Slashdot Mirror
Toyota Is Losing the Electric Car Race, So It Pretends Hybrids Are Better
Ben Jervey from DeSmogBlog writes about how Toyota is "using questionable logic" to claim hybrid vehicles are superior than electric vehicles, when in reality it's only saying that because it decided years ago to invest in gasoline-electric hybrids and fuel cells in the long term instead of battery production. This decision is now coming back to haunt them. From the report: There are at least 12 car companies currently selling an all-electric vehicle in the United States, and Toyota isn't one of them. Despite admitting recently that the Tesla Model 3 alone is responsible for half of Toyota's customer defections in North America -- as Prius drivers transition to all-electric -- the company has been an outspoken laggard in the race to electrification. Now, the company is using questionable logic to attempt to justify its inaction on electrification, claiming that its limited battery capacity better serves the planet by producing gasoline-electric hybrids. For years, Toyota leadership has shunned investment in all-electric cars, laying out a more conservative strategy to "electrify" its fleet -- essentially doubling down on hybrids and plug-in hybrids -- as a bridge to a future generation of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. As Tesla, Nissan, and GM have led the technological shift to fully battery electric vehicles, Toyota has publicly bashed the prospects of all-electric fleets. (See, for instance, the swipe the company took at plug-in vehicles in this recent Toyota Corolla Hybrid commercial.)
Last week, at the Geneva Auto Show, a Toyota executive provided a curious explanation for the company's refusal to launch a single battery electric vehicle. As Car and Driver reported, Toyota claims that it is limited by battery production capacity and that "Toyota is able to produce enough batteries for 28,000 electric vehicles each year -- or for 1.5 million hybrid cars." In other words, because Toyota has neglected to invest in battery production, it can only produce enough batteries for a trivial number of all-electric vehicles. Due to this self-inflicted capacity shortage, the company is forced to choose between manufacturing 1.5 million hybrids or 28,000 electric cars. Using what Car and Driver called "fuzzy math," the company tried to justify the strategy to forgo electric vehicles (EVs) on environmental grounds. As Toyota explained it, "selling 1.5 million hybrid cars reduces carbon emissions by a third more than selling 28,000 EVs." As for the "fuzzy math," Toyota's calculation "seems to assume that for every hybrid sold, a fully gasoline-powered car would be taken off the road," writes Jervey. "In reality, many Toyota hybrid buyers are replacing a Toyota hybrid. And, based on Toyota's own revelation that they are losing Prius drivers to Tesla, it stands to reason that many Toyota hybrid drivers would jump at the opportunity to transition to an all-electric Toyota."
Last week, at the Geneva Auto Show, a Toyota executive provided a curious explanation for the company's refusal to launch a single battery electric vehicle. As Car and Driver reported, Toyota claims that it is limited by battery production capacity and that "Toyota is able to produce enough batteries for 28,000 electric vehicles each year -- or for 1.5 million hybrid cars." In other words, because Toyota has neglected to invest in battery production, it can only produce enough batteries for a trivial number of all-electric vehicles. Due to this self-inflicted capacity shortage, the company is forced to choose between manufacturing 1.5 million hybrids or 28,000 electric cars. Using what Car and Driver called "fuzzy math," the company tried to justify the strategy to forgo electric vehicles (EVs) on environmental grounds. As Toyota explained it, "selling 1.5 million hybrid cars reduces carbon emissions by a third more than selling 28,000 EVs." As for the "fuzzy math," Toyota's calculation "seems to assume that for every hybrid sold, a fully gasoline-powered car would be taken off the road," writes Jervey. "In reality, many Toyota hybrid buyers are replacing a Toyota hybrid. And, based on Toyota's own revelation that they are losing Prius drivers to Tesla, it stands to reason that many Toyota hybrid drivers would jump at the opportunity to transition to an all-electric Toyota."
Yes, electric vehicles appear to be the future, but hybrids do have distinct market advantages today: range, refueling infrastructure, and refuel time.
