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For years Toyota gave its full-throated support of hybrids over EVs. But now it’s second guessing its strategy. It’s doing a U-turn and will now go with a full-bore electric effort. What’s going on at the company? And why is it doing an about face? What drove Toyota to have a change of heart?
PANEL:
– Jack Keebler, Keebler Auto
– Todd Lassa, Contributor Autoweek
– Gary Vasilash, on Automotive
– John McElroy, Autoline.tv
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40 Comments
Carbon neutral “gasoline” is being produced including diesel or Jet Fuel making some of battery tech pointless or more carbon intensive.
Its obvious none of you understand software development, it the architecture that is critical, not the coding. The latest design upgrade at Tesla appears to be the ID of the gold standard design. The new version 4 computer in the Tesla models is already in production and uses less power than the version 3. Tesla, at the same time upgraded al of the camera to a higher resolution, no price change to the vehicle. The issues you raise are old argument…. the issues with the two failing AI companies is that they selected the wrong software architecture and refused to change…
Who cares what Ford and GM are doing on the self-drive functionality. They will end up buying the technology because they don't know how to develop software.
You seem to forget, the cost of producing an EV by the existing car companies is significant higher than Tesla… you can loose money on each car and make it up through volume.
Don’t forget Vinfast!
Toyota's EV strategy is braindead and may bankrupt them. All they had to do was start offering a plugin hybrid model where they have mild hybrids. Then the market could decide and show them the way. They instead will continue to lose market share to those that have EV models.
John, this whole conversation reinforces that Tesla is so far ahead of all the other auto manufacturers that everyone else is just thrashing away trying to be in a distant 2nd place.
With all due respect, your guests’ knowledge and expertise is related to the incremental and linear rate of improvements the auto business has achieved in the last century. There’s an absence of understanding the exponential change that’s occurring in the BEV industry. I know you are aware of it.
Interesting discussion. Take Care.
Why talk about combustion technology, when the world are going over to EV's?
It's like making bow and arrows when the others make hunting rifles.
Toyota need to do the same as Mercedes.
Make the platform all EV. And, if you need to make a hybrid, you need to adapt to that.
Why didn’t you invite this guy Jack? Every other word he says I don’t know how many lithium mining we need. I don’t know if gasoline engine would be better. If you don’t know maybe you should shut up. Those plug-in Electric vehicles battery have to be dragging Heavy engine transmission transmission and the cost so no way in hell cheaper or more efficient to have plug-in electric
What got Toyota's attention is that the Tesla Model Y has sold more units in California in the first 3 quarters than the Corolla which is half the price of the Tesla. You will see Toyoda decide to retire in the next couple of years. Toyota has a large corporate debt, while Tesla has virtually none which is going to make it difficult to fund their EV transition, especially as the Toyota ICE decline.
The USA doesn’t have to worry to about China if you don’t care about having the USA being a world wide competitive automotive nation.
Subscriptions for cars is a no go in my household. I will never buy a car that requires a subscription. I also don’t want a car that will not run if I have to have a subscription for the cars operating system.
I suspect the two guests make their living writing about ICE cars and ICE car manufacturers. If they say anything positive about EVs they might lose access to their sources.
John, One big plug-in hybrid issue is that a new study shows US owners aren't actually changing day-to-day behavior to plug in the car! They keep going to gas stations to buy gasoline. The road of good intentions…or you can lead a horse to water…
Keebler is wrong about a lot of things, but largely coal? Rip Van Winkle. Search EIA Power Monthly, Chapter 1, table 1.1 and 1.1.A. Coal is 20% and dropping. Renewables are bigger.
Shocked by the many misinformation and inaccuracies from the guests, Jack Keebler in particular. For example, VW didn't acquired 60% of Horizon Robotics. VW and Horizon set up a Chinese JV which is 60% owned by VW.
The Venus Project…start….with infrastructure, you know education, health, efficiency…….need any more clues?
Since the majority of EV charging is at night and the electric grid is under utilized at night, it will be a long time before EV charging will need grid improvements. Also once EV batteries are durable enough they can provide backfeed to houses during power outage
Once you consider the hardware cost and the energy consumption of the Autonomy suite, only Tesla has a viable strategy
using old statistics on resources kind of hurts your credibility… lithium is a salt and one of the most common on the planet. The technology to mine and process Lithium is extremely low tech and readily available. If you don't expect the nimble of the world to find it everywhere when the price is there, you have no real view of history…
My toyota avalon hybrid is the most reliable car I have ever owned. but I have a new model Y as well. Hands down, Model Y is the best car I have ever owned. The biggest gripe I have with the toyota is the touch screen interface is cheap, hard to see, and not intuitive. Tesla nails this.
The second biggest gripe i have with the toyota is that the seat is not that comfortable. Tesla Nails this as well.
Tesla is the fastest car I have ever owned. It is fun. Every day it is fun.
