| I think something missed in this discussion is the fact that an EV is so much simpler than an ICE vehicle* that costs will inevitably come down. Many people believe that decent models will be considerably cheaper than today’s Tercels, Civics, Corollas, etc. in as little as 2-3 years. Today you can buy a brand new Tesla Model 3 for $39,000 and with the U.S. tax credits that drops to $31,500. If you are in states like NY with additional credits, $26,500. So it is already around the price levels of Accords, Camrys, etc. on the existing Tesla platform. Tesla’s goal in their next platform is to cut the price to manufacture in HALF, and there is good reason to believe they will achieve that. The aspirational goals Toyota is claiming in this article, if achieved, will help them get closer to Tesla’s current architecture, which will be a great step forward. As manufacturing becomes more efficient and prices drop, it will indeed make less and less sense to do major repairs, which are only getting more expensive. * EVs are simpler when they have a proper hardware/software integration and over-the-air updates. Continuing the current industry practice of stringing together 150 off-the-shelf ECUs is one reason why most companies are losing money on their EVs and will never keep up with those who understand the software-defined car. For a great deep dive on how Tesla has created their software-defined car architecture check out https://youtu.be/fUCgLCbX_18?si=X9-s_aNLyrunmGHi |