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-   -   Why are Japanese Automakers reluctant to switch to EVs? (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/electric-cars/278975-why-japanese-automakers-reluctant-switch-evs.html)

I just came across a video today by Biturbo Media where he discuses that Japanese Automakers such as Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi and Suzuki are not too keen to switch to BEVs. Toyota being the largest automaker in the world only has one all-electric car named "bZ4X". Honda and Nissan have a couple but Mitsubishi and Suzuki have none.

Toyota also invests heavily in other forms of energy like flex fuel and hydrogen fuel cells.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQibKscvFo4

Some of the data that Toyota puts forward along with the sources




https://yourstory.com/2024/03/toyota-ev-hybrid-debate

https://jalopnik.com/toyota-focusing...les-1850440908

In my opinion the apprehension of these brands are somewhat justified. Electric vehicles should not be shoved down everyone's throat as the only way to drive green with zero tail-pipe emission. I think plug-in hybrids are the best of both worlds and should be considered in the 20-40 year timeframe. In this time hopefully we are able to find more sustainable ways to produce batteries and BEVs. Plug-in Hybrids can be a completely electric vehicle for your daily office commute and city driving. This makes cities noise and tailpipe emissions free. This covers 75% of driving for most people. For long distance trips you can fill up fuel which will offer superior mileage to ICE vehicles. The battery being smaller makes the vehicle lighter and improves charging time significantly.

I wanted to know what other members think of this?

[Mod Note : Please merge with existing threads if needed, I couldn't find one ]

Contrary to popular opinion on this forum, my belief is that Plug-in hybrid EVs are at best, a transitionary solution.

EVs have fewer moving parts than plug-in hybrids, leading to potentially lower maintenance costs and increased reliability over time. PHEVs are heavier, have more software complexity, maintaining them is empirically more expensive. The inherent complexity of blending two power systems within one vehicle creates a system with more potential points of failure. If you think some OEMs make unreliable vehicles today, wait till they start making PHEVs.

Rather, solutions like denser solid state batteries, sodium ion batteries which will eliminate the need for lithium, cobalt, or nickel entirely should be the focus. While sodium ion batteries are inherently less dense than LFP batteries, the speed at which research is moving, breakthroughs are imminent.

At the end of the day, it's all about money. If your profits are aligned with EV adoption and you have nothing to lose by abandoning ICE technology, then you make a lot of noise about how perfect EVs are.

OTOH, if your profits are aligned with prolonging the ICE technology, then you come up with very convoluted theories that justify why ICE/Hybrid stuff is better for the environment.

Ironically, EV evangelisation has helped the Hybrid cause immensely. Hybrid gives the psychological comfort that you are doing something about the environment without having to suffer the early adopter inconveniences and unpredictable future of the EVs. All the EV talk has pretty much killed the diesel ICE market - forcing cost conscious buyers to embrace Hybrids. Net result: Hybrid tech has earned environment conscious buyers as well as cost conscious ones. EV market is limited to early adopters and that's getting saturated - the transition/revolution hasn't taken place as expected. EV is still the way to go but everyone is recalibrating the timelines.

In the medium term, Japan stands vindicated - their hybrid tech has become a hot commodity. Given the massive stakes Japan has in ICE technology (not just automobile manufacturers but lot of component suppliers as well), they would be happy to prolong the ICE/Hybrid era. China might be in trouble for taking a super aggressive EV approach - they always overproduce and dump. Europe is playing the balancing act by being a jack of all and hoping their superior branding power will save them.

EV is the future but its adoption seems to be slower than predicted. Companies like Tesla will still thrive but ICE companies will not be feeling existential crisis just yet. It will be interesting to see if newer and more advanced EV technologies (drives and batteries) would put early EV companies at a disadvantage compared to the ICE giants playing the wait-and-watch game.

I think most Japanese companies follow conservative business practices with focus on profitability & cash flows. This conservativeness extends to product planning or also entering new markets. Startup scene in Japan too is relatively lackluster compared to US/Western Europe/China etc.

There are effectively three types of EV players from business point of view:

1) Companies like Tesla/Rivian that were or backed by huge venture capital or private equity funding. Because of access to capital, these companies can afford to NOT focus on cash flows for many years. This is not prevalent in Japan.

2) Companies like BYD/Nio/Xpeng that are backed by visible & invisible Chinese govt subsidies. This helps them achieve economies of scale & along with that comes lower cost of production. Japanese Govt is not known to bending the rules like that.

3) Companies like Ford/GM/Stellantis/Germans/Koreans etc having a small portfolio of EVs, along with its usual focus on traditional cars. Right now, sales of EVs do not move the revenue or profits needle for these companies. With the kind of business mindset that Japanese companies have, it doesn't make sense to deploy capital on developing EVs right now.