How do we support the EV market when the GRID is not being up graded ! Get real the Democrats are driving this and have no credentials to push this. TOYOTA IS CORRECT IMPROVE ON WHAT YOU HAVE
"Combustion technology that was very close to carbon neutral". No, I don't come to Autoline After Hours to hear ignorance. There is no way, theoretical or real, to make ICE very close to carbon neutral. We might as well give up on science and all develop our own realities! Let's invent new cigarettes that don't cause cancer and vodka that doesn't make you impaired. That way we can smoke and drink and still be safe to drive and live long lives! The best thing since "clean coal".
I think that most talks about the electricity needed to fill teh electric car in a city do not account that electric do not ahve to fill teh whole battery every day but only few hours at night to make up for the 20 to 30 miles in average people drive every day. Perhaps those talks come from ingnorance of EVs or it is from oil connencted people.
Why no one talking about Toyota’s (1) Solid state battery which has much longer recharging cycle and shorter recharging time (2) Hydrogen direct burn ICE which is in racing in Japan and Germany which is much better than Hydrogen fuel cell system and much cheaper.
Why would anyone want a ICE vehicle after driving a Tesla.
So let me get this straight. We can't source chips which have been around for years, but we are going to come up with massive supplies of lithium and rare earth's right away and in huge quantities?
I think ford and gm just see the way the political winds are blowing and going along with whatever the govt says, even of its not feasible.
There is a sizable part of the market that is ready for and wants to buy evs. There still is however a bigger chunk of customers who want nothing to do with evs until they have equivalent loaded range, and 10 minute recharge times. Evs still aren't convenient if you do a lot of long road trips, or pull anything. Ev is excellent for short range commuting.
I’d like to know how much Tesla saves by not having to meet pollution requirements in different markets/countries. Must be nearly impossible for an ICE manufacturer to compete, when they have to meet all these different standards. Tesla can build one zero emissions platform and sell it everywhere.
Toyota's debt will surpass its market cap by 2027 lol , my money is on Tesla!
The only way that we will have autonomous driving is to use machine vision and artificial intelligence. The only company that is using machine vision is Tesla.
Vehicles using LiDAR use a geofenced navigation program they don’t use the fleet to up date the data base. LiDAR needs a map programmed into the car for every driving location. LiDAR can’t read street signs.
Tesla uses artificial intelligence, machine vision, Google maps, GPS and can read street signs. Tesla’s autos send data back to Dojo. Dojo is Tesla's own custom supercomputer platform built from the ground up for AI machine learning and, more specifically, for video training using the video data coming from its fleet of vehicles. No other company have the ability to build truly autonomous vehicles.
Sorry, but you guys missed the point. The price for Tesla’s will be less than anything on the markets and cost 25% of the what it costs to driver ICE cars. Other manufactures will never catch up because Tesla’s evolve faster the any manufacture can design cars.
Thank you for the best conversation about auto’s
The reason GM and Ford are not afraid of the Chinese EVs rushing in to fill the vacuum is because they have the US government stopping Chinese EVs from coming in and putting them out of business, which Tesla will do anyway … (geopolitical … lol)
I think you’ll see a change in battery chemistry that will bridge that gap in lithium, nickel and especially cobalt.
Consumers will be conscious that buying an ICE vehicle could see it pretty much worthless in the future. It is the reason I have decided not to update and keep my current vehicle another 5 years. By then I hope electric vehicles will be much better (and hopefully cheaper). Logically I think hybrids are the best option for the majority – needing many fewer batteries per vehicle, giving time for the battery technology to advance along with charging technology/availability. The fervour to go full electric is probably damaging to the environment – exactly what we are trying to avoid. PHEV could probably massively reduce emissions faster than all electric. We've seen the disaster of Government policy (the huge push in Europe to diesel went well for the environment … ). I think we all need to be cautious of buying Chinese (don't!) – it is clear that the Chinese regime is going to be problematic.
I do not think Lithium supplies will be an issue. Seems to be enough around and new technology to refine is really going to make supply easier. Mining has always been an industry that responds pretty quickly to demand (money). Democratic Governments need to encourage doing business with other democracies in preference to corrupt regimes. Electric cars are better in my opinion but the fervour is questionable. Logically BEVs should be prioritised to countries with high % of renewable energy – CO2 is a global issue so it is rather irrelevant if a BEV is sold to a user who is dependent on fossil fuelled electricity. In any case we cannot address the emissions by building millions of new BEVs. BEVs are like solar panels – over time their usage reduces the emissions to work out for the longer run but in the short term the production boosts CO2. We have zero chance of achieving emission reductions – just ask Putin who has caused a huge increase in emissions in his reckless disregard for human life.
great show and discussion thx for this ciao paul
But guys Plugin-Hybris don't solve one of the major issues associated with the Service and Repair cost of an ICE car! Part of our motivation to buy an EV is to avoid fixing radiators, water pumps, fuel pumps; not to mention the CO2 emissions that still continue with Plugin Hybrids.