Toyota says it would rather buy credits than ‘waste’ money on EVs
Toyota says it would rather buy credits than ‘waste’ money on EVs
As the car industry’s largest hybrid pusher, Toyota says it is better positioned to just buy credits to close the EPA gap rather than “waste” money on BEVs, its CEO said.
Toyota already admits that they are behind on their battery technology, despite having decades of opportunities to improve and innovate with their hybrid models.
Now they want to double down on their atrophy by effectively throwing their money away instead of investing in the future?
On the surface, this does not sound like a good plan for long term growth and profitability.
Someone told me they bought big into hydrogen powered vehicles. Seems they can't let it go.
But now hydrogen gas stations in California all closed down. So they sorta need to pivit
They have just released hydrogen internal combustion engine. This engine can burn gasoline, CNG or hydrogen. So transition with it would be super easy. But world is set on EVs which are not that great and a lot less cleaner than people seem to think. Mining for Lithium is a very chemically dirty process and there's no abundance of it, especially not enough for everyone to switch to EV. Am thinking they realize this and are jumping over the hurdle early on, but are trying to push hydrogen into spotlight. More production means prices will drop and eventually it would get a lot cleaner to produce it as well.
Toyota has bet on hydrogen.
Someone will be along in a moment to tell us all about how you can't store hydrogen. Meanwhile there are eyewatering amounts being invested into water cracking facilities right now.
Check out the map of West aus:
https://www.wa.gov.au/system/files/2023-11/00232_1_hydrogen_projects_oct23_a4_web.pdf
Or 15,000 km2 of solar & wind producing 3.5m tonnes of hydrogen pa:
It takes a lot of hubris to bet against the largest car manufacturer.
Yes, world's largest car manufacturer doesn't know what they are talking about when they talk about car manufacturing. Or they realize battery powered vehicles are only a stop gap measure that doesn't have long term feasibility and they are jumping over that step. They were amongst the first manufacturers of hybrid vehicles and still produce most popular hybrid. But no, Toyota admits they are behind on battery "technology". You really have to stretch logic to get that argument going.
They have launched a fully electric car, and it absolutely sucks. It say it's the worst in its price class, behind not only newcomers (Tesla, Rivian, BYD, etc) but even American, European and other Japanese manufacturers.
Kodak Was the biggest player in photography and invented the digital camera, look where they are now. Don't underestimate corporate greed, infighting and short-sightedness.
Kodak would like a word with you.
Most profitable car manufacturer too.
Credits need to be abolished. It just lets polluters keep polluting with no incentive to change.
Or at the least, they should be more expensive.
They're not backed by reality
Honestly this is the only thing that will work. You’ve got to speak their language. Fines aren’t a deterrent unless it REALLY hurts.
Unfortunately credits are totally fake. "So you have land with vegitation you already plan to conserve or farm? Let me help you make money on that and pretend we are saving it."
More evidence that carbon credits are indeed bullshit.
You can't fucking buy your way to environmental benefit.
Carbon credits use up the money that would otherwise go into making more pollution. It doesn't stop pollution but it does slow it down and right now we need all the help we can get.
it kinda doesn’t though… in fact it might be worse. say you take a common carbon credit scam: “protecting” forest that was never going to be cut down anyway
you pay $3 in carbon credit to cover a flight… that money from you as the consumer went to someone wealthy enough to set up that company to run that scam. they’re likely a multi millionaire
as a consumer who chose carbon credits, you’re probably making pretty reasonable choices elsewhere in life: trying to recycle, buy sustainably where you can, etc
the multi millionaire now has that money however. it’s been repeatedly shown that these kinds of people have an absolutely enormous carbon footprint (obligatory fuck that term and its associated “it’s your fault” marketing from big business) compared to us regular folk
worse than that even, if you’re immoral and don’t care about the environment enough to run a carbon credit scam, you’re sure as shit not going to be doing anything sustainable… this is the worst kind of person we’re dealing with: the coal rollers of the world
So, I understand what Toyota is saying. I'm not sure I agree, but I get it.
Simply put, until we figure out a good solution to the battery problem, EVs are kind of at a dead end. They are about as good as they could be with current technology. There's a big push right now towards better energy storage tech, aka battery tech, for EVs and beyond (everything from cellular/mobile/device applications, to EVs, to "grid scale" storage).
