (if my napkin math is right, on average people will use around 30% more electricity if they go full electric).

I expect that as a practical matter #3 is here now, it just hasn't filtered down to retail car sales in the US yet.

> with the sole exception of marathon (>450 miles per day) road trips

I've done 4 3000km road trips and intentionally took the EV leaving the ICE vehicle at home. It's a better car, and we need to stop to bathroom anyways, so charging isn't inconvenient. Saving a few hundred dollars in fuel is nice, too.

Long EV trips are possible amd convenient if there are enough chargers along the route. Sadly, this isn't the case on many routes in the US, at least. Europe is doing much better. I have no experience in other places.

Different people optimize for different things. I have a 450 mile trip (each way) next weekend. I can do it in 1 full tank of gas, but realistically I’ll stop once to fill up halfway. I don’t plan any other stops. If I had an EV, I’d probably have to stop twice, for 30+ minutes each, extending my already long trip by an hour each way.

Why would you do that when you can easily make that trip in a typical 320 mile range EV with a single 20 minute charge?

> If I had an EV, I’d probably have to stop twice, for 30+ minutes each

You probably wouldn't for a 450mi trip, so long as you're driving an EV that's even halfway decent for road trips.

1. if you are driving 450 miles you should stop at least twice

2. unless you have an old or low mileage battery you won’t have to stop more than once

3. if you do stop twice (which you should) you should not need more than 15-20 minute stop

Honestly, even my Lightning could do 450 with one stop, and it’s not the poster child for high range. My model 3 would do that no problem and the stop would be half as long.

My back and butt beg me to stop every couple hundred miles anyway, so on a long road trip I plan for a lunch stop. Longer than 450 and I stop for the night or fly. But I don’t love road tripping no matter how big the has tank.

Like what route? Everytime I've talked to someone who claimed they couldn't buy an EV because of a certain route, abetterrouteplanner.com showed it was covered.

A day trip from Seattle into the cascades for hiking is a scenario that pushes EV range. I'm sure that I can't properly reach some hiking destinations. Going uphill into the Cascades eats battery range in a way that I still find hard to estimate.

Another other example that I couldn't make work was multi day stay in Gardiner to visit Yellowstone National Park.

Third example where I struggled was a weekend trip to Lincoln City, OR. No usable chargers within the city or along the coast. The ones listed on maps have restrictions. The only way was to get a full charge at the last station on the way there and keep careful watch over the remaining range while there.

ICEs have access to a much denser network of gas stations, which eliminates range concerns. EVs aren't there yet and the additional trip preplanning imposed by that is real effort at times.

For a while maybe, but cheap EVs are being manufactured in Europe as well, and while this could reduce petrol prices, it's also going to reduce the need for petrol stations, and I think makes petrol basically dead even in a cheap-petrol scenario.

A Renault Twingo is going to cost something like 20,000 euros. That's twice the price of a Dacia Sandero, but a Dacia Spring is 16,900. The difference is only 4000, which could easily be a year's petrol.

A modern small and medium-sized car in Europe consumes like 4-6 liters/100 km. Even if one drives 15 thousands km/year (way above average) that gives like 900 liters of gasoline per year or like 1500-1700 euros with typical European prices.

And electricity is not free especially when using fast chargers. So at the end the savings is about 500-1000 euros per year. Which still is a good deal, but explains why people prefer to buy small gasoline cars. I think electric car premium must be below 2 thousand euros plus infrastructure must improve before gasoline car sales in Europe start to collapse.

Ah. I hadn't realised that modern petrol cars had gotten that efficient.

When I had a petrol car it was like at least 12 L/100 km, probably more. I remember 100 km drives (Stockholm-Uppsala and back) costing hundreds of Swedish crowns in petrol.

> When I had a petrol car it was like at least 12 L/100 km, probably more

What was it? That's approximately what my late-90s Range Rover does, although it's converted to run on LPG which is much cheaper and much much much cleaner.

WV seems to do amazingly in Europe so not sure what you are talking about. It is Tesla thaumt seems to be leaving the EV market with no new exciting models and making the European market hate the brand.

https://www.best-selling-cars.com/electric/2025-half-year-eu...

Reuters disagrees

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volksw...

That article says nothing about VW EV sales being poor in Europe. In fact it calls VW’s EVs increasingly popular.

The losses seem to be due to a tariff hit in the U.S. and due to Porsche change in strategy to focus more on hybrids and ICEs (0possibky because they’re focusing on EVs through VW?).

Seems to me like they largely agree. VW has issues caused by US tariffs and problems with Porsche but EV sales in Europe are growing and carries the rest of the company.

That's related to one relatively minor subsidiary brand (Porsche accounts for about 3% of VW AG's sales), and it's a _weird_ brand for them, in that, whereas in a given size category the relevant SEAT, Skoda, VW, Audi etc are all pretty much the same, Porsches are quite distinct. VW as a whole is fairly committed to electric. Like, that article notes that their European EV sales are good.

Let’s not forget the Japanese who decided they didn’t want to compete in EVs because they couldn’t use that platform in some of their heavy machinery so decided to get the Japanese government to push hard on hydrogen, at a time Nissan was making a nice push in EVs, which led to Nissan having to back out of EVs as well.

> 'we were too late, abort'

What do you mean, the ID series for the main VW brand have 7 upcoming models over the next two years (4 for the Chinese market, 3 for everywhere).

> all established brands we know are left behind

I wouldn't go that far. The Renault 5 is one of the best selling EVs in Europe, and all the reviews are extremely positive (it's a fun and good looking car overall, and accessible). They have the 4 rolling out, and the small Twingo coming next year. They've also managed to narrow down the time from concept car to production at scale to less than 2 years (which according to the article on the topic I read is very fast).

It was a new race- and they where so comfortable having won the IC-race and customer base! Now everyone and his dog got a new chance to compete- and they just didn't want to do that. And now every advance in battery and solar, will drive them faster out of those markets.

These are not detached technologies- one completes the other.

I thought Toyota is doing quite well in emerging markets? However they skipped a lot of EV craziness and just do cheap-and-reliable ICE cars.

I also never understood why established brands lobbied for EVs, and not against them. They clearly had no edge over Tesla and Chinese brands, why compete on rival's field?

Toyota hasn’t offered pure electric where I am, just hybrids. And they have only just started offering plug in models I can charge.

I’d love a Corolla or Camri EV - I’m not sure what ‘the Corolla of EVs’ is considered to be.

It’s the Model 3, or maybe one of the Hyundai/Kia small EVs.

>I never understood Volkswagen's pivot from 'wait and See's to 'were inversing billions' to 'we were too late, abort'.

How is VW aborting in any way? They do not have a new ICE Platform, they are totally all in on EVs. Whether that will work out is of course another question, but it is bizarre to bring up EV when there is also Stellantis, who do not even have a dedicated EV Platform for their cars.

Dieselgate put VW on the back foot at almost exactly the wrong time in automotive history.

Huh? VW is the largest seller of electric cars in Europe. I'm not sure what makes you think they've given up.

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