Toyota initiated the hybrid as a modern platform, and they continue make the best selling hybrid in the world (Prius). But since they don't want to be in the business of making undesirable vehicles with short lifespans that require expensive maintenance, they have stuck to hybrids rather than full electric and all the extremely costly low lifespan batteries that go into them.
Speaking as a 2004 Prius daily driver, the Toyota approach works. And I guarantee I'm a hell of a lot more "environmentally friendly" than anyone who commissioned literal tons of metal to be dug out of the earth to make their "green" new Tesla.
And that's not even mentioning that in 20 years we won't be mining materials out of the ground anymore, will just be recycling existing battery materials
The break-even depends on the source of electricity, which in turn depends on Geography.
If the electricity is from coal, the break-even is after 5 years; even then, the lifetime emission of the EV is not even 10% less than that of the conventional gas car.
If the electricity is from hydro and other 100% non-fossil fuel renewables, than the break-even is even shorter, under a year, and over the lifetime the emissions are about 70%~80% less overall (and the longer the car is driven compared to a conventional gas car, more than 13 years, the greater the reduction in lifetime emissions)
OP continuing to drive a 20-year-old car (of any kind, not just a hybrid) is likely more environmentally friendly than buying a new car every few years. They're doing the reduce part of "reduce, reuse, recycle." A long-lasting, low-maintenance hybrid has a good argument for being very environmentally friendly.
Combustion-powered vehicles are something of an exception, because only a small fraction of their pollution is associated with their creation. Buying a new car every few years probably isn't optimal, but operating an ICE vehicle for decades probably isn't optimal either.
In Brazil, cars run on ethanol. Emissions associated with combustion of the fuel are zero. It's not the ICE bit that's a problem, it's the fossil fuel part.
> OP continuing to drive a 20-year-old car (of any kind, not just a hybrid) is likely more environmentally friendly than buying a new car every few years.
Sure, but that isn't the comparison here. Buying a new EV and then holding on to it for 20 years will be even more environmentally friendly.
1. Conflict of interest. Is there any alternative report?
2. 2 years is vague, do we have it in kms?
3. Which car is it against? How does it compare with Prius 2024?
Also, how much investment in renewables is because of EVs? If we had 0 EVs and same renewables, coal/oil/gas generated electricity would have gone down by what is now consumed by EVs.
Parent stated they drive a Prius, which is not the "standard EV" that article mentions. They slate 24mpg, which is laughable: that's around what my old gas guzzling V8 got, and they call it the norm? The Prius gets high 40's easily. But it's a EV fluff piece published by "the EV company", one can't expect scientific integrity.
In fact, reading through the lines of Tesla's own fluff piece, in places like China the Prius is net-environmentally positive even year by year as compared to the Model 3. China has the most emissions of any country, so that's a pretty big caveat to simply ignore. But again, fluff piece by the fluff company.
> But since they don't want to be in the business of making undesirable vehicles with short lifespans that require expensive maintenance
The average BEV is lasting just as long as any other car on the road and the used market is not filled with "broken EVs requiring expensive maintenance". The opposite seems to statistically be the case: the used market for EVs is "barren" because the cars don't need expensive maintenance and often stay with their first owners for longer and when they do move to new owners don't often go through the traditional used market because they don't need as much maintenance.
You've been lead to believe some interesting misinformation. Toyota themselves have been a source of some of that misinformation, which is further unhelpful.
Do you have citations? I can think of alternative & plausible explanations:
- the used car industry is just barren post-pandemic. Prices are up and inventory is super low [1]
- EVs are generally not that old! Why put a BEV up as a used car when it's just a few years old? The average age of a used car is 6.1 years (according to CBC in Sep-2023) [2]. Further, that 'used car' age is up from 4 years, which further indicates the first point that the used car market is very short on supply. Most of Tesla's sales have been in just the last 4 years [3], Tesla represents a lot of BEV car sales in the US (going from memory, it was about 75% and is down to around 55%). In such a short amount of time, most BEVs are essentially still brand new. Thus, BEVs not being in the 'used' market is somewhat expected since they are half the age of the average used car, most of them are under 4 years old.
Thus, their lack of presence in the used car market could easily be more a function of their age (relatively brand new) compared to: "don't often go through the traditional used market because they don't need as much maintenance."
That CNBC article points out one of the big sea changes in the fast recent jumps from a used car average of 3 years (for decades prior to ~2017) to 4 years (prior to 2019) to 6 years is a big change by rental car companies to hold rental fleets longer. The biggest sea change for rental companies over the last few years has been a switch to a higher balance of BEVs in their fleets. It certainly seems to me to be causative, the used car age average is rising for the first time in my lifetime just as BEV ownership is rising doesn't seem to be a correlative coincidence and more indirect evidence that the BEV first owner lifetime is higher than historic ICE averages. (Possibly much higher given that 4 to 6.1 year jump in just one calendar year.)
The early EVs have passed their 10 year marks. Some are closer to 15 years. There's a very long tail of BEVs already on the road. The only models that statistically have shown "battery degradation" enough to remark on have been the early model years of the Tesla Model S and Nissan Leaf before both companies invested in active thermal management of their batteries. So far "to remark on" was "noticeable compared to factory spec", but most of those batteries remained in first use (as car batteries). I've heard of Nissan Leaf battery replacements as a mini-industry, but not due to battery degradation, due to massive jumps in density upgrading the early Leafs to larger range than their original spec. There doesn't seem to be much of a market yet for Tesla battery replacements and most of the numbers thrown around are speculation and/or misinformation.
Thanks for the reply. Your hypothesis seems more plausible now to me FWIW. Before I would outright agree (in order to be convinced), I'd like to see more evidence/data that used car prices are being driven by low maintenance requirements of EVs and that it is not other factors.
Another thing to consider, the picture is changing quite a bit somewhat recently. The supply crunch is fading, used car prices are coming down [1], and the effects of higher interest rates is taking hold. Would you say those recent trends are consistent with your hypothesis?
"All in" is a very strange way to describe a multinational corporation producing in the single digit thousands of an item. They tried something, it hasn't panned out yet, they're sticking to what they know works in the mean time.
Because the Japanese government bet big on hydrogen and heavily subsidized the industry. Also, is there any evidence that hydrogen vehicles have short lifespan or require expensive maintenance? I don't disagree about how undesirable they are based on fuel cost but its hard to suss out how much of that is just based on extremely low production.
