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Featured Joint venture for BEV and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles

Discussion in 'Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News' started by bwilson4web, Nov 7, 2020.

  1. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    Source: Traton And Hino To Create EV/FCV Joint Venture

    Traton (a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group) and Hino (subsidiary of Toyota) signed a joint venture agreement for e-mobility - specifically battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

    The two companies were already strategic partners since 2018, and now they intend to plan and provide e-mobility products, combining their unique strengths.

    "They will form a team of advanced specialists from both companies and launch activities in Södertälje (Sweden) and in a second step in Tokyo (Japan). TRATON and Hino will team up to shorten lead times for future e-mobility products with battery and fuel cell technology. The two companies are convinced that both technologies will be needed in the future."
    According to the press release, the JV will work on:

    battery electric vehicles (BEV)
    fuel cell vehicles (FCV)
    relevant components
    creating common EV platforms including software and interfaces

    Toyota has a poor record with joint ventures. As for VW, they have their own issues. Mostly, I see it as a demo of corporate culture shock.

    Bob Wilson
     
  2. jzchen

    jzchen Newbie!

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    I can see it now:

    Toyota model:. 500 mi range
    VW model:. 600 mi range

    Exact same car.

    What!?!?!?

    moto g(7) power ?
     
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  3. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Speaking of corporate culture shock:

    During an online conference following Toyota’s latest financial results, CEO Akio Toyoda said about Tesla (via Bloomberg):

    Tesla says that their recipe will be the standard in the future, but what Toyota has is a real kitchen and a real chef. We are losing when it comes to the share price, but when it comes to products, we have a full menu that will be chosen by customers.

    The CEO continues with the cooking analogy:

    They aren’t really making something that’s real, people are just buying the recipe. We have the kitchen and chef, and we make real food.

    Tesla is currently valued by the market at over $400 billion while Toyota is worth just over $200 billion.

    In 2010, Toyota invested $50 million in Tesla and they brokered a heavily discounted sale of the Nummi factory, which is now Tesla’s Fremont factory.

    The automaker sold its stake in Tesla for a good profit in 2017, but it was still only a fraction of what it would be worth today.

    Electrek’s Take
    Thanks Toyoda, I didn’t know that I have recipes in my driveway instead of Tesla vehicles.

    No, but seriously. I’m hungry now with all this cooking stuff..

    However, Toyota’s menu is not for me. They are lacking in electric options.

    The fact that Tesla is more valuable than Toyota has nothing to do with whatever Toyoda is talking about with his strange cooking analogy, it has to do with the fact that Tesla is dominating the electric market (aka the future of the auto industry), while Toyota is barely dipping its toes in it and distracting itself with hybrids and hydrogen fuel cells.

    If I wanted to buy an electric Toyota right now, I’d be all out of luck unless I’m in China, where the Japanese automaker is making a bigger battery-electric push to comply with regulations. Toyota CEO goes after Tesla and Elon Musk with strange cooking analogy - Electrek
     
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  4. t_newt

    t_newt Active Member

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    I looked up the Traton and Hino websites. For the most part, they both just build commercial trucks.
     
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  5. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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  6. Zythryn

    Zythryn Senior Member

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    His analogy is faulty, Tesla isn't saying their recipe is the future.
    Tesla is saying that EVs are the future. The specific recipe anyone wants to use is up to them, but that the future will lead to a main dish that is the BEV.
    I wonder if Toyota will wait long enough, to really get on board, such that Tesla will have a full lineup of vehicles?
     
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  7. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    Given the expense of a hydrogen fuel station versus building a battery buffered grid connection, the low risk is BEV.

    Bob Wilson
     
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  8. orenji

    orenji Senior Member

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    500,000 Tesla Annual Sales Vs, 9 million Toyota annual sales. I would agree the chef needs help.
     
  9. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Too Funny... Step away from the Kool Aid.

    Long term financial valuation turns your point on its head. Didn't you read the quotes posted?

    Specifically: "Tesla is currently valued by the market at over $400 billion while Toyota is worth just over $200 billion."

    Did you lose your shorts buying short options on Tesla stocks too?
     
  10. orenji

    orenji Senior Member

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    Toyota is still bigger and has much more money in their pockets. Tesla stock is over valued and Wall Street knows it.
     
  11. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Maybe take an Economics class? Valuation says more about what you call "money in their pockets" than a dinosaur company that produces more cars... The way you think is the same way all the Detroit executives thought before they tanked their companies and got fired.

    And Trump is still "bigger" than Biden but which one has us excited about their future potential value? One is just getting started, the other one is a loser by almost every measure.
     
