Featured Toyota’s Chairman Shared This Controversial Opinion About EV Sports Cars

Without electricity, a cash register may not work. But even an airplane can be fueled.

 

A lot of people don't have an expansive, exclusive roof of their own, nor the re$ources, Bob.

 

How did the diesel get into the truck?

More importantly, since the topic is private electric cars, how does the fuel for ICE cars get out of a station's underground tank? How does the petroleum get from the ground to the refinery? How does the refinery make diesel and gasoline out of it?

Even if getting fuel into a vehicle is possible, a large scale black out will disrupt many functions that will impact travel. Many flights in Spain and Portugal were cancelled by the black out for example.

 

So again...

Tesla has the most successful EV product...and everyone turns on them. Toyota says it's not interested in EVs...and everyone turns on them.

Buy what you want, let others buy what they want...and quit whining.

 

Sports cars are a tiny niche market.

Should Toyota make a sports car or not is not gonna impact the bottom line much. Even at Porsche, it has been the SUVs and sedans they make that brings in the cash.

 

You can argue endlessly about which is better, petrol cars or electric cars. You can also argue about which hand is more important for a person, the left or the right, which woman is more beautiful, a blonde or a brunette.

Humanity quickly gets used to various conveniences, but it is always worth leaving yourself a choice of the path you can take.

 

Conveniences like the safety of traffic lights at road junctions? Like air traffic control via radio? You may be able to get yourself on the road or into the air, but you are probably exposing yourself to a much more dangerous traffic situation than usual, all while the world is less prepared to help you if you really have a problem.

I'll admit that you can get a little further into 'tha apocalypse' with some manual tools, but most people still have a high dependency on big things working right.

I have a backup generator and some solar capacity for power. That lets me maintain some household conveniences during brief blackouts, the under-3 days kind. But that's about it. Doesn't mean we can function normally. It just means we are a little less impacted by certain brief problems.

It's a very long way from actual independence.

 

You're bringing up major electric black outs as a downside of EVs while ignoring that such a large scale event is a major hinderance to the operation of every thing.

The Spain and Portugal black out was for just a day. Not long enough to put an EV fleet down. A day or two longer, and it would be. A day or two longer, and the gas stations with generators and hand pump dispensers will be empty. Fuel will get expensive trucking it in from a site with working electric. ICE cars will keep running after that, but not much more with normal usage cycles.

Then the electric grid is not the only infrastructure that could go down. Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack - Wikipedia and another issue back in January https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/colonial-pipelines-main-us-gasoline-artery-likely-shut-until-friday-2025-01-15/.

For an extreme secnario, an off grid house could be bult with solar and batteries, with a service life measured in decades. Such put power an EV. Do that with gasoline or diesel generators and car, and it will run a few years. Assuming you stockpiled enough fuel and used stabilizers.

 

The first day of solar production:

• Initial production delayed after sunrise while HSV Utilities did a "Proof to Opertions"
  • Making sure the transfer switch disconnects on a grid outage
  • Stays isolated for 5 minutes before reconnecting to grid
• 30 kWh in range of expected 26 kWh over a year
  • Initially charged the 13.4 kWh buffer battery
  • Mid-day plugged in Tesla with 32 A, light blue, charged
    • Exceeded the array output so it began drawing from battery
  • Tesla charged to limit, returned to charging the buffer battery
  • Late afternoon, excess power, purple, dumped into grid

There are integration issues to resolve such as limiting the charger current to more closely follow solar production. The goal is to minimize the excess power dumped to the grid and maximize power to the Tesla and BMW i3-REx.

Bob Wilson

 

toyoda is probably against that too. you should have just drilled an oil well in your backyard

 

To a point - it's true. ..... a race car operated by a human driver is somewhat similar to someone doing a video game or a Rubik's Cube competition nowadays.

 

He's fine if it is hooked up to an electrolyzer.

 

A lot of folks that can - don't choose to - either. Same with saving your own brass .... or pouring your own lead, mixing your gun powder - hunting or fishing for your own meat or fish with your own sinkers or hand tied flies. For some - it's too much work. Others? A hobby/sport. Others? A sense of resilience.
Still others? meh ..... no need to buy a few extra rolls of T.P. or cans of tuna.

