Interesting Comment from Toyota...

“Toyota estimated that the amount of materials to make one EV battery can be used to make 90 hybrid batteries and that those 90 hybrids will result in 37 times more emissions reductions over their lifetime than one EV,” the report stated.

 

Let’s say Toyota is totally correct and EVs sucks.

Which, for certain applications, they do. And for other applications they rock.

Toyota has watched others pour a ton of money into EVs while they have been hybrid focused. It’s to their advantage for the future to be hybrid.

Really, it’s probably time to move away from “one car for all uses”. Back in the day, you had city cars, grand touring cars, etc.

We would be better off if there was an incentive for people to drive smaller vehicles, generally lower range EVs, for most of their daily driving, and have larger vehicles for road trips or when they need to really carry things.

I love my 4Runner, but our Bolt is a far better vehicle when you consider the majority of its use. It does Costco runs fine, it handles and rides well, it’s cheaper to run.

The Bolt sucks offroad though, and it can’t carry the amount of music stuff I might cram in it to head out to rehearsal.

My family always had two rather distinct vehicles growing up. It’s a model I’ve carried over into adulthood.

 

Where in that statement does it say that EV's suck?

Aside from focusing on hybrids, it seems like they've been focusing on other alternative fuels that might be a better solution. Let's face it; EV's in their current form are not a real solution to the environmental concerns associated with ICE vehicles.

Aside from that, I totally agree with the idea of having multiple vehicles that serve different purposes. Unfortunately, not everyone can afford owning multiple vehicles, so that's not always an option.

 

Oh, I’m just saying let’s take it to the extreme possibility. If you start from the idea that EVs suck, and remove that from consideration, then you can evaluate statements without consideration of the merits of EVs.

In Toyota’s case, they have made a strategic bet against a pure EV future. Honda has too.

So you have to keep that in mind - whether EVs suck or are awesome, or anywhere in between, they have a strategic interest in making sure that hybrids and other options remain something that can survive given the public policy landscape (regulatory, tax, etc).

EVs are 100% the solution to ICE for a lot of use cases - like in urban areas, or for suburban soccer mom duties - provided that we get people into the proper sized vehicles.

But they make no sense for towing, long distance travel, or large vehicles absent a third-rail approach where you can draw power as you drive. They also make no sense for rural areas.

Frankly, I wish they’d institute a maximum weight rating on EVs to prevent some of the idiotic things like the Hummer that siphon off batteries that could be used elsewhere. I’d also love to see the ability to use golf carts, side by sides, etc. in more places too.

Heck, why don’t we have inexpensive and fun single seater cars for all the people who commute?

 

They're fine for the consumer. But, my point was that they're hardly an improvement for the environment.

I'll also bet against a pure EV future, until a better power supply comes along.

 

Perhaps the better power supply is hydrogen?
https://www.topspeed.com/toyotas-hy...vs-obsolete/#evs-are-not-without-fault-either

 

In the case of a place like NYC and the surrounding area, or most other major urban areas, it would be a massive improvement. The air pollution is stunning -- I remember seeing NYC clearly from NJ from the turnpike on the way to the airport once the day after a hurricane when the pollution was blown out to sea...and a week later it was back. It was a night and day difference.

In a less dense city, like Milwaukee, it becomes less compelling of a case. But...at the same time, that's if you do apples to apples. Getting a family of three out of a Chevy Tahoe and into a mid-sized hatchback EV would be a net benefit to the environment. Of course, getting them into a gas powered Camry would also be a benefit.

I think the big breakthrough will be if we can get dedicated roadways that supply power to vehicles from a centralized source.

 

Hydrogen is cool, but is probably going to be better suited for air mobility where the weight/energy relationship makes sense versus batteries. For land based usage, batteries are better than hydrogen except for the fueling side of things.

 

You have a good point. I'm thinking about the actual production of the EV's, which is worse than the production of ICE vehicles. But, the operation of EV's in densely populated areas could definitely improve the local air quality

I like the idea of electrified roadways. It would solve a few of the problems with EV's if someone could figure it out.

 

World's largest slot car track!

Seriously though, San Francisco has electrified buses that use overhead cables. They also have poo on the sidewalk, but that's a different topic.

 

I work in aviation, and what I am reading regarding hydrogen does not bode well. For hydrogen fueled aircraft, short range flying is the only thing currently working in flight testing.
In multiple articles in Aviation Week & Space Technology, the problem with hydrogen is the leakage in plumbing between storage and the fuel cell, or powerplant. The hydrogen molecules are so small that there has not, so far, been a solution to leakage at any and every plumbing connection. As we all know thanks to the Hindenburg, hydrogen gas is extremely flammable. Therefore internal storage of hydrogen is a problem.

The Toyota Mirai is no different. The hydrogen storage and the fuel cell itself are outside the vehicle (underneath) because of hydrogen leakage. Imagine the hazard of hydrogen gas buildup inside the passenger compartment. The problem that is not being talked about - your Murai gets fueled at a Toyota dealership, and you drive home and park it. Let's say you don't drive it for a week. When you do get back in the car to go somewhere, and then you discover that half of your hydrogen is gone due to leakage. I have read that it takes two weeks or so to lose an entire tank of hydrogen due to leakage. The last I checked hydrogen costs $18 per gallon. Talk about vaporizing your money...

