Toyota spreads anti-EV propaganda in Japan
electrek.co
electrek.co
First of all, the pamphlets shown have no anti-EV statements whatsoever. In fact, as the article shows, they don't mention EV at all.
What they accuse them is propaganda by omission! The company dared not tout EV in its own pamphlet, but focus exclusively on their traditional models.
Well, they also didn't bet strong on the EV market, so can they promote what they actually focus on? Or is that forbidden?
Secondly, that hybrids are globally a more realistic solution in the next 10-20 years is true.
Some people bought their $50K+ Teslas (or some small EV for city use) and are under the delusion that in, say, 10 years or so (if not immediately), all gas stations could stop serving gas, and just have EV charging units.
The world is neither just Tokyo nor just California or Stockholm, nor is the capacity and infrastructure there (from batteries and materials required for them, to the power grid). And in the future, between inflation, infrastructure neglect, covid repercursions to the economy, climate change costs, trade war costs, and so on, infrastructure might even get worse, not better. (I'd bet those "all new cars must be EVs by 2030" edicts, will be revisited and expanded a couple of times).
Thirdly, that workers in many traditional car trades and manufacturing will go out of a job by such a switch is a fact, and something to be taken into account (of course there's always the Ayn Ran "solution": "fuck them").
If anything, it's the article that has a strong pro-EV-or-bust vibe (well, given the website), and it makes sense that the "complaint" came from a "concerned citizen", which could be anything from an EV-obsessed enthusiast to astroturfing.
Is that similar to the difficulty digging into whether an all-new-EV car fleet is practical, from an electric needs/power grid capacity and stability/charging infrastructure spread/battery making capacity/battery materials capacity/standpoint? Or to the physics and statistical arguments regarding their total relative environmental impact with externalities taken into account?
>consider the incentives in play, and who has more to gain from spreading disinformation.
EV companies that have the chance to sell the entirety of new cars, with state mandated priority to their technology, and ample subsidies and tax-cuts?
I suspect hybrid is the best next goal, followed by electric. Cold turkey to electric is bound to be messy and uneven. Anyplace that is cold or remote won’t be served by electric, so we will need to retain some petroleum processing. Call it weaning as opposed to setting up to go cold turkey.
https://electrek.co/2021/09/23/norway-bans-gas-cars-in-2025-...
The trouble will be when EVs reach a tipping point where petroleum consumption declines below a sustainable level for the petroleum supply chain to function. That’s still at least 10-15 years off, but will occur eventually.
> "The main reason is simple. Jobs. Japanese manufacturers buy parts from small family-owned businesses across Japan. Toyota has only about 70,000 employees in Japan but are indirectly responsible for the income of far more Japanese and foreign workers in Japan. It is well-known in the Japanese car industry that their record profit business model is based on the sweat and tears of hundreds of small underpaid parts manufacturers in the country."
The current internal combustion engine dominated automobile industry, and its ancillaries, are quite embedded in the current economy of Japan. (This is also very much true in India too, that has a similar successful automobile industry). Any economist / politician would be a fool to promote EV without first considering the impact of job losses and shutdown of these ancillary units on the economy (and both will happen because Electric Vehicles use much less parts).
I too think that moving to Hybrids first, is a more practical approach in such a scenario, especially for countries like India and Japan. While the benefits of EV are sound and needed, we still can't predict the long-term impact of completely moving to them - is there enough resources (e.g. lithium) to create enough batteries to meet the demand (batteries will need replacement)? Power generation is dirty, unless it is from renewable source like Solar or Wind (Nuclear and Hydel too, to a certain extent, despite the ecological consequences) - will we able to generate this extra power in a sustainable manner?
Moving to Hybrids first can give us real data on all these, and help better plan the future for a full EV migration.
However, as soon as the battery pack is cheaper (and in many cases BEVs are already cheaper to run), your are out of the competition if you only offer hybrid in a market that desires BEVs.
