[McLaren_P1]

Originally Posted by The Rationalist

Neither the government nor Toyota can decide what people want. The consumer will decide what’s best for him and that will decide the future. … Toyota can bring out ‘n’ number of studies, but for the average person it all comes down to economics!

Agree in principle. Toyota seems to says the economics of mass building EVs won’t make sustainable sense due to limited Lithium reserves - EVs at mass scale will be prohibitively expensive so the economic factor will again kick in. This remains to be seen.

[Magnaspectre]

Though not entirely related to what Toyota is saying, the race to shift to EVs has created very serious environmental and ethical issues. From mining of lithium, water usage in processing, contamination of soil, working conditions, etc.

Here is an article that studied the mining of cobalt in Congo:
https://https://www.npr.org/sections...siddharth-kara

A more balanced approach, with equal weightage and government support for different technologies should be the way forward. Not an approach where one technology say EV is promoted over the other.

[pkk077]

Originally Posted by The Rationalist

Neither the government nor Toyota can decide what people want. The consumer will decide what’s best for him and that will decide the future.

In a free market yes but when govt decides to levy 5% GST on EVs vs 28%-43% for hybrids then it's hardly a free market.

[nicodash]

The transition to EVs has pros and cons, with some of the arguments being particularly relevant to the Indian context.

Pros:

1. Cut down the petroleum import bill (though I worry that the government will increase taxes on everything else to make up for the lost tax on fuel).
2. Reduce air pollution: This is already the case in countries where clean energy sources produce most of the electricity, and will become true for India as well in future.
3. Future-proof our transportation: EVs are here to stay and will likely become the dominant or even the only type of powertrain in the future. We don't want to be left behind when the transition is complete globally.

Cons:

1. Limited public charging infrastructure: This will improve with time, but with India's population, it's easy to imagine long queues at chargers when EVs become more widespread, even if we increase the number of chargers massively.
2. Lack of charging facility at homes: Most people in India park their cars on streets, with many not having any dedicated parking. Even if they manage to set up their charging cable to charge the cable outside their homes, I can already imagine rowdy elements/kids damaging the car/cable/charging ports just for fun!
3. Sketchy battery supply chain: As reported in this article (https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/ar...v-supply-chain), the battery supply chain is evil.
4. Costly batteries
5. Reliance on China for battery supplies: Currently, we'll have to rely on China for batteries. Is this better than relying on OPEC for petroleum?

Considering the major cons, I think EVs will be the obvious choice once we can produce batteries in a cleaner and more affordable way and charge them faster. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't start the transition to EVs now. People are exploring alternative battery technologies like calcium ions and using supercapacitors instead of batteries. It's possible that batteries/supercapacitors of future may take just a few minutes to charge.

We should keep promoting EV adoption (and helping people make informed choices with regards to the Pros and Cons), which will drive more investment into R&D and hopefully help solve most of these cons. But at the same time, companies like Toyota and Maruti should not be shamed for not jumping on the EV bandwagon. Let each company tackle the challenge in their own way, and have the customers/market/time decide which approach(es) win.

[Hayek]

Toyota’s protests against EVs sound very much like Suzuki’s defence of building death traps that kill their customers. Once upon a long ago, Toyota (and perhaps Japan more broadly) was enormously innovative - it revolutionised manufacturing and came up with hybrid technology before anyone else. Sadly, over the past 20 years, Toyota (and Japan) have been stagnant - living off their past laurels and failing to innovate. Net result, the world’s largest car maker is years behind its rivals (not just Tesla but also Byd, SAIC, Hyundai, Renault and perhaps even the Germans and Americans) in developing EV technology - both hardware but more importantly the software which makes the real difference in EVs. So they are now trying to come up with cock and bull stories to halt an inevitable trend.

The fact is that for many use cases, EVs are already superior to ICE vehicles - and the number of these use cases will rise with time. ICE vehicles are powered by oil which comes from some of the shadiest nations on earth - it’s not that lithium mining is worse. Lithium is abundant - and mining and refining capacity will rise. The one factor that constraints development of these reserves is the uncertainty about whether new technologies will come in and replace it. But the battery supply chain is not environmentally worse than that for coal or iron ore, rubber or aluminium. And frankly, it’s not an auto maker’s job to right all the wrongs in the world.

Many Japanese companies have completely lost their edge even in technologies they pioneered - Sony, Sharp and Honda being prime examples. Sadly, Toyota seems to be going the same way.

[shyampsunder]

Originally Posted by pkk077

In a free market yes but when govt decides to levy 5% GST on EVs vs 28%-43% for hybrids then it's hardly a free market.

Keeping taxes level same for ICE and EV will not level the playing field till the following subsidies enjoyed by ICE is removed:

1. Cost of Healthcare like cancer treatment due to emissions in areas of high density of population.

2. Cost of sequestering carbon emitted through all stages of fueling the car such as extraction, transportation to refinery, refining, transportation from refinery to petrol pumps.

3. Cost of protecting the supply chains that bring us fossil fuels. US spends trillions on this. India spends substantially less but still a significant amount.


Turns out it's not just ICE fans who can dig deeper and raise questions on 2nd and 3rd order effects of our energy supply chains

[SKC-auto]

Originally Posted by shyampsunder

Turns out it's not just ICE fans who can dig deeper and raise questions on 2nd and 3rd order effects of our energy supply chains

It is really funny to see some of us here asking for construction work to be stopped and put all workers without a pay, but allow them to use BS3 diesel cars in Delhi when the AQI is above 400.