The problem is basically twofold: first, limited energy storage. This is compounded by fairly slow charging... Second, current lithium tech used in EVs tends to be rather.... Flammable. Specifically, the most common chemistries are pyrophoric; aka, they burst into flames on contact with air. .... I'll emphasize that pyrophoric battery chemistries are commonly used in just about all consumer goods. This includes every Tesla, and every cellphone.
The only reason that your phone doesn't spontaneously combust in your hand is because the batteries are sealed so no air can get at the chemistry. The issue with Tesla's EVs is when one cell's seal fails, and it combusts, then the chances that adjacent cells will have their air seal compromised, dramatically increases. This can quickly lead to a chain reaction of failures.
Current research is ongoing into batteries. The golden battery for EVs will have, fast charging, high discharge capability (also known as the "C rate"), similar or better energy density to current cells, and longer charge/discharge cycle life. Since we're already comfortable giving pyrophoric batteries to the general public to carry around in their pockets, I don't think anyone is focused on eliminating that, but, if they can, while achieving the other goals, so much the better.
Other battery chemistries exist that are not pyrophoric, but they lack the energy density of their pyrophoric counterparts. One notable chemistry is LiFePO4, which, by sacrificing some energy density, you get much longer cycle life, and no pyrophoric materials.
Solid state batteries are being researched which should extend cycle life significantly if it can be achieved as a "commercially viable product" (which is corporate talk for something that can be mass produced). Thus far, while sold state batteries exist, they're either done in very small batches, and are very hard to produce, or, they simply don't have the same, or similar, energy density to the lithium/cobalt cells that currently dominate the market.
One alternative is hydrogen. Hydrogen fuel cell technology isn't perfect, with a loss of about 20-30% IIRC, from the energy in vs the energy out. The benefit to hydrogen is that it can be stored, highly compressed (a large volume of gas in a relatively small container), and it doesn't degrade or go bad, so it can be stored indefinitely, aka no significant loss over time. But hydrogen is a far more dangerous material than lithium/cobalt, and a tank rupture from a full tank of hydrogen in an EV, could create an explosion of significant size. It's far more dangerous than the pyrophoric batteries. For more information, see: Hindenburg.
Other alternatives exist, but generally are not being used in EVs for various reasons. Among these are RITEGs. An RITEG outputs a consistent and stable power flow indefinitely, even a relatively small unit could be used to power a vehicle, with a small buffer battery, for upwards of 40 years without needing to "refuel" so to speak. Possibly longer depending on the fuel used. The reason they're not considered is right in the name. The full name for an RITEG is "radio isotope thermal electric generator". Aka, nuclear. The unique thing about an RITEG is that the power output is dependent on the differential between the heating provided by the fuel, versus the temperature of the surrounding material (usually some sort of passive heatsink). They're very safe unless the seal is broken, in which case, you need Hazmat to clean up the mess. Their energy conversion is very very low. The power is stable, but only a small amount of wattage can be generated. It's constant, but it's a small amount. So the presence of a "buffer" battery for acceleration (and most driving) would be required, and often you can get more power from a small solar array, dependent on the weather. I like the idea of RITEGs, but more as a home generator type option, where you could bury one into the ground and dissipate the heat geothermally. No options exist for this and research into thermal electric tech has been stalled for many years. Nevertheless, I think it's awesome. The idea of having a mostly solid-state, base load generator in your back yard, seems like a really good idea, but nobody has done it, since IMO, the regulations would be a nightmare.
Anyways, the battery problem outlined here is what we're all waiting for... A commercially viable product that is on par with the current battery front runner, lithium/cobalt, for energy density, while having a much higher cycle life and a high "C rate".
Hydrogen is NOT a viable option for consumer vehicles. Energy storage is not dense, it is barely more efficient than an ICE, and it is also very flammable because it is highly pressurized H and a large battery. They may be fine for commercial vehicles but there is not a market for them for consumers. That is why Shell is closing up its stations in CA and why Toyota is discounting the Mirai significantly while also giving lots of fuel up money and it is still not enough to do much for demand.