EVs are already cheaper per mile, and often have better TCO for new cars. When battery cost drops further, it will be a bad deal to pay extra for vehicles that carry an extra high-maintenance expensive-to-run engine. Especially that Japan likes Kei cars, which don't have space to waste.
If it was about fuel prices, Toyota wouldn't promote hydrogen, which is even more expensive.
[1] globalpetrolprices.com
Job lossess can be minimised with proper planning by the economists and the industry. For example, some of the ancillary units could be converted to serve the EV sector. The rest could be converted to other manufacturing industries. All this require time and proper planning by the government and industry leaders.
> It's only a matter of time, and then the question is are they going to be lost to Toyota's EVs, or foreign EVs?
Temporary protectionist measures can be taken to not allow foreign EVs until the Japanese automobile industry is ready to compete with them. And note that EV technology is not complex and is readily available. That is why Tesla and others try to differentiate themselves by offering "self-driving" tech in their EV.
One of them seems to want to sell the car more than the other.
It's like Ford releasing a car named DӔTӉ.
I've driven several latest EVs, and they're getting really good. I think we're at the "iPhone 3G" stage in the EV tech.
Among other things, the image at the top of the article clearly shows "FCEV" alongside "HEV" and "PHEV" and Toyota sponsored a small YouTube series by Physics Girl. The indication is that Toyota sees FCEVs as a big part of the future of EVs.
Yet in this article Electrek says "M. Toyoda’s (Chairman of Toyota) [...] has taken a very public anti-EV position worldwide", "the companies and government are scrambling to slow the adoption of EVs in the country and abroad". Clearly Toyota is investing substantially in (FC)EVs, yet Electrek claims a hostile stance.
Electrek even goes so far as claiming that BEVs are "the only real EVs that don’t use fossil fuels". I'm not sure if the intent there is that FCEVs are less "real" than BEVs or if they're somehow injecting fossil fuels into the process somewhere.
This isn't an isolated incident. Just a couple of weeks ago, Electrek called the bZ4X Toyota's "first all-electric car" [0], ignoring the RAV4 and more recently the Mirai.
I don't mean this as an ad-hominem attack, nothing I'm saying necessarily negates other points in the article but it feels like Electrek is attacking Toyota for the very same sin it commits itself. Electrek should take a look in the mirror and consider reporting more fairly concerning FCEVs in the future. They don't have to like them but they shouldn't deny that they exist.
[0]: https://electrek.co/2021/10/29/toyota-unveils-first-all-elec...
Given the challenge of bringing enough green electricity online, producing enough green hydrogen for industry, it is extremely unclear how we can afford to waste a lot of green electricity in producing green hydrogen for cars.
Of course, by the time customers find out about the price difference they will dump their FCEV cars.
So at the moment, hydrogen is produced from methane. And indirectly produces as much CO2 as ICE cars.
Due to their enormous efficiency, BEV cars can indirectly produce less CO2 even is electricy is generated from fossile fuels. And with enough nuclear, wind or solar, CO2 can be a lot less.
Regarding energy production and costs, if FCEVs can be made to work near-term, they'd actually be a valuable tool to aid in the transition. From [1], if you're using natural gas to power a car (which we will, for years to come), you can use 1.18 to 1.77 MBTU to carry a conventional BEV 300mi, or you can use 0.81 MBTU to carry an FCEV 300mi. That means the fuel can be cheaper and the emissions substantially lower than a BEV during the transition period. By the time the transition period is over, FCEVs may be more mature.
And I think the idea that people will dump FCEV cars assumes too narrow an idea of what an "FCEV" will be. Imagine, for example, a BEV with a hydrogen tank in the back. You can use the batteries for short trips like commuting and hydrogen for extra range when you really need it. This way, people could buy a car with batteries for say 100mi (driving down the cost and weight of the car substantially) knowing that if they need to drive further, the hydrogen tank can carry them a few hundred miles more.
[0]: https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2021/renewa...
[1]: https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2014/03/f9/thomas...
