Featured Toyota's Master Plan for a Low Carbon Future

Tell what to Toyota? I'm calling you out for being vague too.

Toyota continues to refuse to play the game, forcing other legacy automakers to recognize they have no actual plan to convert their fleet.

GM is by far the biggest offender. Volt exploited the tax-credits, seeking praise from conquest sales rather than actually doing anything to change what happens with dealer inventory. It was a colossal waste of opportunity... one that Toyota has been working hard take advantage of, the very opposite of GM.

We see Toyota striving to phaseout their entire product-line of passenger vehicles in favor of hybrids. That establishes a culture of change at dealerships, where they learn to address showroom shoppers curious about the technology. It builds upon itself, once the shift away from traditional becomes obvious... which is exactly what we are witnessing now.

Toyota's next step in that master plan is to stir interest across the board with PHEV offerings, showing all audiences how adding a plug and more battery to their wide array of hybrids is a practical & affordable option. That pushes a paradigm-shift of choice. Rather than loyal customers simply replacing their old Toyota vehicle with a new Toyota vehicle, they see variety. That no pressure approach is priceless.

You need to support whatever your vague claim is with substance. How are the other legacy automakers going to move their offerings forward?

 

sorry john, but your ‘in defense of toyota’ posts are the most rhetorical, pedantic rambling diatribes I’ve ever read

 

What was I responding too?
The OP link was laced with rhetoric from Toyota.

"The battery for one BEV can be used for X amount of hybrids"
If that is really a concern of theirs, why have they even switched to Li-ion for their non-plug hybrids?
What about the other materials? That BEV doesn't have enough copper for X hybrids.
The conclusion of the research that supports this statement is that mild hybrids were the best way to lower GHG emissions with a limited supply of batteries. Those aren't the hybrids Toyota wants to sell.

"If the goal is to lower GHG emissions, incentives should be technology neutral"
Does Toyota want the incentives they are asking for going to ICE cars. Some gasoline and diesel ones match a hybrid on the tests that would be used for eligibility. Electrified only isn't technology neutral when they and things like hydraulic hybrids exist.

"Because we automakers know best how to drive down costs and get competitive [low-emissions] vehicles into the market."
The only truly competitive Toyota hybrid in the US market is the Rav4. If the rest were competitive, they wouldn't be asking for government incentives.

 

Lower CO2 emissions may well be a priority for Toyota.
From the data available, it isn’t a very high priority.

From 2012-2017 Toyota finishes 9th out of 13 manufacturers when rated by fleet mpg.
Highlights of the Automotive Trends Report | The EPA Automotive Trends Report | US EPA

They are also the only one of those 13 manufacturers whose mpg fleet average got worse rather than better.

This is an annual report, so we should see the next report in about a month.
If lower CO2 emissions really were a high priority, we should see some improvement?

 

Quoting outdated data is just another form of rhetoric. In that case, it was also cherry-picked.

What was posted is solid fact now, affirmed over time as those predictions played out to become historical events.

Like many, you're unwilling to accept the reality of bottom-up being good business.

 

I don't know quite where to post this question:
What is Toyota's magic USA plug-in sales number? (how many PiP+Prime sold for 200,000 Fed credit limit)

 

you can be sure they will expire, long before the USA gets an EV out of Toyota - even though China is going to force them to build Ev's, if they want to do business in China. Of course they do want china, because their Market is massive. Logic would dictate Toyota would wana sell their Chinese-bound EV here too, since they still get the full $7,500 until they do hit 200,000 plugins sold. Their handful of fuel cell cars also are nibbling into that 200,000 sold number (tho sales are still nearly nonexistent, percentage-wise) - as well as the popular RAV plugin will - & Prime.
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I have no problem with this incremental approach except Toyota didn't really give early adopters a way forward. It would have given them a chance to get operational 'lessons learned' to improve their subsequent offerings. For example, the Supra would have been a perfect platform to compete with the Tesla low-end and shame the Europeans. But water under the bridge.

Time will tell if Toyota made the right decision but I no longer am part of their customer base. It doesn't mean I will always be on the outs but they'd have to offer a significant advantage over my current rides. I wasn't captured as much as abandoned.

Bob Wilson

 

Or trading them in our 2017 Prius Prime on a new Tesla Model 3 or replacing a 2003 Prius with a BMW i3.

Bob Wilson

 

Want the trillions in dollars in subsidies to the oil industry dry up and it costs a couple hundred dollars just to fill up your gas guzzlers tank for the week, fossil fuel free vehicles will be the only affordable option and the car makers who have a business model based on cheap fuel will vanish almost entirely in the next economic downturn.

 

That's what "know your audience" is all about.

Toyota simply isn't interested in catering to early-adopters. They have already learned who provides better feedback.

 

As of June 2019, it was 104,375. Federal EV Tax Credit Phase Out Tracker By Automaker – EVAdoption
There are more up to date numbers out there, somewhere.

It's from the Prius hey days. Toyota has released some FSP since then. The Tundra and Sequoia are the least efficient of their segments. The Tacoma is near the bottom, while selling over 200k thousand last year, making them the number 1 'small' pick up.

Until the arrival of their GDI engines, Toyota's non-hybrids aren't notably better in fuel economy than the rest.

The US is a big part of that global market though. It is over 22% of Toyota's global sales.

Didn't stop them from releasing the Prius and Mirai.

 

Actually, it did. Both were rolled out to very specific audiences, not at all what resembles the early-adopters like we've seen for plug-ins.

 

the Fed's & many states/county areas ARE incentivizing - from different state amounts, to utility companies popping for both new & used cars as well as EVSE's - PV panels, HOV stickers, special night time electricity rates - etc. If it weren't for a certain savvy Canadian - we would have never opted for Tesla Power wall ... which HE bought ... a whole LOT of 'em! Sold 'em for $300 including shipping! That in turn let us sell our Aerovironment low(er) power 240v EVSE who'd not purchase one, other wise. There are probably other special deals too, but that's off the top of the noggin. More & more EV's are capable of home charging at >10kW's - which means folks don't have to hog public chargers where most PHEV's need more charge time. Many public chargers are wired for 208V, which means PHEV's will only be capable of drawing 3.1kW's, drawing 15 amps.
.

 

In other words, “Toyota simply isn’t interested in lowering their GHG emissions. They have already learned that trucks provide much more money.”

 

That is just plain not true. I plugged in a gen-2 Leaf a few months back, offering my card since the guy was having trouble with his. The data from that ChargePoint... a public 208V charger... provided the following data. That's a sustained draw of 6.1 kWs.

 

We know Toyota is pushing the hybrid path, offering impressive efficiency from both the new RAV4 and the new Highlander. That's bigger and more powerful systems, paving the way for pickups.

What other legacy automaker has already achieved that level of success?

In other words, we see the attempted narrative by omission.