Related thread:
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/elect...companies.html

It is not that they are reluctant, they missed the bus vs the Chinese. When Japanese manufacturers was investing heavily in HEVs, PHEVs and FCEVs, Chinese manufacturers were investing in BEVs. Now as BEVs are making headlines. Japanese manufacturers are trying to play down BEVs till the time that they catch up.

All roads lead to Rome.

Every country/manufacturer should invest in any of these techs that they believe is the way of the future. The future will be a good mix of all of these engine types. From what I read, my opinion is that significant strides will be made and BEV, PHEV and HEV will evolve significantly over the next 5-10 years. All of which will lead to drastic reduction in use of fossil fuels.

A combination of solar power and alternate fuels will be introduced along with battery use and we will see innovation to power next gen cars.

At this point of time, HEV seems to be the most practical way of doing things. Within HEV, once we see larger ethanol use and lower battery weight, price and efficiency we will see cars running >50% on battery EV and <50% on petrol/ethanol hence giving astounding mileage.

BEVs may or may not be environment friendly yet but work happening in parallel on solar powered electricity generation will eventually lead to BEVs making sense. However, from a pure driving pleasure pov, BEVs are awesome.

Also, in whatever little way, I think all of us should invest in solar power for home. Encouraging the use of solar will help industry research more and that will make way for way more efficient solar panels in the future.

Because the Japanese know that EV infrastructure is something that will not be created overnight and the Big-Oil will not let EV succeed for the next 50 years at least. Hybrid is the best solution that is acceptable to the oil industry and that itself on paper meanas a 30-40% reduction in oil imports/production. Oil is the biggest & most important Global economic driver and many powers-to-be will not let EV just take center stage and phase out the fossil fuel industry.

Japanese would have done their 6-Sigma and in depth analysis and decided upon the unspoken truth that Oil is here to stay. So the next best alternative to ICE is ICE with a small battery for city use AKA Hybrid.

My vote is for hybrids. Hybrids are good stop gap arrangement until we get technology and infrastructure upgraded for EV proliferation and high volume usage. City run about with home charging is a good use case for BEV.

Japanese culture is often characterized by a high respect for seniority and experience. This cultural norm is evident in many Japanese organizations and social structures, where age and tenure can play a significant role in hierarchy and decision-making processes. While it can lead to stability and careful decision-making, it can also potentially hinder innovation and rapid response to market changes. The balance between these aspects is something many Japanese organizations struggle to achieve.

Hybrid is a technology which existed before modern EVs, it's time has come to give way to modern EVs. Hybrid is taking sales from petrol cars, it is not taking sales from EVs.

Japanese are not vindicated about Hybrids in anyway. The Japanese have started talking about Hydrogen fuel cells and H2 economy, they went to great lengths showcasing H2 tech.

Meanwhile, many people said it is not fuel cell but fool cell, how H2 is stupid and H2 economy is a dream. These people are vindicated today.

Dear @itspatra,

First thank you for this well written post with data, illustrative infographics and links. :thumbs upI love these posts with a solid backing rather than loudly proclaimed opinions so common in social media. As an owner of one BEV, one Hybrid and one ICE, my views follow below.

The chart of materials, put out by Toyota, showing the 1:6:90 rule for the batteries of a BEV vs PHEV vs Hybrid does not seem to match my experience. The battery size or weight of my Volvo C40 BEV is not 90 times bigger or heavier than that in my Lexus ES300h strong Hybrid. Maybe it is a few times bigger, maybe as much as 10X but 90X befuddles the mind. Toyota are clearly using very carefully selected examples of numerator and denominator to arrive at conclusions to support their pre-decided point of view. I say this despite being a fan of Toyota and a long standing customer of the Camry & Lexus brands.

Thank you for putting your thoughts down. Allow me to approach this from an altogether different angle from the wider transportation industry. When we have two engines of different types in the same mode of transportation then often at a time one engine type is lugging the dead weight of the other. There are usually limited opportunities where both operate in unison. My hybrid, Lexus ES300h, a strong hybrid, really saves petrol and greenhouse gas emissions only at traffic signals and the initial few seconds of moving away from the signal. A PHEV is only a little better in this regard as experienced by me driving the Volvo XC90 Recharge PHEV. Other cars might be different; just sharing my direct experience.

Dual engine systems were experimented with aircraft in the 1950s where piston-prop powered aircraft were fitted with first generation turbojets. The turbo jets and the pistons both worked during take off and climb to enhance take off ability while using only the piston engines in the cruise phase. Co-ordinating RPMs, differing operating patterns, and carrying deadweight & aerodynamic drag of the jet system in the cruise phase all led this to a dead end. Two aircraft, both American{Convair B-36 & Fairchild C-119}, used this concept with limited success but it was never adopted again. Something similar could be the case with PHEVs. Time will tell. I could be wrong. PHEVs do have a place in the lineup for the next decade. But I'll confess technology is changing so rapidly for the automotive industry that all of us are equally lost while predicting the future.