When it comes to fossil fuel, any ICE is cheaper than FCEV based on grey hydrogen. It is very unlikely that governments will ban regular petrol or diesel any time soon and at the same time allow grey hydrogen. As long as you can buy ICE vehicles, it is extremely unlikely that anyone will invest in a fine grained hydrogen distribution network. Governments are not going to massively subsidize (distribution of) grey hydrogen.
When it comes to green hydrogen, green electricity is cheaper. Fast chargers compete well with filling up with hydrogen. And don't require the extremely delicate distribution structure of hydrogen.
In short, FCEV was a thing before Tesla. Before Tesla is was not clear how we would do long range driving, who take initiative to install chargers, etc. Now all of that is sorted out. We also know how to scale the production of batteries.
FCEV can go on display next to steam engines.
So with green hydrogen, the grid consists of cheap green energy or electricity from hydrogen. In areas with lots of solar, you can charge your car during the day and forget about more expensive electricity during the night.
In contrast, a FCEV always pays a higher price because hydrogen needs to be produced from green electricity and the fuel cell also has significant losses. So with hydrogen you can never be lucky.
Any FCEV has a battery that in theory can be charged from the grid. So FCEV owners are also interested in charging their cars at work.
Making grid electricity with hydrogen is expensive, but is only need for a fraction of the time. So on average you come out ahead.
There may in the future be an interesting difference in regions. Some regions can combine hydro, wind, solar, etc. and have cheap electricity. Other regions are not so lucky.
Plug-in FCEVs exist. They can react flexibly to energy costs if hydrogen suddenly gets more expensive. They make more sense than a car that only runs on electricity.
If by "fraction of the time" you mean upwards of 100% of all grid energy for weeks on end, then yes it is a fraction of the time. In reality this is such a large factor that it will drive hydrogen costs to below grid electricity for very long periods and over large areas. Some communities might even think of getting off the grid and generate all electricity from hydrogen directly. In such cases hydrogen will always be cheaper.
While it will make sense for some communities to stick with direct electrification, this is going to be the rare case where dependable renewable electricity exist. It will also likely force BEVs into driving "islands", as it would not make sense to drive a BEV outside those specific regions. Ultimately, BEVs will end up mostly as commuter cars intended for short range trips. This will also drastically reduce the problem of battery e-waste and eliminates the need for vast numbers of fast charging stations.
Solar panels are cheap. Batteries are cheap if you can use them every day. Indeed not everybody has a drive way.
Weeks on end sounds very dramatic. But the important number is what fraction of the year. Combining solar and means that a very large fraction of the year there will be green electricity.
If you need to produce large amounts of green hydrogen, then you need to massively overbuild green electricity production. And this increases the fraction of time that there is green electricity.
With respect to islands of BEV. That is a bigger risk for FCEV. It is very unlikely that a BEV island would have a hydrogen infrastructure. On the other hand, in an area dominated by hydrogen, it is still cheap to provide a few fastchargers. Maybe the elctricity won't be cheap but the charger setup is not that expensive, so you can expect them on major highways. Which will make FCEV the car for commutes.
In any case, I'm curious which country will actual role out a fine grained network for green hydrogen. I very much like to know what green hydrogen will cost 'at the pump' if there are no subsidies.
It will be a significant fraction of the year that will be powered by hydrogen as the primary energy source. Just creating more green electricity will mostly end up wasting it as there is no other way of capturing and storing it.
All regions must have hydrogen available. For things like industry, shipping, trucking, grid energy storage, etc., it is basically unavoidable for a country to not hydrogen. BEV islands will be small and not an alternative to widespread deployment of hydrogen-related infrastructure. But the reverse is not true, as it is fully possible for a country to reach zero emissions with no BEVs.
The biggest change in environmental policy is the widespread deployment of hydrogen and related technologies. Many countries now like the UK, Germany, Australia, Japan, etc., have very significant hydrogen expansion policies. These policies will accelerate rapidly going forward.
A station that can fuel 2 FCEVs every 15-20 minutes costs around $2 million.
