[xbmcuser]

Partly I agree and its the reason I have been disappointed specially in Toyota trying to protect it cash cow and supply chain. They are not really getting into electric cars. Even today they are trying to hedge with hydrogen fuel cars its as they feel hydrogen cars will require the least amount of changes for their supply chain.

[rmason]

Toyota made the largest bet on hydrogen of any car manufacturer. They stubbornly stuck to it and were slow in developing EV's. They're playing fast catchup but will be a few years behind everyone else. What that costs them in market share is anyone's guess. I thought the laggard would be Chrysler/Stellantis but they're getting set to introduce a number of models starting next year.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/18/toyota-ramps-up-efforts-to-l...

[ZeroGravitas]

It seems to be a Japanese thing, I seem to recall that perhaps the Japanese government thought they might have some Methane Hydrate reserves under the sea and thought it would be strategic to pivot towards Hydrogen from this to replace gasoline.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Environment/Climate-Change...

Not a totally crazy idea, but has probably temporarily held them back by distracting them from EVs.

[avidphantasm]

Well, it’s far from clear that we’ll be able to meet climate goals with EVs due to material shortages. Hydrogen alternatives may help with this. Also, if we can build out hydrogen production, this may open up opportunities to retrofit existing ICEs to burn hydrogen. Lastly, while Toyota may be behind on EVs from a product POV, it’s arguable how far behind they are from an engineering POV. Toyota has had by far the best hybrid EV platform for the past 25 years, and have been incrementally improving it throughout. Hybrids are harder to make than EVs, yet have all the same components (esp. the plug-in variety). I think Toyota will be fine in the EV well before they need to stop selling ICE cars.

[jacquesm]

Even Toyota isn't large enough to influence the market like that, they will have to cave sooner or later if they want to stay in business.

[nly]

Toyota are the largest car manufacturer in the world...

[jacquesm]

Yes, and they are still not large enough for that strategy. You could do it as a monopolist.

Sony has a history of similar hubris, they always ended up adapting to the rest in the long run, usually after losing quite a big chunk of the market to upstarts.

[doctor_eval]

Largest car manufacturer seems to flip between Toyota and VW, but while Toyota is certainly in the top 2, it’s also far less than ½ the market.

[lagadu]

They already started caving in with the BZ series cars they have planned.

[drcross]

My suspicion is that Toyota is trying for a "too big to fail" move. Get bailed out by the governments to keep the jobs going.

[suction]

They are the only ones trying to make hydrogen a thing, not „all others than Tesla“. And Toyota has lost the plot a long time ago like all other Japanese makers. The Koreans are eating their lunch.

But Toyota recently put an EV to market, it’s called BZ4X or something like that. It’s not good.