Featured EV laggards Toyota and Stellantis complain about proposed EPA emissions rules

toyota board is living in an alternate universe. they won't even notice as the water slowly boils...

 

It’s getting warmer faster. At some point, they will notice.
I really don’t care if they make EVs, just as long as they can make something as efficient, at scale.

 

Sad to see this about Toyota, I think they got comfortable, and the world around then adapted, and will go past them if they don’t do something quick.

 

Even frogs jump out when the water gets too warm. I think toyota is changing. Still its hard to turn a large ingrained company. Hope it doesn't go the way of kodak.

 

The Dodge / Jeep arm of Stellates is still hoping to profit from non hybrids. At least Toyota is getting close to hybridizing most of their models. Of all the brands under Stellates (16 brands: Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroën, Dodge, DS, Fiat, Fiat Professional, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Mopar, Opel, Peugeot, Ram, and Vauxhall) ... iirc only the Fiat has gone ev (& still comes in a gasser). Chrysler Pacifica comes optioned as a plugin hybrid ... as does the Jeep.
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None, but one (maybe 2) get efficiency in the realm of EVs though.
50mpg is twice as good as the average.
But it is only half as good as EVs.

 

A very valid concern.
So, can we test that hypothesis?

Perhaps by taking a look at the ratio of road accidents in countries/states with large EV marketshares, with those same places prior to EVs?
Then compare that with the ratio of places with no, or low EV market penetration over the same timeframe?

Would that be a good indicator to you, one way or the other?

 

It probably would not be a good indicator because most EVs in the US are Tesla model 3/Y that range between 3800lbs-4555 lbs (for reference the rav4 prime is at 4235). These are extremely safe cars and not much heavier than regular ice vehicles. I assume their will be less accidents because all these vehicles are fairly new (oldest are only 6 years) versus older vehicles that do not have safety devices.

Because of sample size and not having like for like it appears that plug-ins are safer than conventional cars.
With more electric vehicles comes more proof of safety

 

Fair points. However, pedestrian accidents wouldn't be affected by vehicle age, would they?

I am thinking if we have a large sample size, we can at least strengthen, or weaken, or even disprove the hypothesis.
For example, if we look at accident rates in Norway 15 years ago vs last year, and compare it to accident rates in Finland (much lower EV adoption rates) over the same period, perhaps we can tease out some data?

 

And the pickups weigh how much? Would the statistics show that the mass adoption of pickups has correlated with more accidents? In my semi-rural neck of the woods pickups outnumber EVs 20 to 1 or more.

 

Good question!
Perhaps start with just, "do heavier vehicles lead to more damage/deaths".
Compare a state with high PU truck marketshare to a nearby state with low PU truck marketshare?

 

The anecdotal evidence and small studies have evs slightly more likely to be in pedestrian accidents. Still this does not correct for location so who knows. Older cars may have brakes that have not been maintained as well, so stopping could also hurt them here.

That is likely to show EVs are safer, but its hard to account for the differences in countries. I would think California would be a good test against another high population state with low adoption and lack of much winter.

The electric f150 lightning weighs 6500lbs and likely to sell at much higher volume than those 8000 lb trucks. Its gas version weighs 4000-5000lbs depending on options. If you are towing a 10,000 lb load I think you have more control with the lightning, but they are revising it. Not sure if you mean hauling and towing, or empty weight.

The added weight of these heavy trucks and SUVs has been mitigated by more safety equipment, but all things being equal a 5000lb truck towing a 10,000lb trailer is not going to stop as fast as a 3000lb or 4000lb cars. One reason small cars have gotten so heavy is to be safer when one of these heavy vehicles gets in an accident with them.

 

A good rule of thumb:

$_EV / mi ~= 33% * $_GAS / mi​

There will always be exceptions with poor and stellar vehicles.

Bob Wilson

 

gasser or plugin - the days of the Chevy Chevette, the Yugo, the Ford Festiva, Toyota iQ - Mitsubishi i-MiEV - prius C ... they've all come & gone in the USA for a reason. Low sales don't make for big profits. Customers that need to haul more (people &/or stuff) choose bigger rides.
If the smaller / high efficiency ride's efficiency is increased from 57 MPG to 60 MPG ... that might be 5% improvement. 5% and below is often considered statistically as nothing at all.
Compare that against a heavier Chrysler Pacifica that may get 19 MPG city. It's plug-in hybrid counterpart efficiency will be more than double that (82MPGe) ... even when it's blended with its hybrid gas burning mix. So the little car may save a few gallons of gas over a few hundred miles whereas the big heavy ride will save dozens of gallons of gas over the same distance. So the example shows it's better to increase the behemoths' efficiency as that will save more fuel.
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They are behind yes but there is definitely one thing they got going for their group ;



Above Pic is a (now) 3yr old Pacifica minivan showing over 30k miles averaging low 20's MPG. That's pretty close to the EPA of a similarly old Sienna minivan. We had to rent this Pacifica while our Pacifica was in the shop after another driver backed into our Pacifica.

Now check out the difference in MPG comparing our plug-in version - that was coming up on 24K miles at the time;



Our Pacifica has made three or four 70+mph interstate trips exclusively on gas (minus 1st 33 ev miles). Total mileage is ~75% ev. It's a 5,000+ Lb cargo carrying / 7 person vehicle that can easily average lifetime over 50mpg. That's more than DOUBLE the straight gas burner.

We would have rather had the Sienna - had it been a plug-in. Yes the Stellantis fleet sucks. Pacifica? not so much
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The irony is Toyota had a perfectly fine, hybrid mini-van back around 2001, Estima Hybrid. A few were sold in the UK but apparently North America was not in Toyota's business plan.

Bob Wilson

 

At least the Sienna is hybridized now, which lets it get an EPA around 36 mpg. Hopefully they'll be able to start scoring bigger battery contracts in the not too distant future.
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