They replaced hydrogen with solid state battery as a thing that's perpetually coming soon but not quite there yet.
There are two metrics that matter for Toyota:
- How much gwh per year of battery production can they get online and how soon? They need to shift production of millions of ICE/hybrid vehicles to fully electric. So, we're talking many hundreds of gwh here.
- How expensive are those batteries going to be in $/kwh? Toyota is mostly known for its affordable cars. They have a few luxury models of course but mostly, they sell cars to people that can't afford those. The battery is by far the most expensive thing in an EV. I'd expect them to look at cheap sodium ion batteries rather than some fancy solid state batteries.
Toyota is late to market and they don't have much more than a few concept cars and a few models that they pay BYD to produce for them. They are certainly starting to invest in production capacity. But it seems they are still a few years away from having much to show for their investments. Also, are they going to keep up with BYD, Nio, VinFast, and all those other asian manufacturers that are not holding back and are already producing EVs by the millions? Tesla is a category of its own at this point with a clear lead in terms of profitability and production cost. And you have the likes of Stellantis, Ford, and GM also trying to get e piece of the action. Toyota is a no show so far and the last 3 are showing the transition to electric is hard and involves a lot of learning and reinventing.
Toyota needs more than a magic battery to catch up.
There is a huge market for PHEVs if Toyota had the competency to take it. Theor Prime vehicles are in high demand, just not made in large numbers for whatever reason. Tacoma and 4Runner-like trucks with a PHEV drive train would sell like crazy.
PHEV are just bad business. They don't make money. They are very expensive to produce and expensive to maintain. There is a reason car markets don't want to make that their primary thing.
Considering the Model Y may very well outsell the Corolla this year, that doesn't look like it is the case any more. While they generally are more expensive up front, the total cost of ownership can end up less when you calculate fuel and maintenance.
yes, but say toyota would want to significantly ramp up ev production tomorrow, it is not clear if they will get the same pricing as tesla who already secured contracts before demand started growing.
Prices are already coming down. China actually has lots of cheap EVs on the road already. Think <10000$ cars. Are these cars amazing. No. But they are amazingly good value for the money.
What's going to happen in the next 3 years is that several of those Chinese manufacturers are bringing production capacity online in Europe and North America. And they will start selling these vehicles at a premium and make a lot of profit because they don't have much local competition in terms of cost. Tesla is rumored to be working on a cheaper EV but they will likely build it for the international market and manufacture it in their Mexican plant.
Meanwhile, the cost price of batteries keeps on dropping. CATL and other manufacturers are announcing new batteries all the time. For example CATL has had some success with bringing sodium ion batteries to market as well as LFP batteries. Component prices for EVs are dropping as well. It's not impossible to scale EV production. That's actually what's happening. Production volumes are growing year on year and cost per vehicle is trending down.
There are two metrics that matter for Toyota:
- How much gwh per year of battery production can they get online and how soon? They need to shift production of millions of ICE/hybrid vehicles to fully electric. So, we're talking many hundreds of gwh here.
- How expensive are those batteries going to be in $/kwh? Toyota is mostly known for its affordable cars. They have a few luxury models of course but mostly, they sell cars to people that can't afford those. The battery is by far the most expensive thing in an EV. I'd expect them to look at cheap sodium ion batteries rather than some fancy solid state batteries.
Toyota is late to market and they don't have much more than a few concept cars and a few models that they pay BYD to produce for them. They are certainly starting to invest in production capacity. But it seems they are still a few years away from having much to show for their investments. Also, are they going to keep up with BYD, Nio, VinFast, and all those other asian manufacturers that are not holding back and are already producing EVs by the millions? Tesla is a category of its own at this point with a clear lead in terms of profitability and production cost. And you have the likes of Stellantis, Ford, and GM also trying to get e piece of the action. Toyota is a no show so far and the last 3 are showing the transition to electric is hard and involves a lot of learning and reinventing.
Toyota needs more than a magic battery to catch up.