As for solid state batteries, they are already in some BYD vehicles and Toyota itself is claiming that their solid state battery that will offer 650 miles of range should be in cars by 2027.
As for current batteries, the limited storage is not a real issue in 99.5% of cases. Over 99% of trips are under 100 miles. There are quite a few EVs now that can get 300 miles which is more than enough for 99.9% of trips. The comparatively slow charge for fast charge stations is also not much of an issue since few people can drive that long without taking a half hour break (although several models can add 200 miles of range in 15 minutes). The current major hurdle for that charging is working stations that charge at a decent speed. And what about the 99.9% of times when you do not need fast charge? We need to make level 1 chargers significantly more available. The average American only goes a little over 30 miles per day and sits idle for 22-23 hours. If it can be charging for a large chunk of that time, even at level 1 speeds, you are looking at 70-90 miles added per day. We need to offer huge tax incentives to apartment owners to install them in parking spaces and incentives to either install smart panels or upgrade panels to 200A. Cities should also start putting slow chargers in their downtowns where people park.
The overall issues with EVs are largely not the batteries themselves, but the infrastructure surrounding them.
I would agree the charging is a large issue. Apartments especially.
One problem you didn't mention is generation and the grid. The ability to transmit enough power down the grid if everyone were to go to EVs overnight, simply isn't there. The high voltage transmission lines are simply not up to the task right now; and that ignores if we can even currently generate that much power.
I don't recall mentioning range at all, but I would agree, range isn't much of a factor, fast charging is mainly a side benefit of high C rates, the main focus for C rate is the ability to get the power out of the pack when it is needed, so it can be used for the locomotion of the vehicle. Simply put, the amps needed to lug around several tons of metal, batteries and people, is significant, that's not even factoring in any hauling or towing. The ability to deliver that current directly from the battery on a consistent level is the key here. Current lithium/cobalt cells are more than capable of both charging and discharging quickly, though you can usually extend the life of the battery by primarily using lower C rates of charging, usually 0.5C provides the most benefit, lower doesn't increase longevity by enough to be worthwhile, and you get less and less benefit as you approach, then exceed 1C. Solid state batteries shouldn't have nearly the same trouble with this, as long as it's capable of 2 or 3C, it should be plenty for the application.
I disagree on the fuel cell comment regarding efficiency. ICE engines, last I checked, could only convert 20-25% of the energy in gasoline to motion, whereas fuel cells are capable of up to 60% conversion of the energy in the hydrogen to electricity, adjusting for losses in the motors and everything, you should be able to get around 50% energy conversion to locomotion. Fuel cells are getting to a point where they are running up against the physics of the issue and can't really make it any more efficient, ICE motors have been at that point for a while. There are small gains but a large percentage of the energy is converted into light+heat which is considered to be a waste product. There's also the matter of how to create the hydrogen, which, right now, there are not many good methods. The "most green" method is by water electrolysis, separating the oxygen from the hydrogen in water (H2O), which is a very inefficient process, more energy goes in than the resulting hydrogen has. If this is factored in then yes, you're correct that hydrogen fuel cells are not significantly more efficient, since the electricity to hydrogen to electricity conversion is the most lossy part of the whole system. There may be areas where we can enhance hydrogen production and get the numbers more on par with battery EVs, but I digress. As far as I know that is not a focus of current research.
Battery EVs are upwards of 90% efficient or better in most cases, even factoring in all the losses from getting the power into the pack and out of the pack. BEVs are simply more efficient overall. There's no disputing that. ICE vehicles are usually dead last no matter how you look at it.
For charging, foregoing the grid issues, which need to be addressed regardless, every EV owning citizen should have access to a charger at their residence, or at least the option for one. Homeowners can easily buy and install (or have installed) a charger for their own personal use, condos and apartments are the main targets since the parking areas are usually managed by the property owner or condo authority, so installing a charger is a bit more of a problem. That definitely needs to be addressed.
One alternative is hydrogen. Hydrogen fuel cell technology isn’t perfect, with a loss of about 20-30% IIRC
You don't recall correctly: The efficiency of Hydrogen, from solar cell to the wheels is 26%. Electrolysis is highly inefficient and compression and chilling of hydrogen is very energy intensive. Meanwhile, EVs are at 70%.