I believe EV technology especially the batteries will improve rapidly as will electricity production from solar, hydel etc. For the next 10 to 15 years ICE and EVs will co-exist. ICE engines will for the forseeable future continue with military vehicles, earth moving & construction equipment etc. Imagine a main battle tank hunting for a electricity recharge point on the battle front! Marine diesels are simply not going out of fashion anytime in the next 2 generations. If you don't mind my saying it but no one is shoving EVs down any one's throat. Each of us is free to choose between ICE, Hybrids and EVs as suits our needs and tastes. :-)

Despite the worldwide push for EVs and me loving to embrace every new technology in any field in the world, EVs have never made sense to me at all, today their main problem is if we take the Nexon or Creta's segment, the difference is greater than 5 lakhs (40-50% of their cost) which is extremely hard to recover with the moderate running of everyone, secondly using it on the highway seems like an absolute chore with a lot of planning required, why would any common joe indulge in all these shenanigans? These cannot be called BETTER than ICE vehicles, sure they have their pros but they outweigh the cons in my books, but hypothetically even if they cost the same as ICE cars, even then, how many people do we know who have the capability to charge it at home? Sure a lucky few can, but a huge number of people hardly have parking space and it is impossible for them to charge their car there.

A wealthy family near my house owns 2 Fortuners, a Merc C Class and a couple of Hyundais but have their cars scattered across the block in empty plots and where not, will they demolish their 5 year old house just to build a stilt parking area so that they can bring their cars together and charge their EVs there? We all know this is pretty much the situation everywhere.

It leaves them and most people at the mercy of fast chargers which not only cost a great deal more than charging at homes but take atleast 45-60 minutes for any meaningful charging to take place, an average ICE car refill takes what 3-4 minutes.
If everyone has EVs, how long before we have enough infrastructure where there won't be kilometres long queue to charge, CNG after 2 decades still has that issue, and it doesn't take remotely as long to refill as a fast charged EV battery.
Hybrids/ICE vehicles are the near future for at least 2 decades unless we are shoved EVs down our throats, EVs are just inferior and impractical for most people. Your LCD TVs were superior to the CRT TVs and thus replaced them, the OLED TVs now are superior than LCDs, our smartphones today are superior than the feature phones from 2 decades ago and they have all been naturally and organically adopted by the masses because of their strengths and on merit, EVs would need to be superior to replace ICE cars it is as simple as that.

Having said that, I would love to own a Tesla one day just because of its crazy and instant acceleration, but it will be sharing the garage with much more practical ICE cars.

I know Japanese get all the hate by downplaying EVs, but they are right. We hit the saturation in battery tech in the 90s itself. Energy density of the Li ion batteries is not going to change anywhere in the universe. So the rate at which battery is charged without making it unstable (and explode subsequently) is something that's not going to change in future. This means charging time is going to more as opposed to refueling time. This is the biggest hindrance to the EV adoption in the mass markets and nothing is going to change
even in the future. As the years pass by, Japanese will get vindicated.

This is the charging lines of Teslas (which has good network) in Australia over the Easter weekend

https://youtu.be/FWml9GTslB0?si=mmj0RUa8dNhczzcx

Thank you for your views. I'm sure it reflects the thoughts of a million others. Similar views have been expressed a hundred times on other threads on EVs in Team BHP. Almost always by those who don't own/drive EVs. As I mentioned in my post above no one is thrusting EVs down any one's throat. It is another form of locomotion that technology has put on the table and those who wish to buy and use EVs should be free to write about EVs without having ICE lovers ranting against EVs and at times against the EV owner. Pray is that too much to ask.

It has been about 15 years since Tesla released Model S. And battery tech has truly improved at a rapid rate since then. But the charging infrastructure has not improved at such rate. Even if the EVs reach price parity with ICE vehicles, the inconvenience of long charging time will heavily weigh down EV adaptation.

I've not seen the super capacitor quick charging that was promised some 5 or 6 years ago that Tesla acquired.

Fast charging still seems to be a work in progress for everybody. Even Tesla DC fast charging speeds are nothing to write home about.

Looking at all these, I've taken the plunge and bought ICE car despite being an absolute fanatic about EV technology. I truly believe locomotion should be via electric motors. They're the most efficient way to convert energy into motion.

Hybrid seems like the best middle ground. Current Hybrid powertrains already use electric motors for locomotion but power it with a generator run by ICE. This is how diesel locomotives used to work too. I had always wondered why that tech wasn't made available to cars. After having felt the constant, relentless, brutal acceleration of an electric motor, one would always crave that!

And it would be even better if Ethanol or fuel cell electric cars become mainstream. They have none of the disadvantages of BEVs but all the advantages of current ICE vehicles.