 

[QUOTE="bwilson4web, post: 3533354, member: 10647"There are integration issues to resolve such as limiting the charger current to more closely follow solar production. The goal is to minimize the excess power dumped to the grid and maximize power to the Tesla and BMW i3-REx.
Bob Wilson[/QUOTE]

I am not familiar with your local grid but on mine optimizing for my grid and household - it is most efficient to push power from my solar to the grid during the day, have air conditioning cool the hose more at night, and charge at night. About 60% of my houses power comes direct from my solar, anouther 30% goes into the grid at day and is taken by me at night, 10% net is from the grid. Economically it matters how you are metered, but functionally this is normally best for a warm place where solar during peak air conditioning time can reduce the amount of natural gas burned in peaking plants and old less efficient thermal plants, and charging at night comes from wind and more efficient ccgt plants. In california the oposite may be true as air conditioning and manufacturing are not as big drivers of the grid.

 

There are quite a few power hungry Crypto/AI/data/server Farms in California that take heeeuuuuuge amounts of electricity. Not to mention the largest amount of DC EV QC stations by far. They are a state that rely heavily on power coming from beyond their borders.

Data center crackdown aims to protect California electricity rates

Until recently, granny next door would have to pay for rate hikes to continually increase the capabilities of infrastructure.
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Yeah, I think it's fair to say that there is an aspect of sports cars that does benefit from having an ICE.

The guy isn't wrong in that hearing a big powerful engine get going, and how that engine feels, smells, sounds, and performs along with the driving dynamics of a car does have a quality that an EV cannot truly replicate.

And that's okay.

I wouldn't say he's skeptical of EVs as your average commuter car for an average person. They'll have to adapt eventually if the world keeps moving in that direction for your commuter car.

IDK why everyone is debating the merits of charging cars on the daily at this point in the thread either. We rely on electricity for a lot of things. If it goes down that's bad. It's bad for everything in a general sense lol

 

Having owned 5 sports cars with engines as small as 1.3 litres, you can have as much fun in a small and light car as you can in a much larger engined machine.

1.3, 1.6, 1.6. 2.5. 3.2 and the fastest I ever drove on the street was in the 1.3 at over 100 as I exited the Indy 500 grounds and the cops were waving us on.

It doesn't have to be big to sound glorious, just ask a Porsche owner.

When I was looking several times I would drive more powerful cars like Corvettes and realize in a few blocks or miles that they just felt ponderous.

 

Sure, but the experience that a specific person wants, can only be matched by what they want. If someone wants a small nimble sports car with the feel of shifting gears manually and doing so based on the audio feedback of the RPM, and how that feels through two pedals, a shifter, the wheelbase, the centre of gravity of the car, etc - they lose a big chunk of that in an EV. Same for muscle cars. And I'm sure there's some performance EVs that some people will fall in love with as well.

My main point was simply that people want an experience, and for some, an EV is not that experience. So there will be a place for that experience from a gas engine for people who want it. At least for a while longer.

There's also the way that some people like to tinker and tune and change parts on a car's engine - not just suspension for example, that impacts how the engine performs. You can't get the same experience with an electric drivetrain either. Suspension, tires, and stuff like that sure. But gearheads can't tinker with electric motors. The electric motor driving the wheels is the motor driving the wheels. It's self contained.

 

To each his own. I once published a pretty comprehensive guide to the effects of various possible improvements to a Porsche water cooled engine that a DIY'er could do. "It isn't fast enough" was the title. After all the research, I concluded that most were a waste of money, useful only for bragging rights. Unless you were doing a full prep for the track and then you were limited by the rules of the class and track you were running at. Some tracks even have noise level limitations..

I don't think EV buyers are wanting to do anything but drive an efficient car based on my conversations (Bob being a rare and welcome exception). The one exception are the wrapers who want to stand out. But that isn't like better sealing for the doors or suspension mods. Saw a fully optioned CT the other day with tricked out wheels and bed cover and totally wrapped.

I see Rav4 hybrid owners of used cars starting to make mods where the original owners just drove them. Seems as the price goes down on the basic machine and younger buyers gain access, the urge to mod goes up. Tires, wheels, lifts, screens.