You are right that batteries kinda suck due to their energy density. However with EVs you can buy today you can still commute every day without noticing any major difference to an ICE car. You can also do long road trips, even in a small car, albeit slower. (Source: did both)
I see I get to have this conversation several times.
I looked it up, hydrogen fuel cells can attain about 60% efficiency from the energy potential in hydrogen, when converting to electricity. So I'm not wrong, we're talking about different numbers.
You're referring to the efficiency of the whole system from generation (via solar panels) to conversion to hydrogen (I assume by electrolysis?) to conversion back to electricity by fuel cell (~50-60% efficiency), then any losses getting the electricity to the wheels. That's a very different number than what I was saying.
AFAIK, no real progress has gone into electrolysis for decades. But we can usually also do natural gas reclamation, which is the process of removing the carbon from CH4, and producing pure hydrogen, which, I believe is a much more energy efficient process.
It becomes an entire discussion to figure out how you're producing hydrogen for the system, which is not an easy topic to tackle in a limited written medium like this one. I decided to forego that and focus on the efficiency of the hydrogen fuel cell vs the energy potential in hydrogen directly. I was still off, I'll give you that, but not so far off to make ICE look like a good option compared to FCVs.
BEVs are great short trip vehicles, daily commuters and all around daily driver vehicles. Even with current battery technology, I'm not disputing that. The fact is that the batteries will cause the cars life to end long before anything else wears out that could potentially cause the car to get scrapped. It's cycle life which is the primary issue, but if we get super long cycle life at the cost of energy density, we generally won't switch (see LiFePO4). If the c rate is too low (significantly lower than current tech), then acceleration and charging time will suffer, and we will equally reject the technology as viable for the purpose. So it needs to beat out lithium/cobalt on cycle life, but come close to, or do the same or better than lithium/cobalt in terms of C rate and energy density.
If anyone finds something that is identical to lithium/cobalt for energy density, and C rate, and just has an improved cycle life while all other factors are the same.... Then IMO the entire industry would pivot so fast your head will spin.
Cycle life is the core of the battery problem. Other factors are nice, but the cycle life is where we need to improve before we can really get rolling on EVs. If that problem can be solved, I don't think that ICE cars will even be built anymore. It will end the consumer petrol market within a decade of such a breakthrough. Of course, there's more uses for gasoline and diesel than vehicles so there will still be gas stations, but there will be a LOT fewer of them, and many will likely be replaced by EV charging points.
Toyota is claiming to have a 750-mile solid-state battery that will be commercially available in 2027. https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/toyota-roll-out-solid-state-battery-evs-couple-years-india-executive-says-2024-01-11/ If this is true, then the battery "problem" will be a moot point.
Damn really nice post.
We're really at a tough point. Batteries in general suck if we're honest. The biggest problem with EVs is that not only are they worse than ICE in some regards, they are on top of that more expensive.
If they can't compete on longevity they have to compete on price, and right now they are nowhere close to worth the cost.
My personal opinion is that plugin hybrids are the future. Best of both worlds. You use the electric batteries for day to day, but you never have to worry about getting stuck or not starting in the winter.
I'm also a fan of hybrids right now. There's fewer batteries to create problems, and the packs are cheaper than what's used in vehicles that are only EVs, reducing cost and weight.
I don't like that some manufacturers have either stopped offering, or never offered plug in hybrids, and bluntly, I don't understand why. It's literally a charge controller, a plug, and some wiring.... Looking at you Honda.
My biggest issue with hybrids and EVs is that many manufacturers use insane designs for them. It's like, no.... I want a normal fucking car, that just has a battery and some electric drive motors. Not a cross between a 3 year olds drawing of a "car" and a Fischer price toy.
Like, give me something that looks like a corolla or an accord, or literally any normal sedan, with a PHEV system under the hood at a reasonable price and I'll sell my old beater car today and buy one, but no. They have to do stupid crap like whatever the hell this is from BMW:
Or the Prius (which I'm sure we all know what they look like.... Kind of a stubby station wagon looking thing)... There's a freaking ton of examples, and the price is always a lot higher (usually double or more to the ICE counterpart).... So I'm going to pay more for this clown car? Fuck.