  12. orenji

    orenji Senior Member

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    Dinosaur company - yet your on Priuschat! Toyota leads the automotive world - just because you don’t agree with their vision does not make them any less relevant in how they want to help the world to be a better place to live. Go plug in.
     
  13. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Agree with their vision? Leads the automotive world? Wow, just wow...

    I like old dinosaur hybrid cars... I've always owned 15-20 year old cars cause I like working on them and there's loads of Prius from that time period, the very best vehicle from that time period, so there's plenty of people to help.

    I'm not here because I agree with a car company that's lost its vision long ago... I fully expect the Prius line to discontinue from lack of sales in next few years and 1/2 dozen years from now Toyota will be just a shadow of it's former self.

    That is after all why Wall Street gives near double the valuation of a wickedly efficient tiny ready for the future company in Tesla compared to a bloated aged and dying behemoth in Toyota, which is unable to pivot to all electric because it would have to retrofit their production line at scale and they can't finance that because their valuation is too low to turn a profit if they did that.
     
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  14. orenji

    orenji Senior Member

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    Wow what did Toyota do to piss you off? If your into antiques why do you care what Toyota does or does not do?
     
  15. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Applying human emotions/drama to my opinions on unsustainable fossil-fuel based multi-national corporations is hilarious!
     
  16. Zythryn

    Zythryn Senior Member

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    I don’t know if you are interested in different viewpoints, or just arguing against them.
    Here is a, IMO, very interesting piece on exactly this subject.

    Toyota's President Clearly Doesn't Understand Tesla, Its Mission, Or The Restaurant Industry

    By the way, I especially like the comparison of company goals.
    This is from the link above:

     
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  17. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    Of those 9 million, how many were FCEV?
    BEV?
    PHEV?
    or even hybrid?

    The article @Zythryn posted points out that Tesla is a company working on a solution to a problem. Toyota is just a company chasing profit. Nearly all their big innovations were a reactive response, and/or someway of milking government cash. The story goes that they started working on the Prius because they were excluded from the US PNGV program. They only sold BEVs in markets in which they were forced too. Working on FCEVs could even be construed as because GM had a lead on them in that area.

    And all those benefited from government cash. There was concern about air pollution in Japan. So the government started a Low Emission Vehicle program back in the 1970's that looked into batteries, hybrids, and hydrogen. It provided funding for research, and direct subsidies for car sales. Yes, the Prius had a subsidy in Japan from the beginning.

    Unfortunately, the conclusions of that research hasn't taken into account current levels of technology. It's where to idea of BEV for city use and FCEV for longer ranges come from. Back when the Prius came out, the public wasn't thriller with the price of a long range BEV would have. It was also the time when the cutting edge battery tech was NiMH, and many BEVs for sale in Japan were using lead acid. We can see that Toyota was still thinking in these obsolete terms until recently by what in house BEV they had planned to offer; the iQ EV. A smart car sized car with high price tag, and range shorter than any other BEV on the market. It might even be shorter than those Candi cars coming.

    Toyota isn't even serious about hydrogen. If they were, they'd start building their own chain of hydrogen stations, and expand them outside of California. The small trickle growth of waiting for someone else to build them will doom hydrogen cars. Right now, the Mirai isn't competing with Tesla. It is competing with ICE cars. It won't be a long time until it is competing with Tesla and other plug ins, and a charging network that is expanding faster than hydrogen.
     
    #17 Trollbait, Nov 9, 2020
    Last edited: Nov 9, 2020
  18. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    Thanks for sharing this link... Key to what's wrong with Toyota these days: "Its global vision, according to its website, is to “lead the future mobility society, enriching lives around the world with the safest and most responsible ways of moving people.”"

    Key to what they're failing on is fact that fossil fuel powered vehicles are not enriching lives and are no longer responsible in an era of harm from climate change conditions that are showing up 50 years earlier than predicted.

    What's worse, all their investments over the decades have locked them in to dependence on fossil fuel based car making and their severe lack of Wall Street valuation, means there's no financing opportunities to build several new mega-size BEV factories on several continents like Tesla is doing.
     
  19. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    of COURSE their bigger ... the dinosaur GM was big too. Then?
    it wasn't. Usually the Japanese market / businesses learn from US winners & loosers. Maybe this observation (or failure) is a new trend. Too bad.
    .
     
  20. orenji

    orenji Senior Member

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    Toyota is no dinosaur and leads in so many ways. Don’t forget without Toyota, Tesla may never have started. Tesla is no threat to Toyota.