Posted on 03/20/2021 9:54:12 AM PDT by bitt
Depending on how and when you count, Japan’s Toyota is the world’s largest automaker. According to Wheels, Toyota and Volkswagen vie for the title of the world’s largest, with each taking the crown from the other as the market moves. That’s including Volkswagen’s inherent advantage of sporting 12 brands versus Toyota’s four. Audi, Lamborghini, Porsche, Bugatti, and Bentley are included in the Volkswagen brand family.
GM, America’s largest automaker, is about half Toyota’s size thanks to its 2009 bankruptcy and restructuring. Toyota is actually a major car manufacturer in the United States; in 2016 it made about 81% of the cars it sold in the U.S. right here in its nearly half a dozen American plants. If you’re driving a Tundra, RAV4, Camry, or Corolla it was probably American-made in a red state. Toyota was among the first to introduce gas-electric hybrid cars into the market, with the Prius twenty years ago. It hasn’t been afraid to change the car game.
All of this is to point out that Toyota understands both the car market and the infrastructure that supports it perhaps better than any other manufacturer on the planet. It hasn’t grown its footprint through acquisitions, as Volkswagen has, and it hasn’t undergone bankruptcy and bailout as GM has. Toyota has grown by building reliable cars for decades.
When Toyota offers an opinion on the car market, it’s probably worth listening to. This week, Toyota reiterated an opinion it has offered before. That opinion is straightforward: The world is not yet ready to support a fully electric auto fleet.
Toyota’s head of energy and environmental research Robert Wimmer testified before the Senate this week, and said: “If we are to make dramatic progress in electrification, it will require overcoming tremendous challenges, including refueling infrastructure, battery availability, consumer acceptance, .
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
“Still wondering how to generate heat in the winter in an electric automobile.”
Easy, just get one of those kerosene powered Japanese space heaters and make sure to crack a window. And don’t put it in the seat behind you. If you rear end someone, a 2 gallon molotov cocktail will hit you in the back of the head.
Two items to contribute. 1) I was reminded recently that ‘fast charging’ a battery diminishes the life and performance of the battery. Trickle charge keeps batteries functioning longer. 2) On a very hot day, I can run my car’s air conditioner all day, I just have to get gas every 500 miles or so. Not so with EV. I once witnessed a clear demonstration of the EV downside in very hot weather. We were in La Quinta and this Tesla was driving very fast with ALL the windows down. It was 120 degrees outside, but this Tesla could not risk turning on the AC, it takes too much power, and the Tesla would have run out of energy. I imagine a similar scenario in snow country, only then the Tesla driver could not ‘afford’ to run the heater. God bless hydrocarbons! We can literally pour energy into our vehicles!
Not to mention where are all the batteries coming form and the lithium to make them? From the lithium fairy?
—
Yes. The lithium fairy lives in China ...
I see often Teslas operate in two modes.
Instant torque so they aggfessively dart thru traffic.
And running out of juice, doing 40 mph in the slow lane of the interstate.
I remember the early Prius hybrids, they couldn’t make it over the mountain without pulling over to recharge at idle.
Good point. Controlling human behavior is the point.
That's only for total battery failure, not reduced charge capacity. It will give you reduced range over 8 years as the health of the battery pack declines. Tesla also gives a similar warranty. I have a Leaf with a ten-year warranty against reduced charge capacity, if it falls below 70 percent then I get total replacement. Hyundai is not much different than other car makers, it only covers total failure and it applies only to original owner.
About $1500. My daughter has a 2007 Nissan Altima hybrid, not much different than a Prius. She replaced the battery pack a couple years ago due to reduced capacity and it cost her $1500. Car drives like new again, and she has never had any problems or maintenance issues in the almost 14 years she has owned it. That's a pretty good cost savings over a gas-vehicle; she's driven it between California, Kansas, Iowa and Texas multiple times and is in her 2nd hundred-thousand miles.
No intention of buying an electric car or even a hybrid. I have a 2012 gas car and hope that it is good for at least another 8 or 9 years.
I don’t think the lithium fairy has enough lithium even if China is taken into account, not to mention the rare earth fairy for all of the super powerful magnets that those things use.
got no use for a vehicle I have to shut down for 4 hours every 300 miles.
How many electrical charging stations are there on I-90 between Spokane and Chicago?
They are only useful as commuter cars in the cities/burbs. And then only as a SECOND vehicle.
"Switch off leftist minds
And let anthracite decide
Your car was meant to be
Coallll...Power!"
Shame he's such a douchelord.
California has already seen the gas tax revenue decline.
They are looking at charging the EV owner’s mileage to tax to make up the short fall.
Who the hell does Bill Gates think he is? The boss of all?
He should be locked up.
The lesson to be learned...but missed is Cuba.
Most EV cheerleaders are either ignorant of the amount of energy used by the transportation sector or deliberately lying about it. there isn’t spare electricity lying around it’s generated as needed from the reserve capacity. since many areas around the country go flat out in summer reserve capacity varies by time of year. adding the demand of the equivalent of another 500 nuclear reactors as base load is not going to work
>>A full electric is a much different story.<<
thanx for that.
I know...plus I am in a climate that would eat an EV’s range down to “not worth the effort”.
Cold weather kills MPGs in this hybrid.
Where is the energy going to come from to build these cars, and to extract the minerals needed for the batteries? And to generate all that electricity necessary for these “clean” cars?
First large electromagnetic burst from the sun and electric cars are definitely useless.
Let’s go visit president Trump at Mar A Lago this 4th of July so we can cheer him if he makes a public appearance. It’s about 650 miles for me and I’m going to take my minivan which gets 24 highway mpg. It takes me anywhere from 10 to 11.5 hours depending on the traffic to get to Palm Beach and I stop once or twice for gas depending on whether I see a cheap place - I have to stop once because with a 20 gal tank and 24 hwy mpg it just wont get there on a single tank. It takes my family about 15 minutes to do all of the requisite chores at the travel plaza including filling the tank. ANd lets run the air conditioning since it’s going to be hot in July in FL. How long would it take you in your Bolt if you lived 650 miles from there?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.