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Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not - Toyota is widely considered to have pioneered hybrid technologies and then completely squandered whatever technical lead they had. Their main EV at the moment is awful in terms of basic EV efficiency and value wise it's not competitive with anything, it's like it's made by someone who has 0 experience with EV building and it's really hurting Toyota to have such a weird product out - I'd ask who is actually buying these.

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There's still a wide world out there where hybrids are more practical. Their EVs aren't great, but they have time to fix that.

OP complimented the hybrid strategy and your criticism is off an EV.

Sorry maybe my point isn't clear - Toyota has literally 30 years of experience building automotive EV motors(for their hybrid cars) and their first real EV has half the efficiency of a Tesla. So where is that 30 years of experience that Toyota has?

And just to go back to hybrids - Toyota was such a pioneer in what we call "mild" hybrids nowadays, but they were super late on the PHEV side, for years you could buy PHEVs from different manufacturers before Toyota finally made one.

Well, just a data point: I'll probably need to get a new car in the next 2 years, I've been looking at EVs and PHEVs and they simply don't make sense for my usage.

Maybe Toyota is trying to sell to me not to you...

That's fine, but the point is that they make hybrids and EVs so I don't see why we shouldn't discuss their engineering details regardless of whether me and you are personally interested in buying them.

Mm can we try some other manufacturer of EVs vs Toyota?

Teslas are so designed in California and badly manufactured that it's too bad about that efficient power train....

You may be building a straw man. None of your criticisms may be valid as they attempt to discredit Toyota for strategic decisions it didn't make, precisely because these decisions would not align with its operating philosophy which has allowed them to become one of the most valuable brands and emulated models in history.

You might be right of course, I've just replied to a comment which was giving such an unconditional praise to Toyota it read almost like sarcasm - by all accounts they were super late with key technologies when it comes to hybrids, which is just weird given their very long experience building cars like the Prius. The EV point was purely about the fact that IMHO their first EV should have been super strong given their experience and it's just.....awfully unerwhelming.

I agree however that this lateness probably didn't hurt their brand that much though, and long long term they will be fine.

They have decades experience building hybrids and have chosen the hybrid is best strategy

And you then complain their EV isn’t as good as the hybrids they have been building.

BEVs and hybrids use the same electric motor technology. All I'm saying is that it's shocking(to me anyway) that Toyota spent 30 years making millions of them and then they can't match half the efficiency of a Tesla, that's just weird and makes you wonder where is all that engineering experience gone.

>their first real EV has half the efficiency of a Tesla.

Which model is Toyota's first real EV? The BZ4X efficiency (131 city/107 hwy MPGe), while less than the Model 3 (138 city/126 hwy MPGe), isn't half the efficiency.

https://www.truecar.com/compare/tesla-model-3-vs-toyota-bz4x...

Top Gear averaged 2.7 miles/kWh over 10k miles[0], while a Tesla Model 3 and Y can easily do 4-5 miles/kWh in real life tests. TBF 2.7 is abysmal in any car, that's numbers from a Q8 E-Tron, a big heavy SUV, for a small crossover that's just not ok.

[0] https://www.topgear.com/long-term-car-reviews/toyota/bz4x/16...

Thanks, that's very interesting. Does Top Gear have a similar long term review for a Tesla model (with the average efficiency calculated over something like the 10,000 miles in the Toyota review and presumably with the same group of drivers/environmental conditions/mix of highway/city driving)? You are correct that the 2.7 miles/kwh is low. But I suppose it isn't too far off the EPA estimate of 107 MPGe (highway rating), which would be 3.175 miles/kwh.

Here's a pretty scathing mechanic's review of the BZ4X:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2tzln6UD-Q

> OP complimented the hybrid and your criticism pertains to an EV.

Also, a blind spot for the long game.

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