I'm actually unreasonably angry that so many hybrids and EVs look so stupid.
RITEGs ... Their energy conversion is very very low.
Yeah, no kidding. These will never be viable for personal vehicular applications because they are A) by necessity incredibly heavy, large, and expensive with the casings, shielding, heat exchangers, etc. required, and B) can't produce enough energy to meaningfully propel something the size of a car any useful distance in any realistic time frame. A 1500 kilogram unit the size of a refrigerator only generates ~35 watts. That's not enough to do anything with, from a transportation perspective. There is no "new technology" that's going to get around this, either. Isotope half lives are what they are. The decay heat is what it is. The temperature differentials that you can safely maintain in a consumer environment can only be so large. That's physics.
You'd literally be better off with a $200 worth of solar panels from Harbor Freight to recharge your EV. And yes, that includes taking into account that solar panels don't work at night.
That, and you'd never get any random member of the public to willingly park anything that is known to contain radioactive isotopes in their own back yard. Radiophobia would ensure that such a proposal would be completely dead on arrival. People are already deathly frightened enough of radioisotopes existing in tightly regulated, very competently run nuclear power plants.
I'd happily have a RITEG buried in my back yard to sustain my base load from my house. Using geothermal cooling for the unit seems like a good idea, and it would be underground where nobody can fuck with it.
RITEG research and use hasn't stopped, but most of the terrestrial units have been long decommissioned. The most recent example of note was the MMRTG unit used in curiosity (now on Mars), which is 45 KG and can produce 110W of output. The most notable terrestrial examples were the IEU units used by the Soviets for light houses, weighing upwards of 2-3 tones and producing less than 120W at their peak, mostly fueled by strontium 90 (the MMRTG uses plutonium 238). The only modern RTG for terrestrial use is the Sentinel units used for monitoring stations in the arctic by America, which top out under 60W and weigh more than a ton, closer to 2 ton. There are others but information is limited.
A lot of weight is due to the fuel (which is classified as a "heavy metal") and the casing, which on earth is more robust than you would need in space, since it's feasible that people would be nearby the unit for extended periods of time and any breach could be fatal.
Even with the weight, if we're effectively burying it in a yard, deep enough to take advantage of geothermal cooling, then weight isn't really a problem. Even size isn't a problem since it can be the size of a large consumer vehicle and most homeowners have more than enough land to accommodate that... With little more than an access hatch for inspections and maintenance, it would be a viable option to contribute to offsetting the base load of your home. Even a 100W unit would trim about 2.4kWh from a household electricity bill per day for something like 100 years. That's in the ballpark of 8.5 GWh over the lifetime of the unit before the fuel needs to be replaced (based on the half life of the material. Strontium 90 would need to be refueled every 40-50 years or so).
I'm not saying it's a fix to the problem by any stretch, but it could trim about 1/4 of electricity costs per home, based on an average consumption of around 10 kWh per day.
This is why I like RTGs, they're stable and long lasting, relatively safe (unless the housing/shielding fails) and solid state with basically no maintenance.
I'm a fan of the idea, but I'm not going to say it's a one stop fix, nor do I think the regulatory people will green light any implementation of such a system for home use, ever. Nor do I think that even if such a solution were to be given approval, that the general public would ever accept it being installed "in [their] back yard" either literally or figuratively.
You're right that a pair of 200W panels and a small battery system would have a similar effect (at least until the batteries needed replacing... or simply grid tie it), and as long as you can average ~2 kWh/day of generation, you'd be fine... You might need 4-5 panels to get the same daily output, but a system like that is probably still less than $1000, and will probably last ~20 years. So to make it economically viable such a system would need to cost the consumer less than ~$5000 or so before it becomes a better option.
I'm still a fan of the technology, and I find it immensely interesting, but I try to keep my expectations realistic. Due to the excessive weight of a terrestrial RTG, it's not viable for a vehicle, but wouldn't it be cool to have a car that charges itself all the time no matter where you park it or whether it's in the sun or not?
I think that would be cool.
Hear me out. If we make the cars significantly lighter and cut holes in the bottom for the feet, we could save significant amounts of energy by allowing the driver to use his own leg strength to push the vehicle along. That could even be some sort of pulley system with chains that would make it easier to force the tires to move.
