Because PE is a key indicator for evaluating how much a company is worth, but then this dates from the days when investors were looking for sustainable growth and dividends not stock buybacks.
Toyota hasn't released a good BEV yet (bz4x's battery and drivetrain are a decade behind the state of the art), and poured a ton of money into hydrogen which isn't happening for passenger cars.
I suspect the stock is priced with the possibility that Toyota is reacting to EVs the way Nokia and Blackberry to the iPhone.
Tesla fanboys need to stop being so short-sighted. All innovation in cars will not stop at the BEV. There will be a next technology leap beyond the BEV. And if you think honestly about what that is, it will be hydrogen cars. Simply because they are EVs without the limitations of the li-ion battery.
As a result, people need to think carefully about what comes next. If anything, BEVs represent a transitional technology. You can think of them as being what Reddit is right now. Sure, it disrupted what came before (i.e. Digg), but it is not the end-result of that particular business sector. And if that is the case, then it is likely that Tesla, not Toyota, that faces the biggest challenge in the future.
Sorry to break it to you, hydrogen or e-fuels definitely have a place in the future for fertilizer, seasonal storage and maritime shipping. For personal vehicles BEVs won nearly 10 years ago.
See the "Hydrogen ladder" for further, more eloquent, information.
The simple fact is that fuel cell cars are also EVs. As a result, there are no fundamental limitations compared to BEVs. They are fundamentally guaranteed to be just as good as BEVs.
And since BEVs are not a sustainable technology, they are destined to be replaced by their truly sustainable alternative. Which is a "battery" made from water. That is the self-evident future of EVs.
> The simple fact is that fuel cell cars are also EVs. As a result, there are no fundamental limitations compared to BEVs. They are fundamentally guaranteed to be just as good as BEVs.
In other words, you pay for two cars in one when you could simply pay for one car and charge it from any wall outlet.
And if someone said that vacuum tubes are the future, what is your response? It's pure absurdity to claim that an obsolete technology is the future. You'd immediately get up and ridicule the obvious non sequiturs in their logic. FYI, BEVs predate the ICE car. It is an incredibly outdated idea.
In reality, hydrogen cars are far cheaper to make than BEVs. They have very little raw material needs. They do not need the hundreds of kilograms of batteries that BEVs need. They only need water as their raw material. That's fundamentally a superior idea. You can never make a coherent argument that an EV powered by rare or limited resources could ever be a better idea.
Again, a fuel cell car is literally an EV, only one whose "battery" is made from water. You cannot do better than that.
No. Fuel cells can be constructed with no special materials. Even those that need them need extremely small quantities of it. A PEM fuel cell needs about as much platinum as a catalytic converter.
• Hydrogen's end-to-end efficiency is low (losses in electrolysis + transport + fuel cell), so running costs are inherently a couple times higher than BEV's. This alone IMHO kills chances of mass adoption, as people will simply not want to pay more.
• EV charging stations are already common, unlike hydrogen fuel stations that barely exist anywhere. Charging stations are easier and cheaper to install and maintain (no need to deliver fuel or deal with moving parts for high pressure or cryogenic storage), so this is likely to stay in BEV's favor.
• You can't refill the high-pressure hydrogen just by plugging into your home outlet. For people who can charge BEV at home it is a huge convenience.
• The range of the Toyota Mirai is barely higher than long-range BEVs'. It doesn't even solve BEVs' main shortcoming, despite compromising a lot of space for hydrogen tanks!
• High-end BEVs can already recharge to 80% under 20 minutes, and don't require you to be near the car while charging (so you can get a coffee/toilet break at the same time). All of this trouble and cost to shave it down to a 5 minute refill, which you have to spend attending to the pump, is just not worth all of the fuel costs, wasted car space, and rollout of a new fuel pipeline.
Hydrogen may find uses in aviation, or long-distance trucks, maybe heavy machinery, but it's a poor fit for passenger cars and has already lost.
1) That's a lie by BEV companies. I keep on telling people that fuel cell cars are EVs. So where does argument even come from? It comes from nothing. There is no basis to make this claim. Not to mention that the point of renewable energy is their lack of raw material requirements, not their inherent efficiency. If you can imagine a world where solar energy is nearly free, than so can hydrogen.
