this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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It still blows my mind that Toyota single-handedly made hybrids a very successful thing and yet squandered that position to Elon effing Musk. Toyota could’ve been THE market-leader for EVs while still making a killing with the Prius and ICE cars. They’d have a solid lock in all markets.
Toyota has one of the best reliability reputations of any automaker and yet anyone in the EV market (like I was recently) passes them over because they have zero models to sell. Instead of parlaying the Prius’ R&D into a viable EV too, they’ve left money on the table. Hyundai has gone all in and is selling a ton of EVs. I see more of theirs / Kia’s on the road than anything else (besides teslas).
I was in the impression that Toyota didn't see full EVs as viable products in long term. Sticking with hybrids was the safe option.
I see a couple of Tesla's a week, everything else is Hyundai or Kia...even the RAV4 is less popular than it was 2 years ago.
That’s what really strikes me, even more than Teslas. I see legacy manufacturers complain about no one wanting EVs or they can’t build EVs for sufficient profit, and backsliding on their transition plans.
I have relatives working for legacy manufacturers and asked them: doesn’t this strike you as similar to the 1970s? Legacy manufacturers sticking to what they know and trying to convince themselves the world isn’t changing. That led to the rise of Toyota, Honda, etc, as world leaders. this time you have Hyundai/Kia quickly climbing the ladder from their start as a low cost alternative, to a market leader, maybe soon a volume leader. Will the legacy manufacturers suffer the same losses as they did in the 1970s?
And I was sitting/driving only the cheap Hyindais, but even a mid-range Kia looks cool and solid inside, I enjoyed using carsharing Souls, sat in an expensive bus-of-a-car minivan, and I see no difference in comfort with Mercedes c or e class respectively. (Sorry Mercedes fans, I'm not against you, it's just kias are nice)
The only reason why the Koreans are not leaders yet is because it's "yet"
You will see the market move to phevs. Having a 400 Mike battery is stupid for most people nearly every day.
20, 40, 80 mile phevs are going to be what 95% of people need and is going to reduce battery needs.
I doubt it: BEV technology is already past phev for most people. Some of the advantages of BEV are based on simplifying, never needing the thousands of parts and hundreds of pounds that is an engine and transmission. Never needing the maintenance or fluids to support all that. They’ll eventually be cheaper by having a shorter supply chain and faster manufacturing. They don’t need the complexity.
Ok, currently rural areas need the complexity of phev. But even the most rural house already has electricity that can support a charger, and supercharging networks are rapidly expanding, so even this is only true for the next few years