Oh I got a better idea. What if we link up the cars during long distance travel and have just one really powerful high efficiency car at the front pull all the other ones behind it and then every so often it reaches destinations where the other cars detach and go their own separate way.
Of course it will have dedicated routes, and probably specific times when the big car is passing by so there will be a schedule but that can be mitigated by running with a high frequency.
Heck we can even come up with a fun name for the last car in any Car Conga that essentially calls it a butt.
Shame there is nothing like that.
Lthe answer is hamster. S thousand hamsters in a thousand hamsters wheels in every car. They'll eat their young so it'll be a self sustaining eco system.
Toyota has invested heavily into hydrogen, and so are against electrification
Hydrogen would be cleaner in the long run, too, wouldn't it? Since you wouldn't need to mine lithium for batteries and such.
Bullshido
Prius is one of the most popular selling Toyotas since it's debut, either they're just being obstinate about EVs or they are really invested to the gills on their Hydrogen fueled car lineup.
You would think at least one of their execs would have learned about the sunk cost fallacy in basic econ.
Honestly it's quite amazing how prone we all are to falling for the old sunk cost fallacy, that fallacy and confirmation bias have to be the two most popular cognitive issues for us as a species.
One would think random person posting online would realize that biggest car manufacturer in the world knows a thing or two about car manufacturing. Especially considering the same manufacturer is behind worlds most popular hybrid car and a number of EVs. I'd also assume they would trust decades of accumulated data on battery sustainability, recycling and manufacturing but I suppose sitting in a computer chair googling is better. Here's next term to google and learn about "Dunning-Kruger effect".
Consumers like the Prius because of the addition of the battery and electric motor.
Toyota likes the Prius because it still contains and ICE engine, which they want to keep selling.
it reminds me of the big tobacco playbook when they put filters on cigarettes after people started realising they were not healthy....Toyota stuck a little battery next to their ICE engine and said 'it's healthy now!' and people went with it...for like 30 years.
If they could pull off hydrogen fuel cells with the help from Ballard Power Systems, I'll be rich. I'm not that lucky though.
Or they realize batteries are not the way to go. I don't know why people seem to think Toyota is the biggest car manufacturer in the world and are just acting like retards. They are not, and every move is calculated. They have decades of data in regards to battery servicing and duration, recycling, etc. They have the data.
Regardless, we only have found one Earth-Like World within dozens, maybe even hundreds or thousands of light-years from us, and that's Earth. This world is already straining to keep up with the pollution we are emitting. We have no alternative planets to go to, no backups or do-overs. I can pretty much guarantee that Toyota isn't thinking of their position 35-100 years from now. Most companies seem to only be looking 5, maybe 10 years ahead. We gotta be careful not to set our only ship on fire in the endless ocean that is the hard vacuum of space. xD
I'd rather waste my money on a car from a maker with vision. This is in line with their move to TX. Too bad.
Can’t beat the reliability of a Toyota or Lexus hybrid. Nothing comes close.
JFC we need a carbon tax. All these posts claiming ICE is better than EV lol. Burning fossil fuels kills 250,000 people a year in the US alone. It’s a 25% efficient process. ICE engine has 2000 moving parts while EV has 20. ICE is 20x most likely to have a car fire than EV and far more deadly. This list goes on and on.
Well the problem is just what feels like a timebomb to many people. Like the Pinto was actually relatively safe for cars of it's time and class, but because it created extravagant failures it because notorious for safety.
We have a cap and trade system here in Washington which raised the price of gas by like 40¢. Unforgivable without a national one, that just incentivizes companies to go to more polluting states. Ironically (not really) the law in those states complain that we need to force China to emit less because manufacturing has moved over there because of their more lax standards.
That's funny because I'd rather spend my credits on something other than a Toyota.
Corporate “indulgences”
Carbon credits are an absolute scam but EVs are also not going to get mass adoption and aren't going to replace ICE cars until used EVs are a thing without needing to replace the battery for the price of a whole car. So I can see why Toyota wouldn't be too interested in EVs, the tech for them isn't there for global adoption and is still a niche market.
