They keep announcing solid state battery breakthroughs, and then nothing happens?Toyota has an EV but it's not very good.TCCN gave it a poor review:
Unlike cell phones, cars are not cheap enough for consumers to accept an explicit end of life. If any manufacturer* tries that, Toyota will eat their lunch, should they ever decide to make an electric car.
*Except Tesla... their fans will probably let them get away with anything.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=l2tzln6UD-Q ... dIljuRpgJW
Part of the problem,.as I understand it, is Toyota really isn't invested into making EVs yet and just made this model to meet some regulations. I believe I've read Toyota is hoping for solid state battery tech to work out and create their EV fleet out of that. Also, they are heavily invested into Hybrid technology right now while (and apparently this is quite successful) while.they wait for this solid state battery tech to develop.
Toyota is gambling the EV market won't develop as fast as it might, and seems to be in some countries. This is an institutional blindness, and it reminds me of the mainframe computer manufacturers (IBM and the 7 Dwarves) in the face of the PC, DEC and the minicomputer in the face of the PC, and any number of other industry incumbents when the paradigm shifted on them.
It will be interesting to see whether Toyota wins its bet. VW seems to be taking the opposite bet - range of pure EV models, some quite good (albeit terrible software). The Chinese have grabbed the initiative - understood the supply chain and jumped on the opportunity.
My view is I can hear the future coming. It's coming with a whisper up my street (no on property parking) - Tesla, Kia, Hyundai, VW etc. In fact, it's already here, just not evenly distributed (quote stolen from William Gibson)
Statistics: Posted by Valuethinker — Thu Jun 06, 2024 3:25 am — Replies 25 — Views 1720