Toyota's Plug-in Distain - Part TWO

The US is building two government subsidized plants finally to test the technology, after cancelling the program. If we believe ghg is a problem, we need to help china, india, and japan produce lower ghg footprint coal electricity. The US could probably switch to other fuels by 2050, but ghg is a global not a local problem. Financially the ccs on caol plants don't make sense in the US, a combination of wind and ccgt natural gas is less expensive for the same reduction in ghg. In Japan though, natural gas is much more expensive and renewables not as economical to buil. China and India are building everything as fast as they can.

In japan it would be a governent program with big subsidies. We could complain about these, but their cost would be lower than the cost of the last gulf war, and we are already in anouther one.

 

Gotta love how some only see short-term and absolutes. Adding to that, the hypocritical nature makes it pointless. There's no discussion. Heck, there aren't even any facts. It's just those who thrive on debate posting conjecture. At least for me, there is sometimes a valuable takeaway. Last time, it was finding the most appropriate way to depict efficiency info. Bye.

 

Pot, meet kettle.

 

Having to adhere to the precedent they established was obviously going to be a problem later. That's why I documented the quotes along with the comments that followed, as it happened. It's also why there is no substance to the posts.

 

When they begin to approach mainstream minimum without any incentives or subsidies. We're well aware of how sales are boosted quite a bit currently by the draw from HOV access and tax-credit money.

 

For Leaf owners in CA, only 16% listed it as their primary motivating factor. And most of the world outside CA most likely doesn't even have that benifit. Perhaps the East coast.
It is much more significant for CA PiP owners.

February 2014 Survey Report | CSE (CCSE)

 

There's no mention of state & federal money.

 

HOV lane access is a big reason for PIP purchases in California but less so in the rest of the world. Tax-credits and state rebate programs are mearly a way to bridge the gap between new expensive technology and less expensive established technology.

The former is bait for those who don't really want an electrified car. The latter is a necessity for adoption until the price comes down for those who are asking for electrified cars. There is a big difference between the two. Those who purchase for any other reason besides HOV access are demonstrating their desire for EVs and thus "asking" for more. I agree with Hill.

 

How long should it take to "establish" ?

 

10-15yrs perhaps 20 in the case of the FCVs? That seems to be the trend in the automotive world.

 

People buying plug ins with subsidies isn't asking, but offering expensive FCVs with even larger subsidies is the way forward.
Got'cha

 

....that's what I was saying too, FCV can be strategic for Japan. Under the circumstances, it makes sense for Japan to have some reliance on coal, which they can probably justify the higher costs of clean coal more than we can. Japan does not have to do CO2 sequestration to make H2 from coal....it's just an option.

Smoke and mirrors would be taking a USA-style coal combustion plant and sticking CCS on there...that would be sort of a non-starter. But once you say you are going to gasify coal to make H2 (not combust) now you have a different/cleaner albiet expensive ball game, I think we have a plant in USA like this sequestering CO2 for enhanced oil recovery for many years. It's just a path (much) less traveled by our utilities.

 

Hill there is no arguing with him. John don't reply to this statement its for everyone else.

Toyota's PR has been consitantly saying these good numbers in your and my opinion are awful. I know I called and asked two dealers if they would be able to service a rav4 ev if I bought it from california. They both told me no. I asked, as well as many others when toyota would sell a plug-in in texas, as I wanted one. They told me not until corporate approved it. So I know people have asked, but toyota ignores them. Now we know the reason they ignore us is not because "No one is asking". Perhaps he meant no one was asking for that abomination the EQ, that toyota was smart to pull before production. Will this fcv be the next EQ, but with much larger subsidies?

Yep according to the marketing vp, people have been asking for a plug-in kia.

