Toyota boasts new battery technology with 745-mile range and 10-minute charging time — here’s how it may impact mass EV adoption::The potential to significantly reduce pollution could be huge.
Toyota boasts new battery technology with 745-mile range and 10-minute charging time — here’s how it may impact mass EV adoption::The potential to significantly reduce pollution could be huge.
It still blows my mind that Toyota single-handedly made hybrids a very successful thing and yet squandered that position to Elon effing Musk. Toyota could’ve been THE market-leader for EVs while still making a killing with the Prius and ICE cars. They’d have a solid lock in all markets.
Toyota has one of the best reliability reputations of any automaker and yet anyone in the EV market (like I was recently) passes them over because they have zero models to sell. Instead of parlaying the Prius’ R&D into a viable EV too, they’ve left money on the table. Hyundai has gone all in and is selling a ton of EVs. I see more of theirs / Kia’s on the road than anything else (besides teslas).
That’s what really strikes me, even more than Teslas. I see legacy manufacturers complain about no one wanting EVs or they can’t build EVs for sufficient profit, and backsliding on their transition plans.
I have relatives working for legacy manufacturers and asked them: doesn’t this strike you as similar to the 1970s? Legacy manufacturers sticking to what they know and trying to convince themselves the world isn’t changing. That led to the rise of Toyota, Honda, etc, as world leaders. this time you have Hyundai/Kia quickly climbing the ladder from their start as a low cost alternative, to a market leader, maybe soon a volume leader. Will the legacy manufacturers suffer the same losses as they did in the 1970s?
And I was sitting/driving only the cheap Hyindais, but even a mid-range Kia looks cool and solid inside, I enjoyed using carsharing Souls, sat in an expensive bus-of-a-car minivan, and I see no difference in comfort with Mercedes c or e class respectively. (Sorry Mercedes fans, I’m not against you, it’s just kias are nice)
The only reason why the Koreans are not leaders yet is because it’s “yet”