[joghues]

I can't see why Toyota, one of the auto giants, is struggling with electric vehicles. I hope that they will allocate funds sufficient for EV research and development to become competent enough to stay in the space. They should avoid what Nokia did as it falls to its demise in the rise of touchscreens and the smartphone revolution.

[thinkling]

I believe access to battery supply is one of the bottlenecks in changing course. Globally, batteries are in high demand and forecast supply is spoken for. Others like VW have been investing to ensure sufficient supply for their EV production. So my guess is that Toyota is unable to change direction quickly enough to meet proposed deadlines for full electrification.

It seems to me that there's a medium-term role for (plug-in) hybrids and that Toyota could serve that niche well if the legal structure allowed them to get "partial EV" credit for those cars.

[danhor]

The issue with hybrids is that they're often used as a regular non-EV car, resulting in very little reduction of emissions. Combined with more energy-intensive production, this makes them pretty useless when looking at their environmental impact (especially when considering long ranges, people aren't going to charge every ~40km).

[thinkling]

The upside, though, is that having a plug-in hybrid with reasonable range allows us to make do with one car, whereas if we had a BEV we would likely also buy a gas car for long drives because charging on long drives makes the trip a lot longer or even non-feasible where charging is sparse.

We have a GM Volt. 50% of our annual mileage, including all in-town mileage, is electric. That's a 50% reduction in gas use, production of the second car eliminated, and 40+mpg when we do use gas.

[colinmhayes]

I read that Toyota went all in on hydrogen fuel cells instead of the battery tech everyone else uses. Apparently it didn't work so they had to redesign the car which caused the delay.

[browningstreet]

They’re struggling with EVs because, in the past, they came out against them. So, because they didn’t want to not-struggle with them.

[jrsj]

I think the idea that they’re struggling isn’t exactly accurate. It’s mostly a matter of scaling up manufacturing capacity and they don’t want to do it for a market that’s the size that it currently is. They also know demand for ICE & hybrid vehicles isn’t going to go anywhere when you can’t buy a decent EV for less than $40k, so that’s where their focus is in the short term. This is just them asking for their hybrids and PHEVs to get similar treatment as EVs and get a subsidy because it would both benefit them and further lower emissions vs only subsidizing EVs

[chrisseaton]

They’re a huge dinosaur. Obviously they cannot turn around quickly.

[rcMgD2BwE72F]

They know how to optimize, not innovate.