If Toyota's competitors are zigging toward all-electric, it makes competitive sense for Toyota to zag toward an energy-efficient technology that fits better into the state of the current fueling infrastructure. In fact, doing so, Toyota can manufacture more hybrid cars and scale their battery production up when the electric infrastructure, battery storage, and refueling time issues are resolved.
This seems like a smart business strategy to me.
I would say Toyota is right about some things but it's not what the market wants out of new vehicles today so they have to spin it anyway they can to keep up.
Where I live hybrids are better since the distances involved getting to a major city involves some pretty advanced travel planning if you are driving an EV which means the distance can increase with up to 50% to accommodate charging stations. Plus, it gets really cold during the winter which reduces any EV to a frozen lump that can travel at best 60% of their stated range which complicates things further.
Which also explains why everyone I know who bought an EV also has a gas guzzler or a hybrid as a second car.
--- Reality doesn't care about your opinions, it happens anyway and if you are in the way you'll get squished.
There really is no "pretending". In many ways hybrids, and especially plug-in hybrids, are superior to all-electric.
Plug-in hybrids use no gas for normal day to day driving, yet have the range when you need it. So you get the benefits of both gas and electric.
They also cost less, which means way more people can afford them, and they stretch the world's economical accessible lithium reserves much further.
My wife has a Tesla, and most days she doesn't even use 10% of its range.
The cradle to grave environmental impact of most lithium-ion batteries is small, especially if CO2 is your primary concern. See for example https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231269141_Batteries_from_Cradle_to_Grave. See also Bingbing Li, Jianyang Li, Chris Yuan's "Life Cycle Assessment of Lithium Ion Batteries with Silicon Nanowire Anode for Electric Vehicles" (which can be found easily online but which I can't link to because the Slashdot filter is unhappy with the very long URL). That's specifically for silicon nanowire anode batteries, which is a pretty common design. The numbers for most others aren't that far off. Note also that as battery recycling and reuse becomes more common, and economies of scale ramp up further, the footprints in terms of CO2 and other pollutants will continue to decline.
This also doesn't make much sense as an issue in the context of Toyota since a hybrid requires a pretty decent size battery also. While previous batteries were nickel-metal hydride for the Prius, the newer ones use a hefty lithium ion battery also. https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1120320_lithium-ion-vs-nickel-metal-hydride-toyota-still-likes-both-for-its-hybrids. If one thinks that batteries are a big problem, then it isn't clear why one would think hybrid cars are a good thing.
Let me count the number of all-electric cars that cost less than $30,000.00 USD new, have a range of 400+ miles, and a refuel/recharge time of 3 minutes. 0.
When hybrids are cheap, efficient enough (40+ mpg), and for all intensive purposes (just kidding, don't freak) instantaneously refuelable, they're better than those with an lesser range, higher cost, and marginally better fuel efficiency. Not only that, there's 50 years of manufacturing knowledge behind toyota's ICE. I would trust toyota's naturally aspirated camry to run 400k miles, because it has a proven track record. Will your tesla 3 make it to 400k? Maybe, maybe not. Will it cost $15k to refresh it? Maybe, maybe not.
I *WANT* all electrics to be the norm. I want them for their MPGe, and lack of any transmission. However, it's just too early to claim that toyota is losing because they're not going balls deep into EV's. They're probably rolling every car they have off the lot as-is.
I will go stick my neck out and agree with you on this. With a plug-in hybrid, there isn't any worry about range anxiety, and you have the benefit of an EV of not needing to refuel often. To boot, I've seen inverters added to use the hybrid as a very efficient whole-house generator in case of a power failure.
I do agree while most people can do OK with an EV, as they don't go far, day to day, it is nice to have the ability to not worry about trying to find a plug or Supercharger when going on an impromptu trip somewhere out in the country.
All the "delays" and "missteps" by Tesla are basically waiting for battery price to fall enough to make its promises deliverable. Every announcement of Tesla is met with, "it is impossible". Then as years go by and when people are all berating Tesla for not keeping the promise, the battery price falls enough and suddenly its product is viable and has a positive gross margin!
