What's up with Toyota?

Toyota Prius being filled with petrol

Toyota developed the revolutionary hybrid engine with its Prius, and was the first car company to sell hybrids on a large scale.  Yet it has resisted pure EVs, instead throwing its cap into the hydrogen fuel-cell drive camp.  But fuel cell cars haven't really taken off.  They've remained pricey, while EVs just keep on getting cheaper, with longer ranges too.  One of the arguments for fuel-cell vehicles is that re-charge times are much less than with batteries, but now EV charge speeds have dramatically improved.  Tesla's new high-speed chargers can load 1000 miles of charge into the batteries in an hour, 75 miles in 5 minutes.    Meanwhile, you can charge your EV wherever you have a electric plug, which means wherever there is electricity, though that will take several hours.  For most people, though, that's not a problem, because you can charge your EV overnight in your garage, just as you would charge your mobile phone or your laptop.  Hydrogen refuelling on the other hand requires a whole new infrastructure, and where it doesn't exist, you have no way to refuel your car. 

So what has Toyota done?   DeSmogBlog comments:

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.”

Ultimately, Toyota's strategic decision to invest in gasoline-electric hybrids and bet on fuel cells in the long term is the reason that it isn't currently producing any electric cars. The once-innovative company that mainstreamed hybrid-electric technology is now a global laggard in electrification, and is using dubious logic to justify its gas-powered fleet on environmental grounds.

By no reasonable measure is Toyota's fleet more eco-friendly without a single all-electric model. Electric cars are cleaner and greener from cradle-to-grave, including battery production, and regardless of where they charge. 

[Read more here]

It's sad to see Toyota, which invented and successfully sold the first hybrid, losing its way so badly.  But it is a lesson for all legacy car makers.  EVs are the future.  If you aren't making them, you are going to be superseded by manufacturers who are.  The window is very short.  By 2022, EVs will be close to ICEVs in "sticker price".  And then it's game over.