EVs already attained mass adoption. In Norway almost all new cars are EVs. Several countries are not far behind. Most countries are more suitable for EVs than Norway.
The battery in my car got replaced. For a 82kWh battery it was $11k, like two years ago. And it only keeps getting cheaper. And they come with 200.000 km warranty.
LiFePo4 have like 5 times the lifespan. So they will outlive your car, you can put them in your next car, they will outlive that one too and then you can use them as buffer storage for your house.
Wait what?
EVs are not going to be mass adopted until EVs are mass adopted and there are second hand electric vehicles. The logic of that one just goes round in circles.
Also who on earth is replacing the batteries on electric vehicles after 5 years of ownership? They will still be at about 80% capacity which is more than enough for most needs, no one's requiring the replacement of batteries on these cars what are you want about?
The tech for affordable replacement batteries isn't there and most used cars sold here are 10 years old at least.
If you're buying a used car for 5000 and you know that at some point you need to cough up 10k to replace the battery you aren't buying an EV.
I sold my car after I moved to the city since I can get everywhere by tram but take my dad for example: He bought a used van about 15 years ago and he isn't going to replace it any time soon. If an EV can't last 20 years without a 10k investment in the middle it just won't be an attractive option. There are still cars from the 70s on the streets here and unless batteries become affordable that isn't changing.
A car that's made like a phone can suck my balls
Present them.
EVs shouldn't ever replace ICE cars, people should be able to buy whichever they like, the government needs to stay out of it.
Can someone explain what “credits” are like I’m 5? I read the article, but still don’t understand it.
Edit: Is it carbon credit subsidies from the gub’ment?
Essentially companies that pollute over certain threshold pay money (buy carbon credits) that then goes into non-profits compensating for those emissions by saving the environment, like planting trees and such.
The system is widely criticized for being very flawed and allowing all sorts of shenanigans and manipilations, as those "carbon credits" are sold at competitive pricing, fostering projects with questionable calculations.
In this case, the US governance sets a target efficiency for vehicles (miles per gallon here in the US) and if a pant does not meet that overall efficiency, they have to pay. EVs are a bit odd because they have a miles per gallon equivalency. So if it is expected for them to have 50% by 2030 (50% cars at 100 MPGe and 50% at like 45 MPG(e)) but they out have 30%,they will have to pay a large fine. They are saying they are okay with that rather than ramp up EV production more quickly.
Thanks
Aside from hybrids, Toyota has also put a lot of work into hydrogen cars. Those have some real benefits -- range, fast fueling time, running the heater is "free", like in a gasoline vehicle and doesn't hurt range, don't have range reduction in cold environments -- but they're more-expensive to fuel than a pure EV, because you've got the overhead of conversion from electricity to hydrogen.
I don't think that the EV user experience is as good as the hybrid gasoline/electric experience or the hydrogen user experience, but I also don't think that hybrids are gonna be able to achieve enough carbon reduction. Like, if we had figured out a really good, cost-effective way to do carbon sequestration, that'd be one thing. But that isn't the case in 2024.
And if it comes down to hydrogen or EVs, I think that ultimately, the lower fueling costs of EVs will dominate.
Do you have a hydrogen car?
Right now, there are 59 public hydrogen fueling stations in all of the United States, all of which are in CA. Good luck on a road trip. Even in a big city like Los Angeles they are hard to find and far apart. Pretty awesome to drive 30 minutes in traffic just to fuel up!!
And before you say something like, "we just need to build out the infrastructure;" think how fucking expensive that will be. We already have a MASSIVE infrastructure for electricity and for gas stations. Each hydrogen station costs around $5 million to build. There are roughly 116,000 gas stations in the US, so even adding a quarter of that number in hydrogen would cost $143 billion. It would be better to spend that on beefing up the electrical grid, especially in places like Texas who can't even handle a tough winter.
As far as the experience, there is nothing better than pulling up to your house and plugging in. It absolutely sucks having to go to a dirty gas station and stand outside in cold or heat or rain while some homeless person asks for money to fill up their car to get to a doctors appointment. Take that gas station experience and then spend time trying to find a far away hydrogen station to fuel up. Even on road trips, I can take a 30 minute lunch break to get 50-80% before driving again. In a hydrogen car I'll be lucky to find a place to fuel up at all.