I am sure Akio Toyoda hears people asking, otherwise he wouldn't have so much money invested in tesla. His Board Chairman is the one focusing all this anti-ev pro fcv pr. I don't think Toyoda wants to fight about it now. We should see in 5 years whether toyoda can steer the company back to plug-ins.

leaf, volt, model S all have done better than gen I prius for similar time periods. The plug-in market as a whole crushes hybrids as a similar time in their development. Part of the reason is this time the US, Europeans, and Chinese are doing the incentives instead of just the Japanese. Toyota's answer, everybody should give them much more money per car for each fcv because it is more mass market, even though the DOE and Chinese equivelent don't even think they are as good as a plug-in.

 

...but if we do a white and green sticker CA HOV "material balance", it's getting up 80+% of buyers are getting them, it looks like.

 

It adds to resale value of the car. Why not get one even if you rarely use the lane. The leaf would sell fine without them, but the prius phv would take a fairly large drop in California sales.

Federal tax credit money is important to leaf sales. They wouldn't have expanded a plant here for production without it, but would probably be still shipping smaller quantities from japan. These do run out, and by them battery costs should be low enough for the next gen leaf to sell without the credits. That is the theory anyway.

Toyota does not now like the tax credits for plug-ins, even though it was in the room when congress wrote the law. It is helping to drive plug-in sales. Toyota is asking instead to give them a lot more money per car for fcv. When the corporate speal is tax credits are bad for my competitors, but they are great for me, you have to question it. The koch brothers say the same type of things.

 

...well just proves the point the incentives are driving the sales, which I could not agree more. So you are saying HOV incentives less factor for Leaf, but now you got $7500 Fed + $2500 CA discount and the incentive for Nissan to offer low prices to get EV credits rebates, plus HOV and so on.

 

Yes. Texas also has that $2500 but people here don't trust the battery in the heat, so texans buy other plug-ins, I see a lot more volts and teslas. Best city for the leaf is atlanta where there is a $5000 incentive.

These plug-in credits all amount to much less than the oil subsidies, and unlike them are capped at 1M cars. Nissan, Tesla, and GM all look like they will max out at 200,000/each. The rest of the companies will fight for the other 400,000 credits, with ford likely to get the most, and toyota and bmw large percentages. I see no problem with the program going forward. The leaf, volt, model 3 will have to sell after the credits run out, but battery prices have been falling fast. It almost seems like the volt gen II information was released to decrese sales of the gen I, so that there will be more credits for the gen II.

Toyota has lobbied for bigger incentives for its fcv. In japan in some prefectures its 3 million yen ($29,000) plug heavy subsidies for hydrogen fuel stations that may make the total around $50K per car. The US incentives in california look like they amount to around $40,000/fuel cell car when you include the federal and state money, the fueling money, and the zev bonus. I say try the experiment, but when the extra bonuses expire in 2017, don't renew them unless fuel cells look much better than they do today. The CFCP which includes toyota and carb promised 10,000 fuel cell cars by 2009, today we have around 250. The numbers were lowered, incentives increased, and now sit at 53,000 cars by the end of 2017. I doubt there will be 15,000 cars. Toyota will not giv us a figure they are trying to sell. But Nissan, GM, Tesla, and Ford should each sell more than 15,000 plug-ins this year alone in the US. With that perspective 15,000 in 3.5 years cars seems like a puny market compared to plug-ins. I don't see how toyota fools anyone when they claim fcv are more mass market than plug-ins.

 

I read an analogy in a different group that may apply well here.

Toyota is like nokia was when they dominated the cell phone market in 2007 (ok plus motorola).

Then iphone and android came out (tesla S, volt, leaf) and Nokia chose to push windows phone (fcv). Nokia lost 80% of their market share.

The phone market moves much faster than the car market, but in 2007 nokia and motorola thought that these expensive iphons were not big competition. Now ios and android dominate the market.

 

I am not buying the anology.
iPhone is a good example of a superior product that - on it's own without humongous gov't subsidies - beat the competition and that's where we all agree, that if a superior product, new technology wins the public and takes over, OK then good -bye to the old technology. This is the antithesis of the EV story.