2) Which is meaningless because hydrogen distribution is fundamentally cheaper. Once you realize that pipelines are cheaper than wires, you will eventually realize that hydrogen stations will be cheap to deploy and ultimately be cheaper than building enough charging stations for everyone.
3) Actually you can because home electrolysis is fully doable. This is another completely made-up argument. The only thing to be brought up is that you don't want home recharging at all. After all, cars are driven outside on the road, not at home. Once you have a network of refueling stations, you don't need a redundant refueling system at home.
4) That's like saying an ICE car has barely longer range. Your ignoring the fact that you need something like $30k of batteries to match that range in a BEV. For a FCEV that comes at a tiny cost.
5) And yet it is still an advantage. Five minutes, especially when you realize it is guaranteed everything single time, is a major advantage. And you will never have to worry about damaging the battery when refueling this fast.
This is ultimately a short-sighted argument. When hydrogen cars are no more expensive than ICE cars and the fuel is basically free, where does that leave BEVs? It doesn't. This is the end of the BEV.
> cars are driven outside on the road, not at home
Are you just trolling now? :) Do you think people charge their BEVs in their living room?
1. Even solar is not free - hardware has a cost and finite lifetime. We're not close to post-scarcity with electricity, so there will be cost for foreseeable future. "Free" hydrogen from production peaks isn't enough for mass adoption, especially that grids start to use batteries too.
2. Even if a tanker beats UHVDC, I'd expect last mile distribution cost to be really bad for a physical good.
3. A wallbox costs $600+, which IMHO is already outrageous. I can't imagine electrolysis station with high pressure pump to be cheaper. 30 seconds plugging in a driveway beats 5 minutes refuelling.
4. Fuel cells are expensive. BEVs are already cheaper than hydrogen cars.
5. Reliability of hydrogen stations is currently pretty low, worse than uptime of DC chargers.
You imply there are going to be a breakthroughs in hydrogen storage and fuel cell efficiency that will make hydrogen cars not suck, but not account for possible improvements in batteries. They have been gradually improving over the last decade, and got an order of magnitude cheaper too. There are further improvements in the pipeline, especially that exponentially increasing demand funds further development. Physics of hydrogen storage however are as tough as ever.
They're literally charged in their garages. This is the same idea.
Seriously, what is your point here? Once you are a few miles away from home, you are closer to a public refueling station than your home. If there is a ubiquitous public refueling system, what is the value of home refueling/recharging? It is not much of a selling point.
1) Solar is already pretty cheap now. Turning solar and water into hydrogen will follow the same trajectory. It only shows your shortsightedness by not realizing this.
2) It is cheaper to distribute hydrogen than electricity. Pipes are fundamentally cheaper than wires. This is obvious if you looked at the basic physics of a pipe compared to wires.
3) A hydrogen pump is ultimately just a fuel pump. No more sophisticated than a natural gas station. And the problem with BEVs is that you can't move from that charge port for hours. A hydrogen car will always be refueled in 5 minutes.
4) Fuel cells are cheap and rapidly getting cheaper. You are blatantly inverting reality here. Hydrogen cars are cheaper than BEVs to make. Full stop. And it won't even be close once everything is said and done. An FCEV will cost no more than an ICE car to produce in the long run.
5) That's funny because you're admitting that DC chargers are terribly unreliable. Meanwhile, hydrogen stations usually suffer from lack of fuel, not lack of function. In the long run, this will cease to be an issue.
> You imply there are going to be a breakthroughs in hydrogen storage and fuel cell efficiency that will make hydrogen cars not suck, but not account for possible improvements in batteries. They have been gradually improving over the last decade, and got an order of magnitude cheaper too. There are further improvements in the pipeline. Physics of hydrogen storage however are as tough as ever.
There already have been "breakthroughs" in hydrogen storage. You do realize hydrogen cars are available right now and work exactly as advertised? This entire argument is trapped in the year 2010 and has never moved on. Not to mention the basic physics of batteries can never be solved. You will always have a large and heavy battery pack and it will always take a long-ish time to recharge. Instead of fantasizing about magic batteries from the future, it's time to thinking seriously about what comes after the BEV altogether.
That would show actual foresight. It would demonstrate that you really understanding the concept of disruptive innovation.
I suspect the stock is priced with the possibility that Toyota is reacting to EVs the way Nokia and Blackberry to the iPhone.