The cost of driving with hydrogen is completely bonkers compared to any other power source currently in use (natural gas, electricity, gasoline, diesel).
For long-haul trucks, ships etc. hydrogen might be a good solution.
Currently the best thing we can use hydrogen for is as a battery for renewables. Use excess energy to generate hydrogen and store it on-site. When production dips, convert the hydrogen to electricity on-site and feed it back to the grid.
But on the specific points you raise, I agree that FCEVs are at a very early stage. You can buy them and they function but refueling stations are rare and unreliable, so they're not yet very practical.
Regarding the costs of a fueling station, the hope is that as the technology is more mature, the costs will decrease substantially. The equipment isn't anywhere close to being mass produced the way it is for gas stations and BEV charging stations.
But FCEVs are a young technology and if (and I know it's a big if) we can work around their issues, I can see them being a very compelling alternative or compliment to BEVs. For example stick a hydrogen tank in the back of a BEV and you can use the batteries for your daily commute and hydrogen for longer journeys.
A good chunk of the costs involved in getting a H2 station running is regulation and licensing. You can't just store 500kg of pressurised hydrogen on any parking lot. You need permits and licenses and all that fun stuff. You also need to maintain it, actually bring the H2 to the station from somewhere etc.
An EV charging station is pretty much a fancy extension cord, you need a HV certified electrician, a backhoe and some cables along with the charger units. You don't need permits from anyone except maybe from the power company. Cost for a 22kW AC charger is maybe 1k per unit, HVDC units are 20-50k a pop, depending on the amount of power.
Wal-mart, for example, could have 40 350kW HVDC chargers (complete overkill btw) on their parking lot for the price of one H2 station, that can serve 2 cars every 5-20 minutes. Or they could electrify their whole parking lot with 22kW destination chargers and still have money left over.
Hydrogen will have its day, but there are WAY too many hurdles for it to cross before it becomes something regular people can have in their cars.
Hydrogen trucks for long haul trips, yes. Hydrogen powered cargo ships, yes. Hydrogen for renewable energy storage, yes.
If we want H2 to become a valid choice for normal family cars, someone needs to put up billions to get a proper refueling network up and running and keep it running. Which needs a reliable, cheap, source of hydrogen and a fleet of trucks.
Maybe a Hydrogen-Musk will appear some day? =)
Hydrogen price in Germany, with government support, is around 9.5€/kg. Toyota Mirai's consumption is about 1kg/100km, making the cost to drive 100km 9.5€.
You can drive the same distance with an EV for a third or half of the price, depending on where you charge. (0.20€/kWh for public charging, consumption around 15-20kW/100km = 3-4€/100km)
The Mirai, without the insane Californian rebates and subsidies, is around 80k€ in Europe. You can get a fully loaded (FSD and everything) Tesla Model 3 LR for 10k€ less.
Gasoline is approaching 7€ per gallon in Germany. Cost per mile is cheaper with a hydrogen car. Public charging is more like 0.40€/kWh in Germany too. Cost per mile is is not that different between EVs and hydrogen cars.
The Mirai starts at 50,000€ before subsidies in Europe. It is nearly as cheap as the cheapest Model 3. Depending on the subsidies you get it could be even cheaper.
Future hydrogen will be cheaper and so will be fuel cell costs. People's mentality on this subject is entirely out of date.
Is this a fact or speculation? I haven't heard of faster pressurisation systems.
You can't just pressurise highly flammable gases "faster" all willy-nilly, stuff tends to heat up and boiling point lowers when pressure goes up.
Even at 0.40€/kWh it's still about 6 euros / 100km. Still 1/3 lower than H2. And with the car prices being similar or lower, there isn't really any point for H2.
Gasoline is reaching parity with subsidised H2 though, let's see how that goes in Germany since exactly zero German manufacturers are doing FCEV cars.
Again, it's a solved problem.
As electricity prices are still going up, and with hydrogen coming down we're not far off from cost parity. People really need to foresee a day where FCEVs are cheaper than BEVs.
