I hope they fucking eat Toyota’s lunch. I have no love at all for the cheap EVs being pumped out of China (due to massive subsidies by the state), but fuck Toyota for pushing so hard against EVs for so long.
This is bigger than Toyota. Hydrogen is a strategic initiative from the Japanese government, they are sick of having to import all their fossil fuels and are betting hard on the technology. Not just for cars but in general. Toyota is receiving big government subsidy checks to push that stuff.
Isn’t the Prius the opposite of pushing back against electric vehicles?
Making a single EV (the BZ4X that was half-assed) doesn’t count as embracing EVs. And Prius doesn’t come in an EV, only a plug-in hybrid or normal hybrid.
Toyota has been putting out a ton of anti-EV and pro-hydrogen press releases and funding political campaigns to hamstring EV adoption. They have come out very vocally that they don’t think EVs are the future.
So yes, when the most well-known “green” car company before Tesla doesn’t make an EV Prius, which would sell on the name alone, I call that pushing back.
Toyota thinks that EVs are a bad business decision for their target markets and that makes them worthy of scorn? Eh, I’d tend to disagree with you.
As someone who drives an EV, they’re not a perfect solution and in some places building out the infrastructure to support them is almost completely unrealistic at this point and difficult to imagine becoming realistic in the next 25+ years. I’m thinking of any place that isn’t reasonably industrialized or has any sort of wide, open spaces.
For those places, having access to an ICE vehicle, especially one that can sip on fuel, rather than guzzle it down, is a great option. Hydrogen fuel cells could be really fantastic as an option but the tech for those isn’t quite there yet (Soon TM).
Toyota has a ton invested in hydrogen already, so it’s unrealistic to expect them to look at EVs and just say, “eh, fuck hydrogen I guess, may as well burn all of this research too.” if they can sort out Hydrogen, that could be a great option for being both green and having a realistic path to roll out in less developed countries.
In the mean time, I don’t begrudge their board for hedging their bets on EV dominance, we have plenty of other options to choose from.
I would buy a BYD. They seem like good cars and they’re pretty affordable.
Will they get slapped with tariffs in Japan too?
