Toyota… Late to the party and still making a case for that. Anyone commuting in a 200-300 miles EV can charge at home overnight. Well, almost anyone.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/toyota-executive-warns-evs-face-obstacles-to-wider-adoption-11660850392
Well I don’t know Jack, but he ain’t wrong.
He’s not on some points and he’s on others. But that’s not the point 
Toyota’s been woefully unprepared for the shift to EVs. They lobbied against EV subsidies and will badmouth EVs simply because they were asleep at the wheel. They alternate “largest automaker” spots with VW regularly, and are probably the the only very large automaker who’s so far behind in EV strategy. Lots of talk about upcoming vehicles, but lately their natively build stuff has been meh.
Think about it for a minute, Tesla’s been out for well over a decade and Toyota just now launched an EV and a pretty crappy one at that vs. the competition.
VW/Audi/Porsche, BMW, MB, Hyundai/Kia, GM, Ford, and the native EV makers are all far ahead.
Honestly, Toyota is the only brand properly approaching the EV market. They are not just jumping all-in like everyone else. Not making any claims they will be all EV by a certain year. The media can’t seem to understand why Toyota is dragging their feet. Besides the joint venture with Subura and the somewhat pathetic bZ4X, they really don’t have much in the EV space. In my opinion they know the current battery tech is pretty poor. They have the most patents in the solid state battery space. They are the first brand to have a prototype running solely on solid state batteries. The EV’s coming out now are going to be so outdated when solid state batteries arrive on the seen.
Toyota letting perfect be the enemy of good on this one.
It does make you wonder how long they worked on their hybrid system before releasing it.
I respectfully disagree. While they do have solid state prototypes, literally every other major manufacturer has a respectable offering (except Honda who will partner with GM). Toyota has been super-conservative lately, and I honestly believe they were messing around with Hydrogen and other tech and didn’t take Tesla or EVs seriously. The bZ4X is a great example of an underwhelming product (poor charging rates, no one pedal driving) that doesn’t compete well with the competition.
Time will tell, perhaps Toyota will manufacture their own batteries etc.
Toyota have been working on solid state batteries since 2016, formed a joint venture with Panasonic in 2020. They are all-in on the tech. The next Prius hybrid will have a solid state battery. I have no doubts Toyota will definitely be the first to market with an all solid state battery EV. Game changing when it happens. Time frame looking to be end of this decade. Until then they will do fine selling to the 90+% that still buy ice and hybrid. This massive rush by some brands to make everything EV doesn’t really mesh with reality. The transition will be a slow process, Toyota has plenty of time.
Whatever random combination of letters and numbers Toyota branded their new EV (I’m too lazy to Google atm), it’s at least their third in the US. They sold two different RAV4 EVs, the second — like the MB B-class EV — had a Tesla powertrain and battery pack.
All the car makers that suffered compliance car PTSD seem to have EV strategies that don’t make sense with 20/20 hindsight, most made expensive mistakes along the way.
I’m always surprised when I read that Toyota used up the 200k EV credit allocation because I never think of any of their EV vehicles. What did they sell to reach the 200k? The vast majority of Prius I see are not plug ins
Toyota knows it customers- they want reliable, old-school ICE cars. They are going to keep selling 1.0 L Corollas to the rest of the world until the end of days.
Eventually, they’ll get around to EVs and build predictable and boring EVs for the masses. Toyota has no reason to be a segment leader- It never has been in the past.
Rav4 prime.
I read something about the size of the upcoming markets outside out the US/Europe (I.e. India etc.) that don’t have a charging infrastructure. Those will all be gas vehicles, and Toyota will dominate those markets. The profit on existing gasoline cars will be much higher too. There strategy made a lot more sense in that light. They also are careful to get it right before it goes to market rather than asking there customers to be beta testers (except apparently for the wheels staying attached recently).