Level playing happens only when there is carbon tax and health cess of minimum 50₹/litre of petrol sold. Yes, carbon tax should be collected for battery materials as well.

[srgntpepper]

Here's an interesting article idea. Using vehicle to grid charging (V2G) tech that'd allow use of parked EVs to help balance grid load swings.

https://slate.com/technology/2023/02...-charging.html

This might be the best solution for what happens to batteries after 8 years.

[shortbread]

Perhaps Toyota's failure to get on top of the EV game will help maruti devise it's own independent electric strategy. The Indian giant has the financial wherewithal to do it alone rather than join hands with Toyota's half baked ev strategy!

[Dosanova]

Originally Posted by The Rationalist

Neither the government nor Toyota can decide what people want. The consumer will decide what’s best for him and that will decide the future. If the price of EV’s becomes comparable to ICE cars, people will jump enmass to EV’s.

A Plug-in hybrid is basically an EV for the Pure EV driving using energy charged from the outlet. it has with the redundancy of a petrol motor to travel far.

[Neversaygbye]

I have a different take on why EVs in their current form are destined to fail. That has nothing to do with their impact on the environment (or lack thereof) which, in the case of Toyota, seems to be a rather ingenious argument to explain away a weakness in their current product portfolio. Anyone who has ever been in an EV can vouch for their smoothness, quietness and in many cases excellent acceleration. The experience on these parameters is superior to comparable ICE cars. The fact that there is zero tailpipe emission is also a huge bonus - while in many cases it may hold true that the pollution and environmental impact is just being transferred elsewhere, the fact remains that most thermal power plants and mines in India are not located in our major metros (barring IP power plant in Delhi). As our metros bear the brunt of pollution, shifting to EVs (especially commercial vehicles) should have a net positive effect on AQI in the metros. So even if Toyota is right and EVs are actually bad for the environment when judged holistically, they should still be good for the environment in our metros.

However, the reason I think EVs will not work in the long run is because they are inconvenient, and that inconvenience is only going to get worse as more and more EVs hit the road and demand for charging points goes up. Acquisition cost, range anxiety, charging wait time, et al are aspects that need to be addressed and they are only being addressed partially, so to speak. In India, even with govt. incentives (which have already started drying up), it is still more expensive to buy a proper EV and even then there are usage constraints. It's like the pager all over again - the day a more convenient alternative comes up, EVs will be history, just like mobile phones killed pagers, and in more recent times the point and shoot cameras.

[DarthVeda]

Originally Posted by Neversaygbye

the day a more convenient alternative comes up, EVs will be history, just like mobile phones killed pagers, and in more recent times the point and shoot cameras.

The drive will always be electric, it's the source of the power, which will keep changing. Remember the chemistry of the first rechargeable cell and now the chemistry of the same, it's not the same.

To all those folks in this thread going at Lithium mining and the environmental damages, conveniently overlooking the damage crude oil drilling has already done and still doing to this planet, CATL is already working on Sodium Ion batteries, there are tons of investment happening for the next battery chemistry, this can only happen because of the demand of the EV. Exciting times for EV industry ahead and unfortunately (fortunately for the planet) for you guys, not the same can be said about Petroleum industry.

[wocanak]

Originally Posted by Neversaygbye

...
However, the reason I think EVs will not work in the long run is because they are inconvenient, and that inconvenience is only going to get worse as more and more EVs hit the road and demand for charging points goes up. Acquisition cost, range anxiety, charging wait time, et al are aspects that need to be addressed and they are only being addressed partially, so to speak. In India, even with govt. incentives (which have already started drying up), it is still more expensive to buy a proper EV and even then there are usage constraints. It's like the pager all over again - the day a more convenient alternative comes up, EVs will be history, just like mobile phones killed pagers, and in more recent times the point and shoot cameras.
...

The comparison between pager and mobile phones hardly applies here. If you have a 15A socket near your parking spot, it takes couple of minutes to plugin and another couple of minutes to unplug next day morning. Even this needs to be done once or max twice a week for most people. What can be more convenient than this?

Yes, not everyone has a socket near their parking and that is where lot of improvement will happen. For most apartments drawing a line from your meter or having a separate sub-meter is a very feasible option. People with cars in Tier-2 cities and rural areas are mostly in a better position and can easily go for EVs as low cost cars like Tiago and eC3 come along.

Just like mobiles were very expensive initially and cost came down with volumes, the same thing will happen with batteries and EV electronics. Thinking that these are somehow different and will always have a huge premium over ICE cars is unwarranted. The swiftness with which Nexon prices were cut at the first sign of competition show there is already enough room to cut the premium.

Finally we already have fast charging, where 15% to 80% happens in 11 minutes with the EV6 on 240W chargers in India.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwCRE-2qmu8

What is to say these features will never trickle down to low cost EVs in 5 to 10 years? The eC3 is already designed to be always fast charged without needing any slow charging. These will enable those who can't have any access to slow charging in their home/work parking space.

There is very little doubt that in the long run, for passenger vehicles BEVs will be the majority drive type. That maybe a slim majority in a very fragmented market with say 30% BEVs followed by ICE/Hybrid/Hydrogen or a more dominant one with more than 50% BEVs. In my mind that is the only uncertainty left.

[sea_eagle]

My relative in the US bought a Volvo XC40 last week.

Time to fully-charge the car - 6hrs; On fast-charging - 2hrs;

I rest my case (for now) against EVs.

[mohan41]

Experts can throw more light on this news: https://auto.hindustantimes.com/auto...569274078.html

It seems that significant improvements in battery technology are happening - solid state batteries, cobalt free li-ion batteries etc.