Nokia, Palm, Blackberry, and Microsoft had years of experience making smartphones with keyboards…

In hybrids the electric motor doesn’t have to be maximally efficient, because the electric range is only a nice to have, not the key selling point.

Hybrid battery density doesn’t matter much, because it’s 1/10th of BEV's size anyway.

In hybrids the charging speed can be an abysmal trickle, and still suffice to charge the tiny battery. In BEV you need to work with 4x higher voltages, 10x higher wattage, and push thermal management to the limits.

That’s why bz4x sucks. Its efficiency is meh. It charges at below average speeds, and still overheats.

In hybrids the battery is used primarily to lower average fuel consumption and lower (a lot) noise and fuel consumption in cities (where hybrids run generally a large amount of time on electric).

Maybe for modern hybrids. For my 2005 Hybrid, the engine is an Atkinson cycle engine and that is where most of the efficiency gains come from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_AZ_engine#2AZ-FXE “The large valve overlap leads to a reduction in cylinder charge and reduced torque and power output, but efficiency is increased. This combination makes the 2AZ-FXE suitable for use only in hybrid vehicles, where peak torque and power demands can be met by the electric motor and battery.”

So the hybrid battery is used for acceleration. Note that my Hybrid battery is a 200V 50Wh Nickel metal hydride battery - Note I think Toyota Hybrids didn’t start using Lithium batteries until late 2010’s).

When town driving it doesn’t seem to me that the regenerative braking makes much difference: It is very noticeable that the engine is in use during acceleration from a dead-stop. Certainly regeneration is insignificant on hills because the

> The Prius in 1997 doesn't count? Sure it was a Hybrid mainly because of no charging network.

A hybrid is not an EV. It gets 100% of its energy from gasoline. Plug-in hybrids have a better claim to being an EV.

Prius has a PHEV version...

Not in 1997. And they still don't sell the PHEV in my region in 2023, just the non-EV hybrids.

One trick pony. Been sitting on their hands since the hybrid synergy drive.

> One trick pony.

Care to explain? Because by this metric every carmaker is a one trick pony. Tesla even more so.

Tesla innovates at a rapid pace, even if judging solely on the battery architecture and cell chemistry between their platforms over the last decade. The tech in my Ys is far superior to my earlier S and X.

Toyota invented the hybrid drive when the US planned on imposing how CAFE standards years ago, and have barely a half hearted effort to build EVs. Their earlier RAV4 EVs used Tesla drivetrains, for example.

https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g15377976/what-came-be...

https://www.motorbiscuit.com/toyota-once-partnered-with-tesl...

Tesla model 2023 is worse than earlier years simply because they removed USS.

Sales and revenue matter, opinions don’t. USS deprecation is unfortunate, but they still sell the cars so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Tesla is the ultimate one-trick pony. There will come a day when the BEV is abandoned. Tesla has shown no ability to move past that event. Toyota will make whatever car is in demand in the future.

You are aware that there is no hydrogen refueling infrastructure in most of the developed world and lots of jurisdictions have banned new combustion vehicle sales between now and 2035, yeah? What proven technology would you use besides batteries? Hydrogen infra that doesn’t exist?

Toyota isn’t dying tomorrow, but if they don’t switch to BEVs, they’ll die like Kodak or Xerox. There is no light vehicle hydrogen future.

We can build hydrogen infrastructure if we had to. None of those ICE bans are going to happen by 2035, at least not without massive loopholes. We will be driving ICE cars for a very long time to come. The correct pathway is finding a sustainable alternative to ICE cars that could happen organically, not fantasize about instantly turning everything into a zero emissions car tomorrow.

Tesla is the company that is going to die. The BEV is not going to be the only car in the future, nor will last forever. If anything, it is an outdated idea, and was an overreaction to the 2000s oil shock. Toyota will just make whatever cars people want.

> None of those ICE bans are going to happen by 2035

Many of the bans are happening by 2030. In Norway, 83% of new cars are already BEVs. I don't think they will look back, the market will make selling new ICEs in that country at least, impractical.

Hydrogen probably has a future in goods transportation (trucking), but even there they have to compete with a fully electrified rail system that goes to the arctic circle.

And either be reversed or will have loopholes. And Norway is one (small) country that is not representative of the rest of the world. And I don't think the political situation in Europe is all that stable either. A lot of the movement in European politics is about abandoning many of these absurd green energy ideas.

Hydrogen will just take over at some point simply because it is the only sustainable idea.

> Hydrogen will just take over at some point simply because it is the only sustainable idea.

Hydrogen is a horrible idea for personal vehicles: it takes a bunch of new expensive infrastructure to even get going (gas stations, but with compressed hydrogen tanks), it is energy inefficient (a lot of energy lost in compression, keeping it compressed, and then turning it in to electrons). It is just not economically viable when compared to BEVs where the biggest worry is finding a power plug.

It might make sense for trucking given its power to weight density, and the fact that trucks can have huge hydrogen tanks without much consequence.

It is cheaper than building out the grid needed to power all cars. In fact, you use basically the same land that gas stations current use up. It is quite straightforward.

Attacks on efficiency are anti-hydrogen FUD arguments. They were made up by BEV companies and are almost entirely false. It's important to realize that fuel cells are electrochemical systems just like batteries. FCEVs are also EVs just like BEVs. There is no fundamental downside. The upside however is that you avoid the huge amount of raw materials needed for the batteries. So this will be a far cheaper solution once we hit mass production.

