[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.