They make it quite clear in their public conversations that Tesla-style innovation rates are the goal, but in private conversations lament that they're stuck working in a 3-year product cycle due to the innovation rates in their supply chains (as most of the specs and hardware are generated in collaboration with external suppliers).

As a sibling comment mentions, this structure also creates lots of resentment in some of the traditional Toyota departments who are being disrupted by this.

I don't know if I agree with this unless you mean to define "good internal politics" as internal politics that drives a company to self-disrupt.

As shown by the article, self-disruption isn't possible as a big company because the friction of changing things like supply chains and other capital. You really need to start another company that, in a sense, competes (and sometimes at least for a time complements) the larger company. Good internal politics would help to not squash internal competition, but it isn't, I think, enough to purposefully set up that competition.

In particular, the article talk about supply line disruption. Rebuilding your supply lines means you can't use the existing ones, and that's certain not to be cheap either.