EVs in general are heavily subsidized. By the time we switch to hydrogen fuel taxation it's likely gasoline will have already been displaced. Many German manufacturers are making hydrogen vehicles, albeit not passenger cars. That said, this is the most obvious disruptive event in recent memory. It wouldn't be a surprise if all of them went bankrupt due to the arrival of hydrogen cars. It's also something of a surprise as many UK companies are investing in hydrogen cars.
In theory, yes, we can pressurise things very very fast. It does cost money and space (larger tanks), which makes it impractical for everyday solutions.
I still don't get how hydrogen can be cheaper than electricity, since creating green hydrogen via electrolysis takes around 4-5 times more electricity than it can actually produce. Blue/grey hydrogen is just natural gas, which doesn't make it any more environmentally friendly than just running a straght-up CNG car.
In my country the electricity price could quadruple and it's still cheaper than gasoline or diesel. The closest H2 refueling point is in a neighbouring country. And no one is rushing to put up a comprehensive network of $2 million a pop H2 stations.
An example from Sweden: https://www.h2euro.org/whats-h2appening/sweden-more-than-tri...
News from 2017 about how Sweden will TRIPLE their number of H2 stations from 4 to 12 by 2020!
It's now 2021, almost 2022 and the number of stations is... still four.
(Meanwhile a single supermarket chain in Finland has opened 222 new charging points during Q2-Q4/2021)
This is a huge chicken and egg problem. Someone needs to front up truckloads of cash and bureaucracy fighting time to put up a comprehensive network before regular people will shell up cash for H2 vehicles.
The argument that hydrogen is inefficient is itself a massive exaggeration. Fuel cells are more efficient than anything except batteries, and come with the upside of much less weight and resource requirements. For hydrogen to be cheaper than electricity, all it needs is an infrastructure that is moderately cheaper than the grid, as energy costs are only a minor portion of the total cost. It is not even that far off as cost per mile between EVs and hydrogen cars is around 50-75% in most places. Fuel cell cars are cheaper than diesel cars now in many countries, and will get cheaper as hydrogen infrastructure expands.
I don't know where you come from, but electricity costs has skyrocketed in countries that are trying to switch to renewable energy, and still going up by 10-20% annually. The low cost of electricity was entirely due to cheap existing sources, mainly coal or natural gas, with some regions with hydro or nuclear. Take away the reliable and dispatchable power generate and the grid becomes a nightmare of unpredictable power. In fact you need hydrogen to balance out the grid and make it stable. In all likelihood electricity will be expensive enough such that EVs no longer have any kind of cost advantage. Especially if they start to tax EVs like they tax other cars.
A lot of that is due to a lack of investment. As countries fall into the battery fad while ignoring real green energy (like nuclear), green policy in a lot of countries have become a joke. Sweden is an example of this as they are shutting down their nuclear power. They will use coal or natural gas as a replacement. EVs will actually get more polluting and not less. Although Sweden has ignored hydrogen for the last 5 years, they will have no choice but to invest billions in hydrogen now because they have other path to zero emissions.
The biggest event in green energy investment is the massive surge in hydrogen investment: https://ihsmarkit.com/research-analysis/hydrogen-project-ann...
It's pretty obvious that the world is moving past batteries in the same way it moved past previous obsolete green ideas like biofuels or diesel engines.
If Mr. Toyoda is going to look bad by these decisions and also look bad by giving in, then there is no point in him giving in. Instead he will either double down or greyrock any opportunities to change direction.
Instead, Mr. Toyoda should be encouraged to keep the propaganda up for a year or two while they plan their all out Toyota EV invasion, blast Tesla out of Japanese airspace, and take market dominance in the country for EV vehicles.