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I think the reason why Prius owners are defecting to the Model 3 has nothing to do with EV vs. hybrid, but rather the status associated with the Model 3. The original Prius was a plain boxy car, but the sales really took off when they decided to make it completely odd looking (ugly). When this happened, hybrid owners could drive around displaying how "earth friendly" they are, and everyone would notice them.
Nowadays every other Prius is a taxi/Uber/Lyft, and they're fairly common. Why would someone want to drive around making everyone think you're an Uber driver? The Model 3 got so much press due its delays, and now there's a sort of mystique surrounding it. People will pay attention to you again, and you can claim that you bought the car because you want to save the environment, but in reality, you care about the status symbol more than anything else.
Most plug-in hybrids can't handle normal day-to-day driving without using any gas, because most plug-in hybrids don't have enough electric range for that. The average American commutes 52 kilometers to work, round trip. Toyota's PHEV has an electric range of 40 kilometers. It can't even handle the *average* commute. Most PHEVs seem to be in a similar situation. There are a few that can actually deliver "no gas for normal daily use". The Chevy Volt, with its 85 kilometer electric range, can probably do it for most people.
Toyota is putting a tiny 8.8 kWh battery in their PHEV. Chevy puts 18.4 kWh in theirs. Chevrolet reportedly pays $205 per kWh, and Tesla is supposedly around half that, so Toyota is only saving between one and two thousand dollars by skimping on the range...
Plug-in hybrids use no gas for normal day to day driving
Not really. The gas engine, more complex transmission, gas tank and so on mean you lose a ton of battery space. So in a car that could support a 200mi range battery pack, you get a 30mi range battery pack. Which means unless your commuting is particularly short, you're going to regularly use some gas.
Source: I own a Volt.
You people do realize that Toyota had a 100% electric Rav4 in the early 2000s don't you? They partnered with Panasonic and made a kick ass NiMH battery they called the Prismatic EV-95 battery and it powered the Rav4 EV. But GM had sold the majority patent rights for NiMH to the oil industry and Toyota ended up in court and not only did they have to stop selling the Rav4 EV and the EV-95 batteries, they almost lost the right to sell their hybrids because they used NiMH too. That's right, the oil company wanted to shut down their use of NiMH in vehicles. FYI, the GM EV1 got 125 miles on a charge with the NiMH batteries they used. That was before GM collected them all and destroyed them once Bush/Cheney feed the industry $$$ to smoke hydrogen.
So I have to wonder, why is Toyota so adverse to EVs when they were once industry leaders? Does it have to do with some legal declaration they made long ago in order to be "allowed" to continue to make and sell hybrids? It's almost insane how they are staying away from EVs.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
The average person is not interested in the hassle of keeping an EV charged
It's really not any hassle. You plug it in when you get home. Ta-da! You will now be keeping your car charged.
(And if you can't reliably park somewhere with a charger, then don't get one. But chargers will get much more common as EVs take off, just like gas stations did when cars took off)
People talking about battery cars keep using the gasoline paradigm where you go somewhere to "refuel". You don't do that with a battery car. Which means you're trading the hassle of an extra trip/stop and pumping your gas for the hassle of pushing in a plug.
This is the exact reason I own a plug in hybrid versus and electric vehicle. I am a single guy, so I have 1 car. If I want to take a road trip somewhere, I would be screwed with an electric vehicle. Sure it would be possible, but it would be a nightmare trying to find someplace to charge in the midwest where I live. Sure, down the line when electric vehicles are more common this won't be an issue, but charges are still uncommon here. So I went with the plug in hybrid and have only filled the tank 3 times in 16 months, with 2 of those coming after road trip that used 75% of a tank of gas.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Oh My God! Your math is impeccable because there is No Way to plug-in at Anyones work! And oh shit! If not then they might have to use a whole quarter of a gallon to get home!!!! Eeeeeep!!!!! You are so right, hybrids are completely useless because having a calf that can cross the country and back without requiring a long stop at a plug is HORRIBLE! It is so much better to go 200-300 miles and then fucking stop.
