tell me again how toyota not going 100% into EVs is a mistake - they're selling more cars then ever! I love EVs, have been driving one for 5 years, but EVs are not the answer for a large portion of motorists yet and hybrid/ICE engines have a long life ahead of them (20+ years imho)
I'm wondering whether these sales figures are worldwide, or in Japan, or in Australia.
I can kind of see the brand loyalty thing. All the big car makers build the brand loyalty because they know customers want to limit their choice - pick a car from the manufacturer you already know, they probably have a range of vehicle shapes and sizes.
And IMO that's two big reasons why they're also all basically stalling on EVs. Firstly, because they don't have the range of EVs. And therefore secondly EV sales essentially eat into their existing model sales. Dealers hate this because they like selling what they know and they already know what they get out of ICE sales - lots of lovely servicing revenue. And manufacturers hate having to make a new model or redo all the parts, when you can just do a few minor tweaks on the panels of an old frame and make it look like it's fresh and new.
The Japanese car manufacturers in particular have a very good deal where the government has built in a cost to register an old car, specifically to get people to buy new cars and keep pumping money into their car industry.
And I've also heard that the 'honour culture' in Japan makes it difficult for them to not keep the deals they have with the suppliers of parts specific to the ICE engine - spark plugs, cables, ECUs, radiators, hoses, etc. I'm not sure I trust this view entirely, especially since US manufacturers are dragging their heels too and they've been also outsourcing and off-shoring all those things anyway.
To me it just comes down to: sorry, but it's imperative for the future survival of the human race on this planet that we #stopburningstuff . Sorry if that gets in people's faces with brand loyalty and decision headaches. Tough. We have to choose.
@PaulWay@jpm I doubt Toyota sold 10 million cars in a year in Australia, hahaha. I would love a bz4x, just need to wait for the depreciation to kick in. All I know is that I’m never buying a Tesla again.
@decryption left to their own devices ICEs might have 20 or more years of life in them, but that would be incompatible with a safe climate, so it can't be allowed to happen.
Hybrids probably do have a strong role for a while, but remember Toyota's mistake is saying that hydrogen will play a big role - they're sure as shit not selling a lot of those!
@Simbera@decryption I remember seeing a segment on BBC World where the presenter was on a junket to Japan looking at Toyota's hydrogen vehicles.
When it got to the point to talk about where the hydrogen came from, the answer was "it arrives in big ships from Australia". So almost certainly not green hydrogen.
@jamesh@Simbera that's been around for a while (came out in 2020 and you've never been able to buy one in Australia) - they aren't developing any new light vehicles with hydrogen (commercial, different story)
@decryption And why does the Toyota Prius / Hybrid Corolla / Camry etc always feature heavily in the "greenest" car lists in most regions? Perhaps the criteria for those lists are deceiving and results are bought - but I never see Tesla on those lists?
@wallamba a lot of that stuff is very subjective - even in australia, the green vehicle guide's emissions data claims an EV is dirtier than a hybrid because it uses extremely out of date CO2 figures for the electricity grid
@decryption Yeah I figured as much, I don't know enough about it. But to the average car buyer with ~$35k to spend, buying a Toyota hybrid appears to tick most of the boxes - it did for me.
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