He would look like a brilliant hero, Toyota would make billions, and the world becomes a better place, and it would have all been facilitated by a little dab of misdirection on his part.
i think there needs to be a plan in place for what all those people are going to do with new vehicle technology that only requires a tenth of the service.
if governments mandate transitions to technologies that take away the life's work and livelihoods of people and simply ignore the fact that it's happening, those who lose everything will take political action to get it back. we've already seen some of this and it has not been pretty.
what would you do if your government provided tax incentives for your employer to hire your job out to another country and you lost your job (and most other jobs like it?). you'd probably vote for literally anyone who would reverse that.
if there's a massive political upheaval halfway through that results in political and economic instability (which of course would at a minimum jeopardize the transition itself), then that wouldn't be what i would call a successful transition.
since governments are already getting involved by subsidizing (and therefore are engineering a transition) i argue that they need to take a holistic approach and also engineer a path forward for those who will lose livelihoods and businesses as a result of those subsidies.
If anything, we are way short on people.
it seems this all gets way too little attention.
There are things the govt can do to help that transition though, such as free job training and economic support for laid off workers. I understood the OP's point to be that the govt has a responsibilty to pursue these types of policies, and I totally agree.
Fact 2: PHEV drivers don't plug-in negating above
BEV's are still only like 2-3% of total annual car sales. A lot can change in next 10 years.
Yep. One major factor is that a lot of companies, including ones that claim to care about the environment, will reimburse employees on business travel for gasoline but not electricity for their vehicles.
It would depend on the business policies of course, but can EVSE stations generate digital receipts for costs incurred to charge?
There is a charging network, which at the moment works fine, but imagine if everyone had EVs. Charging stations would need to have 50-100 spots.
Consider how gas stations are fairly ubiquitous, and that EV chargers are even easier to install anywhere power is available. Outlets and level 2 chargers (~10kw) are a 1-2 day job, Fast DC chargers (Superchargers and similar) a week or two.
With an EV you don't go to a "refuel station" every time your charge is around 5% and charge it all the way to full like you do with ICE vehicles.
The solution is that you charge everywhere. Reliable and ubiquitous destination charging.
Going to the supermarket? Charge. Going to the mall? Charge. Parking at the office? Charge. Parking at home? Charge. Park at the curb? Charge from the streetlight. Arrive at the hotel for your trip? Charge overnight.
None of these need to charge your car from 0-100 in 5 minutes. It just needs to give you more charge than it took you to get there and the net result is positive.
It doesn't need to be a 350kW mega-charger with water-cooled wires to prevent overheating. A 11-22kW AC charger is more than enough and costs a grand a pop to install.
The only time you actually need fast DC charging is when you're doing road trips that are longer than your EV range is. And even in these cases your car navi should take care of it for you. (Most don't do this properly, some do, but it's mostly software).
All the other times you're charging a bit every time you stop somewhere. For example the supermarket I shop at weekly is about 20km round trip, they have a 22kW charger and my car can pull around 7kW from that. After a half-hour of shopping, I've got more charge in my car than I had when I left home.
If I go to the local McDonalds drive-through, I can use their 350kW DC charger and usually need to unplug before my burger is done and brought to my car.
200-300kW charging in new BEVs also helps a lot. For city use it's realistic to charge 20 minutes per week.
To get a license to park a car in your yard, an official comes to measure your garage/parking area first and check that it will actually fit without impeding other people.
Also most cars must match the Kei-Car spec, which defines the external measurements, resulting in the ubiquitous boxy look.
That's not something you can charge an EV from.
The fact that a good 80% of their electricity is produced via imported natural gas and coal isn't helping either.
1. Burning coal emits NOx, SO2 and other toxic and radioactive shit, which is not what the studies were about. For example an American city like LA emits a ton of CO2 but I wouldn't call it polluted compared to someplace like Shanghai where PM2.5 in the air poses a danger to your health some days. Greenhouse gas emissions and pollution are related but different.
2. Japan doesn't really use diesel for passenger vehicles and diesel tends to be pretty dirty in terms of NOx, especially diesels before dieselgate.
So the premise that on a dirty grid an EV is cleaner than an ICE car may or may not be true. Note that the study doesn't seem to be touching on hybrids at all which will obviously close to (non-hybrid) diesels in terms of CO2 while offering even lower toxic emissions.