Hydrogen fueled cars are also electric. They are not that far.

No way. Hydrogen cars are chemical. The trickiest part about an EV is the battery pack, and hydrogen cars don't have 'em. Plus all that investment into hydrogen fuel cells is 100% non-transferrable.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicles have a large battery, larger than the ones in a Prius.

The Toyota Mirai fuel cell vehicle has a small battery, only 1.2 kWh.

https://www.toyota.com/mirai/2023/features/

And story has it the small battery is the reason for the pathetic performance. (9.1 seconds 0-60 speed, which is minivan levels).

The fuel cell can't produce electricity fast enough to power the engines for proper acceleration and the battery doesn't have enough buffer.

The Honda Odyssey minivan can run 0-60 mph in under 7 seconds. So I guess the Mirai is worse than a minivan. But maybe good enough for a city car.

This is totally incorrect. A fuel cell is a type of electrochemical cell. A fuel cell car has an electric motor just like a conventional EV. We often use the terms “BEV” and “FCEV” to differentiate them.

> Hydrogen cars are chemical.

FCEVs are chemical in the same sense that BEVs are, because a “fuel cell” is, like a battery cell, an electrochemical cell.

The only real difference is that the “fuel” and “waste” are inside a battery, but come from and go to the outside in a fuel cell, which means that an FCEV can be fueled (and exhausts) like an combustion engine vehcile, despite being fully electric.

Yes, thank you, that was the distinction I was trying to get at, not quite using the right terms.

> Hydrogen cars are chemical

So are batteries too

Toyota has had the Prius (and other hybrid) models for a long time so they have competency in building electric motor plus battery pack powered vehicles. I don't think its going to take a long time to get full EV's coming from Toyota. EV's don't need any futuristic design or gimmicky features either so don't waste time trying to innovate there. Get a Corolla out that has a 200-250mi range with decent ways to manage/monitor power and they will likely outsell others.

> I don't think its going to take a long time to get full EV's coming from Toyota.

They're already a decade behind where they could've been. The main problem is not that it won't take them long to start, but that it's been so damn long already and they've wasted all that time and haven't even started in earnest yet. Market share takes time to earn and they've given competitors a huge lead for no real reason at all beyond their absurd fixation on hydrogen.

I guess I disagree about being a decade behind and them needing to "start". I'll agree that they are behind. If they take their current car designs and adapt them for 4 electric motors + larger battery pack and discard ICE then they might not be very far off time wise. Its not like they need to come up with electric motors or battery designs, those are mostly just solved problems. Supply chain of battery components is likely the critical path. Toyota shares many designs, parts, etc. across platforms so I think its less work than "starting" from a blank slate as you may intend.