All electric is insane for anyone who needs to do more than a short commute EVER which is almost EVERYONE.
All the Tesla owners I know have a second pure ICE car for -real driving- they say.
Plug-in hybrids use no gas for normal day to day driving
Not really. The gas engine, more complex transmission, gas tank and so on mean you lose a ton of battery space. So in a car that could support a 200mi range battery pack, you get a 30mi range battery pack. Which means unless your commuting is particularly short, you're going to regularly use some gas.
Source: I own a Volt.
The 1st-en Volt battery was 38 miles, and the 2nd-gen battery was 53 miles. The current gen plug-in hybrids all get around 50 miles, as that happens to be the capacity to qualify for the full federal tax credit. Since the median US commute is around 26.5 minutes, most commuters will use no gas for their daily commutes. And since there is zero range anxiety, there is no need for a backup car for longer commutes.
The single biggest problem for hybrids is all the maintenance that's still required due to the ICE, plus complexity of adding the battery/EV side. If you're familiar with gas car maintenance, there's *none* of this: oil/filter change, radiator, timing belt, water pump, fuel pump/lines/pressure regulator, EVAP canister, MAF sensor, O2 sensor, muffler/exhaust/catalytic converter, spark plugs, air filter, tranny fluid/filter, thermostat, power steering fluid, EGR valve, pistons/cylinders/push rods/rockers/heads, ignition relay... I've had to repair every one of those things in my past vehicles (I checked my records). None. of. that. exists. Think golf cart simple (on the mechanical side.. software is obviously complex). For a non-Tesla, long trips are a problem. For Teslas, they have superchargers, making it only a minor issue. 95% of most people's driving is commuting, so this is not really a big deal (especially for a family with multiple cars). By the way, I hope you're putting stabilizer in your gas.
"Truth is not decided by majority vote" consensus gentium -- Norman Geisler
Just so we're clear, you're logic there is completely broken.
I for one love to go on road trip vacations, and the time spent behind the wheel is more like 14-16 hours,
Per day? You will one day fall asleep behind the wheel and probably kill yourself. No way you are not taking any rest stops. And during a rest stop you can charge your EV. 250 kW chargers are out there now and that means you can charge for the next 2 hour's drive in less than 10 minutes.
And that charging speed will only get better in the future.
(EV's are worthless for taxi's for example. And police cars, and buses, tractor-trailers, etcetc.)
EV's are excellent for taxi's. Most taxi's don't drive that much. Schiphol taxi at Schiphol airport in the Netherlands has had 160 Teslas since 2014 and are now replacing them with new Teslas. Public transport contracts in the Netherlands more and more specify electric buses as mandatory.
Sure, I'll give you tractor-trailers. They use lots of energy and have a driving pattern that is less suited for having to recharge. Police vehicles I'm not so pessimistic. With 500 km range and usually not being in high-speed pursuit, I don't see the problem.
Most post-2010 vehicles now state to change the oil when the oil use monitor says to do so, which could be a long time for all-highway driving in moderate weather. Longer than 6 months in any case. Those of us who grew up with dinosaur-era vehicles that were lucky to make it to 3000 miles without leaking or burning 3 quarts of oil have a hard time accepting this, but modern engine designers don't think that short oil change intervals are needed.
As for the gas, the Chevy Volt at least keeps track of when you buy gasoline and if it calculates the gas is getting stale (at a minimum every 360 days) it will turn on the ICE engine and use up the tank.
All what maintenance? Current plug-in hybrids have longer maintenance intervals than current ICE cars, which themselves require virtually zero maintenance as we thought of it for 60s/70s/80s era cars. The dealership service department will tell you otherwise but if you read the recommended maintenance intervals in the manual for a post-2010 vehicle you will see that there is very little routine maintenance up to 24,000 miles and not much after that - even oil changes are now handled by the usage monitor not on-interval. And the plug-in hybrids put a very light load on the ICE engine in typical usage patterns.