Toyota Is Digging Its Own Grave – CleanTechnica

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I can’t say how well Toyota will be able to change course in years to come when the company realizes that it’s really time to switch to electric vehicles (BEVs). What I can say is that I’m a bit shocked the company is still dragging its feet to such an absurd degree. Also, for what it seems it’s trying to do in California, it’s a company I could never support again.

Steve wrote earlier today about how the Japanese automaker is opposing California’s electrification plans. To me, this is not just normal lobbying or anti-EV PR. Toyota knows that the last time Donald Trump was president, he tried to take away California’s right to set its own fuel economy standards — higher than what the US as a whole sets. This is a right that was explicitly granted to California and other states when the Clean Air Act came about. It’s absurd that decades of precedent, based on common sense and negotiation at the time, could be threatened over vengeful, fossil-fueled legal action from Don the Con Trump. Alas, here we are.

More than four years later, with so many other issues in between and on the table now, one could hope the whole big fight with California over state requirements to sell more EVs would be left behind and dropped. But, it seems, Toyota is trying to revive it. Shame on Toyota.

But, we’ve covered all that. Let’s look at the underlying problem. The problem is that, for whatever reason, Toyota wants a transition to BEVs to go as slowly as possible. Perhaps it’s because Toyota led on old-school hybrids and it’s trying to retain its leadership role by clinging to the idea that people aren’t ready for BEVs. Whatever the reason, it’s disgraceful, and Toyota is losing business every day that it delays.

While the company is claiming automakers can’t hit California’s coming ZEV targets, it’s important to note that this is Toyota’s sole BEV offering:

Yeah, it’s going to be hard to hit more aggressive BEV targets when that’s your knight in shining armor. Adding insult to injury, the models’ got to have one of the worst and least memorable names in history: bZ4X. It’s a stupid name, to go with a stupid looking vehicle.

The absurdity of Toyota’s efforts and claims is highlighted in juxtaposition to what we’ve been reporting on BYD lately. While Toyota has just one lame BEV model, BYD has numerous models and is growing its lineup by leaps and bounds every day. Furthermore, while it only sells BEVs and plugin hybrids (PHEVs), the company is almost selling more vehicles than Ford globally and recently added as much production capacity in three months as Tesla sells worldwide! In fact, BYD just reached 500,000 sales in a single month! Tesla is currently the most valuable automaker in the world, Toyota is second, and BYD is third. Toyota thinks it can’t sell many EVs, yet it’s sandwiched between two EV producers in terms of market cap, and it’s clearly not paying attention to (or acknowledging) how fast BYD is growing and the fact that the Chinese new energy vehicle producer is likely to surpass it as the top selling automaker in the world pretty soon.

BYD is expanding into a lot of developing markets — from Ethiopia to Paraguay — and is quickly growing its presence outside of China. While Toyota has led in global sales in part due to all of the affordable vehicles it sells in small, medium, and larger countries across the world, BYD is just starting to eat its lunch in these markets. The company is going to face a serious crisis here within a couple of years from losing massive sales in these affordable car classes in market after market.

Toyota would do well to focus its efforts on developing competitive, affordable electric cars while it still has a tiny door open into this market. Wasting its time fighting progressive regulations and pretending the future isn’t just around the corner anyway is beyond dumb, it’s an existential threat to the company. Wake up, Toyota — you’re sitting in the garage with the car running, and it’s not electric!