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 ...
Oh you said battery car, not car battery.
Can’t wait for them to treat EV batteries like toxic waste.
Some minimalist vlogger on YouTube made a similar statement about why she got rid of her electric car (which she otherwise loved)...the California wildfires came perilously close to her, and it dawned that she might need to evacuate and find herself stuck someplace and unable to recharge.
At one time it wasn't economical to drive across the U.S. because you needed to bring your own gasoline or diesel fuel with you. That sure changed very quickly, didn't it!
I’ve got a 2017 Hyundai Ioniq hybrid - lifetime hybrid battery warranty -
Yeah I don’t think there’s much lead in the high voltage batteries.
Tesla has a subsidiary called Redwood Materials in Nevada that’s working on recycling, but I haven’t heard of any breakthroughs so far.
Bill Gates has already preened about how they’ll get us to make “the switch”: they will simply dry up the supply of gas (so only the elite can afford it.
And only the near-elite will be able to afford electric cars.
Most of us are public transporting it, staying put, or getting vaporized.
The auto manufacturers at the top are aware of how the switch will be forced, which explains their investing like crazy in the new tech before its time. Oh, and they don’t even consider themselves to be in the automobile business anymore: they now see themselves in the (consumer/serf tracking) “information” and (serf controlling) IT sectors.
It’s the age old argument:
Right vs Left
Reality vs Delusion
To quote a physicist it’s the difference between physical science, and political science.
The political kind is anything but science, and they are running the show.
What makes the typical American car or small SUV ideal for electric power is that our power grid has a lot of excess capacity during overnight hours in most parts of the country. In fact, using this power overnight to recharge car batteries will probably make electricity somewhat less expensive overall because it will flatten out the peaks and valleys of daily power generation across most of the country.
I assume you also have a gas engine to to the heavy lifting long after the battery has faded. Like a Prius. Hybrids weren’t cost effective during the Trump years but as Biden/Harris drive fuel prices into the 7 dollar / gallon range they will be good.
I was wondering about that. How much does it cost to replace the drive battery for, say, a Toyota Prius? I wonder what percentage of owners choose to spend the money to replace the battery vs. those who just rely on the gas backup engine?
I wonder too if they remove the drive battery to save the weight? That may not be cheap either with probably a hefty disposal fee.
In all fairness though, an 8 yr. old gasoline car is approaching a point where the transmission fluid needs to be changed and the timing belt needs to be replaced if maximum life is going to be achieved. I'd estimate these two service to be between $500-$1000.
[[ I don’t think it’s going to happen that way. In fact, I think there’s a good chance we will see surcharges added to electric bills to offset the lost fuel tax revenues from these cars. ]]
Exactly. Someone said it will be cheaper to recharge a car because it will be done mostly at night “when electric charges are cheaper”, than it will be to fill it up with gasoline.
But the fact is that it will only be cheaper for a very short period. They will find so way to increase the price of e.ectricity used for recharging. The reason electricity is cheaper at night right now is because it is an off peak usage time of the day. If everyone is forced to get electric vehicles, night e Wil. Become the new peak hours for electric, or close to it anyways.
Question is, Wil. The increased electric bills be more or less than monthly fuel bill?
Then possibly there will be the issue of dwindling fuel driven car sales, so gasoline prices will likely jump to make up the losses in fuel sales too.
.ots of issues to consider in all thisperhaps lots of unforseen consequences.
They left a few things off their list of problems. Like the having the ability to deal with the old batteries. The fact that electric cars are useless in the cold. No long trips.
Extreme increases in the entire power infrastructure, and generating capability. We are not just talking about adding some charging stations.
The Left knows FULL WELL that their schemes cannot work, so trying to debate them on those merits is simply STUPID. They are doing just what they’ve wanted to do to this country for nearly 100 years, and now they have everything in place to effect just that.
Sure, they’ll ‘humor’ us by debating the ‘issues’ like this one and Voter ID...but again, they do it while taking us down.
What needs to be done with them is to get them out of power. Trump nearly did that and it maybe have been possible to buy a few more years for him to try, but we were so busy getting rid of those pesky RINOs in Georgia, so that option is gone.
Now we simply wait for their long-planned collapse of this country to take place. Well, you guys, I’m out of here, but what the hell, those pesky RINOs in Georgia are gone, so that’s all that matters to me!
To the Left it is never ever about facts, it is always about emotions.
absolutely...but that’s a different issue from battery replacement cost.
Just thought of something too. These range estimates are only for brand new cars with brand new batteries. Batteries lose staying power for their charges as they age. Wonder how much it will affect range when they start becoming older and ho,d their charges e for less time?
I’m glad somebody is showing some sense.
A Nissan Leaf battery pack is about 3500 bucks. Not sure how much the labor is to install it but I wouldn’t be surprised if they charged another 500.
Don’t know about Tesla new replacement prices, but low mile used batteries are going on eBay for 8 to 10 grand.
Amen to the debate. As to the nucs I seem to remember the old initiative using the 250 plant necessity. We barely made it to 100, and some are shuttered while others are scheduled. That doesn’t begin to count the gigawatts of coal already shut down. We are on course for nationwide larger than Texas disaster, and you can quote me.
The secular environmental religion has no God to bail US out.
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