 

Not in aviation, but I have only seen it in the context of air mobility, which I take to mean short range as well.

Interesting thing about the Hindenburg is that the burning diesel fuel and airship skin was more of a threat to life than the hydrogen itself.

Also, the Empire State Building was intended to be a docking point for zeppelins. They figured out quickly how hard that was.

 

Back in the day, all those cars ran on gasoline (or diesel).

 

States like California are already incentivizing, mandating, coercing etc. etc. the use electric vehicles. The bureaucrats there have already said that new ICE vehicles will end (somewhere around 2028 if I recall). How much more incentivizing from government do we need? It's nice that you have two cars, but lots of people can barely afford one car. And they will buy the vehicle that best suits their overall need (or want), at the lowest possible price. And hopefully they will be allowed to purchase that car or truck.

 

That’s all fine and good if you bear the full cost of your decisions, and nobody else does.

But that’s not true for you or me.

Externalities are real.

I own my house, and can do what I want, but if what I want to do starts causing an issue for other people, then collectively something needs to change. Plenty of precedent for this - I can’t cause your property to flood, I can’t make excessive and unreasonable noise, etc.

 

But nobody would take a city car in a long journey.

 

For starters, we unfortunately incentivize large vehicles as a result of CAFE. It’s why nobody makes station wagons, and why so many SUVs are classified as a truck even though they aren’t really a truck in practice.

 

Oh, I believe in the free market more than anything. Government regulation has created a situation where incentives have gotten messed up.

If we roll things back to the early 80s, most households drove cars, and trucks were trucks.

I’d LOVE to get back to a situation where cars were cars and SUVs were SUVs. Imagine how awesome the 4Runner would be if it could be more purpose built because they didn’t need to be everything to everyone.

Frankly, when I look at the today Wrangler it is so far from the spirit of the CJ and original YJ. More capable in many ways, but so much of it is cringeworthy.

Consider the Land Rover Defender. Same thing.

The problem is that our regulations messed everything up. Cars got worse in terms of offering the size and engines people want and trucks became cars.

 

I'm old enough (73) to remember when Congress enacted the CAFE regulations. And the government changing all of the 70mph highway signs to 55mph. All of it based on so-called "finite oil". (And I remember in later years the government changing the speed limit signs "quietly" back to 70mph). The CAFE rules had the effect of telling manufacturers what they are "allowed" to build versus what the market may want. So the manufacturers have to juggle with different Administrations every four years having to wonder if the CAFE rules will increase, remain the same, or decrease ?
Of course, over the last ten years or more we know there is enough oil in our Continent alone to supply gasoline for ICE engines for at least another 100 years +. (having enough refining capacity is a different question)
So why do we still have CAFE ?

 

If it's an EV, yeah. Who wants to keep worrying about where they are gonna get their next charge. And then wait wait wait just to get to 80%. But a 'city' car that runs on fossil fuel (including hybrids), and can get 400+ miles on a full tank of gas, and fill up in 5 minutes almost anywhere, would be fine for a long journey.

 

Sort of like once a government agency is created, it's almost impossible to get rid of it.

 

And yet given the cost of cars, it seems like a sub $20k city car would do wonders for so many people.

It’s possible to do that with an EV and give people more than enough for a couple of days driving.

Cars are too big, too expensive. I’d rather we had small, cheap, and cheerful available for all the mundane stuff.

 

And in that case, those small MPVs like the Ford Transit Connect are positively brilliant.

Ford and others sell them overseas, but they’ve never managed to market them correctly here in the US.

Heck, minivans make so much more sense than SUVs, but people have let themselves get brainwashed by marketing and whatnot to feel like they need an SUV to go to the grocery store.

If I wasn’t planning to go off-roading, I would have ended up buying a minivan because they make more sense when you have to load a ton of stuff.

Thankfully my double bass fits easily in my 4Runner with enough room for an amp. I brought it with me when I went for my test drive.

 

It's not marketing. People just don't like minivans.

I, on the other hand, would drive the shit out of a minivan if I wasn't into off-roading.

 

Didn't someone try that with smart cars? People have had options for a "city car" before and they don't do well in America because we are so spread out. This is why a lot of things that work well for Europe don't work well for us. I hate when people start an argument with "well Europeans do/have..."

 

A lot is marketing - we’ve convinced people that minivans are for boring moms, and that they need tough, rugged and aggressive.

It’s like every car needs to look as angry as possible.

 

The smart was fun to drive but was way overpriced.

Don’t forget that the profits on pickups are massive and we have protectionist taxes in place to protect them…which is a big reason why the car companies love selling them, and why they killed off the inexpensive car offerings.

 

I use it for a bit of everything except for true classical. Was going to fix that this fall, but life had other ideas!

 

I was supposed to join a community orchestra this fall, but I’m just too strapped for time.

 

They dodged a bullet then!