In short, it is pretty much guaranteed that we will eventually switch to hydrogen cars. It is only a question of when and not if.

It really isn't. The grid is literally already there! The only new infrastructure needed is at the end point. If you are going to be generating hydrogen from electricity anyways, it isn't any different, except maybe you need less electricity because going from electrons to hydrogen back to electrons again you lose 40% energy.

The BEV companies aren't pushing FUD. They are just choosing the option that they see the most demand from, and can make the most money from. Japan has tried to make hydrogen happen for 20 years now, and it simply isn't going to happen.

Batteries don't require much more raw material than the fancy cyrogenic compressed hydrogen tank and fuel cell you need for a hydrogen car. Those batteries are also than those two things also.

That's complete nonsense. We will need vast amounts of grid upgrades to be able to be able to power all cars. And if the grid needs to be purely renewable, that problem explodes into something far harder. In fact, the problem becomes so hard that you will need hydrogen-based energy storage systems to make it work. But that completely undermines any efficiency arguments against hydrogen cars.

BEVs are over 100 years old. It is just a repeat of an obsolete idea. The moment we get serious about green energy, hydrogen cars will happen.

Hydrogen tanks are literally just tanks. They require very little raw materials compared to batteries. Fuel cells are tiny compared to batteries, and use up about the same level of raw materials as catalytic converters. Everything else is basically the same between FCEVs and BEVs. So you can quickly realize that the FCEV will be the far cheaper of the two ideas.

> That's complete nonsense. We will need vast amounts of grid upgrades to be able to be able to power all cars.

That is complete nonsense:

> A typical EV would require about 3,857 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity. For 26.4 million EVs, that's over 101 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in a year or about 2.5% of what the U.S. grid produced in 2020. Although it's a small percentage, it's much more than what we're currently asking of the electrical grid.

https://www.evconnect.com/blog/can-the-power-grid-handle-ele...

Let's say we have 100 million cars, that is 10%.

You keep saying hydrogen tanks are literally just tanks. I get it, you don't believe compression is necessary, so no cyrogenic cooling at gas stations (powered by the grid of course), no fancy compression in cars. Is that what you actually believe?

Now do the math with 300 million EVs. Also, assuming SUV sized ones being popular too, alongside many commercial vehicles too. It is not that simple. Especially since so much of it will be DC fast charging and not slow speed charging.

Compression is not that energy intensive. It's more BEV FUD to make this to be a big deal. If done correctly, it is only a few percent loss of energy: https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/9013_energy_requirement...

Also, it is recoverable energy. Compressed gases are energy storage mechanisms in their own right. In the long run, this will be very minor loss of energy.

> Especially since so much of it will be DC fast charging and not slow speed charging.

Will it? Why?

What do you think is going to replace BEVs?

In the long-run, likely FCEVs. They are also EVs, just without the huge batteries. Advances in production are likely to reduce cost to ICE car levels. Advances in hydrogen production will make green hydrogen follow the curve of wind and solar, which is extremely cheap.

The Prius has also been a PHEV for years now. I doubt it would require a huge change in manufacturing processes to make a pure EV version.

But it's manufacturing the actual battery modules that has been the hard problem for Tesla competitors as I understand it. I guess it's not surprising if so that Toyota would want to have their technology choice set for a while before ramping that up, since it probably affects many of the surrounding design choices.

It is hard to develop the knowledge and processes to build batteries effectively. You need to start doing it and refine your process as you learn more and expand capacity along the way. Tesla went through this phase several years ago. GM, Ford, and others are currently in this phase. They will work out the kinks. Toyota won’t learn how to do this until they actually start building batteries at scale and work out the process using the continuous improvement techniques that they learned from Deming.

Investing in electric engines is still much cheaper than investing in combustion engines.

As a reference, R&D for Mercedes' 2017+ OM654 diesel engine alone costed the company 3.5 B $. And that amount is relatively low because Mercedes had a huge know how in building diesel engines.

But in EV those amounts are much smaller, catching up is no longer a matter of decades and hundreds of billions, but years and ten times smaller investments (see Korea).

This is why China was never competitive in the ICE era, but companies like BYD are booming.

Also, I strongly believe that from now to 2035 multiple companies will be selling their electric powertrains to dozens of different automakers.

Cheap for developing, expensive for massive manufacturing. That's what developed world company doesn't want.

There is a good Munro and Assoc video going into the packaging differences between ICE and EV vehicles. The Prius (of which I am a happy operator) is ICEV packaging-wise. The battery is relatively high, small and not integrated into the frame.

As a huge company Toyota may well have the people with ideas about EV transition. Unfortunately as a huge company there are a thousand interests that will be harmed by EV transition. Can Toyota (or VW, MB, Stellantis, etc) overcome those internal conflicts to produce something out of their wheelhouse? Or will it take an acquisition that moves with distinct branding that eventually becomes the entire company?

No, it doesn't count, as the Prius in 1997 was entirely powered by petrol.

It was a great car. I drove a Prius for ten years and only sold it because I moved overseas. But it was no EV. Even the plugin Prius is not what we mean when we say 'EV'.