Finally, the economics of hydrogen for cars is dumb. Why spend money converting electricity into hydrogen, then put it in a tanker truck that uses diesel to drive it to a station, where it takes electricity to run the pumps, to put hydrogen in a car that TURNS HYDROGEN INTO ELECTRICITY. Compare that to just sending electricity down some wires to charge a battery.
People said the same thing when BEVs were coming out. Personally, I think the main hidden benefits of hydrogen isn't fast refueling and range, but rather weight and ease of storage.
Hydrogen may be the solution to enable mass adoption of variable renewable power plants, allowing relatively cheap energy storage between seasons. Doesn't matter if you only get 50% efficiency if you can produce it when electricity is dirt cheap and then store it nigh indefinitely.
As for the weight - the real money in vehicles is in the commercial sector, where weight is precious. Any weight lugging around batteries is dead weight - and hydrogen means less weight than lithium batteries.
I don't have to stand in -30 weather filling up my EV. Hydrogen is a step back. Also, humans suck at not leaking gasses, and unburned hydrogen isn't great for the environment.
Do you have an EV?
For those of us who can charge at home, nothing beats the user experience of just plugging your car in overnight so you always have plenty of charge and never have to think about finding a gas station. Nothing beats the silence or feeling of effortless acceleration.
It’s only charging on road trips that os currently not as good a user experience, but those are uncommon, not as bad as people online think and getting better all the time.
But that's the thing, we can have both. But EVs alone can't replace all the cars on the roads now. Either because mining Lithium is a chemically dirty process and there's not enough of it or simply put weight to range ratio is not where it needs to be. Sure, let people have EV for short commutes and similar use, but we can also have ICE hydrogen engines for trucks, locomotives, boats and cars if you so desire. We already have cars powered with CNG, diesel and gasoline. What makes you think there should only be one replacement for fossil fuels?
I've been in favour of hydrogen for years over electric. Honda had some really interesting ideas and concepts, plus a long term study in california. Mercedes initially looked to be heading into hydrogen over electric then pivoted, but BMW look to have just decided to move more to hydrogen from their electric development... Does look like batteries are beginning to take a step up though. Should be interesting in the next few years
Cars are the cigarettes of the transportation world and EVs are big oil's new "light" or "low tar" option.
And you are bad at labeling things
This deliberately misguiding title is as myopic as the news talking about Bitcoin "crashes".
Ten years ago, the EV auto market share was under 1% and Bitcoin was worth 320 bucks.
Ten years later, 10% of cars are EVs, 30% of the car market will be pure EVs, more will be hybrids, bitcoin is worth 62,000 dollars.
2024 headlines: Bitcoin crashes again and Toyota won't waste money on EVs.
They literally call their hydrogen car the future. Toyota has been trying, and is still avoiding making purely electric vehicles.
Of all their models, Toyota only sells one EV in the US. Your aspirational assumptions about Toyota are nothing more than that.
Hydrogen is 'pure' electric.
The issue with hydrogen is that it can be colours other than green. Green hydrogen is used to store the excess from renewables, and is more like a battery than a fuel. Other colours use fossil fuel, sometimes with a desperate plea to believe that they will actually capture the CO2 produced in making it.
Green hydrogen is (potentially) a fantastic solution for transit, especially heavy transit.. The jury is still out for cars but Toyota is one of the few taking that route and it's important. Hydrogen is much lighter than batteries and refuelling is similar to petrol cars (ie quick).
The problem to be solved is leaks. More than about 5% leakage cancels out the benefits because hydrogen makes methane hang around for longer.
Not that there's anything wrong with hydrogen cars, but they only add to my point.
Dumb headlines focusing on extremely short-term "setbacks" ignoring how rapidly things have progressed and are progressing from just a decade ago.
Do you think 2030 is 10 years away? In 10 years, it will be 2034 when most countries will require 100% of new vehicles to not have fossil fuel ICEs.
They are still stupidly pushing for hydrogen electric vehicles. That is just a BEV with an additional step.
Glad I have a car from an actual reputable and benevolent company: Tesla.
You owe me a coffee and a new keyboard.