Azzura:

 

They talk about hydrogen in this article --

https://www.wired.com/story/toyota-whiffed-on-electric-vehicles-now-trying-slow-their-rise/

 

 

 

"Hydrogen Dead End

 

Having spent the last decade ignoring or dismissing EVs, Toyota now finds itself a laggard in an industry that's swiftly preparing for an electric—not just electrified—transition."

 

Toyota is an interesting case study.

I don't believe for a moment that their current positioning is an accident, or error they have made regarding plug in vehicles.

They are in an extremely desirable position at the moment. Their (non plug in) hybrid technology is head and shoulders over the competition at the moment. 

Examples:

• Yaris hybrid, 85kW, 3.3L/100km combined rating on 91 Ron, under $30k.
• Rav4 hybrid AWD, 163kW, 4.8L/100km combined on 91 Ron, for under $45k

And this is from mature technology that is relatively cheap to produce, and can run fairly small NiMh batteries rather than giant expensive lithem battery packs.

When Europe worked out that having large volumes of diesel cars in urban centers was making air quality the worst it had been in years, and they were going to move away front that tech, Toyota hit the Jackpot big time. No further competition from euro diesel's in the green motoring space.

Toyota is quite capable of building electric cars, and has done two generations of Rav4 electric's for the USA ZEV mandate states. It is also quite capable of building desirable plug in hybrids (Look up the spec's of the rav4 prime...), but at the moment, it can move large volumes of decent margin cars (including their hybrid offerings in emissions sensitive markets), without spending the money of carrying the risk of being moving quickly to EV. Reading between the lines I think it is pritty clear toyota's hydrogen cars, pure electric cars and the desirable rav4 prime were never ment to sell in big volumes, which would risk eating sales volumes of toyota's high margin products.

By being a laggard, Toyota can keep selling it's high margin ice and hybrid offings for the maximum length of time.

And it has avoided either tight margin or loss making first and possibly second generation of mainstream EV's. Not only did these cars not make their manufactures partially much money, but also they have risked reputation damage. Nissan would be the main example, it cut the corners it needed to to get the leaf cheap enough to sell in big volumes, but that ment no active battery cooling, which meant fast pack degradation, and their brand being associated with poor lifespan products.

It seems the first markets (like the UK) will start banning non plug in cars in 2030, and going all electric in 2035. There is a chance brands like toyota will choose not to play that game, and markets like the Uk will be left desperately short of new cars & vans come 2030. This combined with lobbying could potentially delay this by say 5 years. Worst case they still have plenty of other markets to sell their cars into.

But Toyota could easily have a lineup of plug in hybrid's to hit the first date (or even do ok just offering the prius prime & Rav4 prime), so it is the 2035 date that is matters (if it holds), Just under 14 years away. A long time in auto development.

In the background both Japan and toyota are spending big bucks on solid state battery R&D. This is basically the holy grail of batteries... Estimates have:

• 1000km range
• 10min fast charge
• 30 year life with 90% of new capacity at the end
• -40c to 100c temp range.
• Stable and safer than current batteries.

No body quite knows how far along they are, but I doubt the Japanese government would be spending US$19b on the tech if it wasn't promising.

Little need to Toyota to make big decisions in the next 8 years or so. They can keep operating as normal until then. At that point they will need to make a call if they are going to bet the farm on tesla style gigafactories and bet big on conventional batteries, or if they are going to bet on solid state batteries, and tool up for making large volume.

If they go the conventional route, Toyota will power into the market with a range of 3rd (or 4th) generation EV's, based on the painfull learning of the other brands over the past 25 years. As long as toyota has kept it's reputation for quality, buyers will be lining up.

If they go the solid state route, they will be able to launch a range of EV's that blow their competitors out of the water and instantly establish toyota as the brand to beat in the EV space.