Akio Toyoda, Toyota Motor’s chairman, has never been a huge fan of battery electric vehicles. Last October, as global sales of EVs started to slow down amid macroeconomic uncertainty, Toyoda crowed that people are “finally seeing reality” on EVs. Now, the auto executive is doubling down on his bearish forecast, boldly predicting that just three in 10 cars on the road will be powered by a battery.
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“The enemy is CO2,” Toyoda said, proposing a “multi-pathway approach” that doesn’t rely on any one type of vehicle. “Customers, not regulations or politics” should make the decision on what path to rely on, he said.
The auto executive estimated that around a billion people still live in areas without electricity, which limits the appeal of a battery electric vehicle. Toyoda estimated that fully electric cars will only capture 30% of the market, with the remainder taken up by hybrids or vehicles that use hydrogen technology.
My non EV is at 250k miles at 16 years old on original Trans and Engine and has no mechanical issues whatsoever. Yes, this is not “common” for 15+ year old cars to survive and still do well, but go hop on marketplace and look at cars under $5000. All the undamaged still running vehicles are over 15 years old, and there are literally thousands for sale at any given time. If we were in a completely/mostly EV country there would be no cars that still ran or were worth buying that are over 15 years old.
Also, the battery fixing videos for 1/3 the cost isn’t really “fixing”. It’s just replacing the completely ruined cells while all the rest are on their last leg.
My 40yr old motorcycle is still running at 30k miles, mainly because southern California is very dry and non-corrosive. If I were to move back to NYC, the salty roads would probably destroy my machine in short order.
Regardless, the point is that in an EV, the energy storage part can be replaced while the rest of the system remains functional, without emitting CO2 directly into the atmosphere.
Packs can be recycled, individual damaged cells replaced if you really want to save money, though I don’t recommend it. By nature of system complexity, the dino cars simply cannot run as well as an EV for the same amount of time. Average 6cyl has about 350 individual components within the engine block which must be within very tight tolerances (the crux of the problem), whereas an equivalent power electric motor has maybe 8 parts if air cooled.
If you trust the engineers in large industrial operations where uptime is key, you’ll notice none of the pumps are driven by anything but beefy electric motors, running for years whether interrupted or continuously before going down for preventative maintenance.
Some Teslas have over 700 cells. Dropping an 1100 pound battery pack down after raising the car up and locating and replacing several cells in an old battery when all the other cells are also nearing the end of their lifespan is a very expensive and timely endeavor for a small amount of extra time before having to do it again, because replacing bad cells doesn’t magically make all the other cells new again. Without a complete battery pack replacement in a 10+ year old battery pack, it’s just spending a lot of money for a band aid.
… Yes, that’s why I said I don’t recommend it.
If time is cheap for you (e.g. you’re broke) then spend it until you are able to recycle the pack outright.
If you’re broke you aren’t going to have the equipment or the safeguards to remove and repair a 1,000+ pound battery yourself, and you won’t find a shop to do it for less than a couple grand. You’re “just do that” is completely unrealistic. Not to mention that a 1.5 to 2% capacity loss every year means your 15 year old car that started off being able to go 250 miles can now only go around 150 miles on a fall charge, and closer to 100 miles in very cold temps.
People make do, luckily at least some of us are creative 🙄
Average commute in the US is about 30 miles each way.
I don’t know how else to spell this out, you just never seem to get this: when the battery wears out, you replace it, not for free, but you get an effectively new drivetrain on your car. Your door dents and scratches will still be there, brakes still squeal and maybe you need to replace the shocks. But you can again accelerate hard, go long distances, all quietly and far more reliably than an ice car can. You can do this probably a few times before the body and subframe is worn/corroded too much to be worth it.
Get it?
When a powertrain wears out, a replacement ice will cost a person $2000 for an engine and $1600 labor. That 300 lb engine could sit on a shelf in a warehouse for 5 years or 30 years and still be an engine that works well. You want to spend a few grand more and you can make that old engine that’s in working condition, essentially brand new.
You leave a 1000 lb battery pack stored for 5 years and left alone it’s ruined. 30 years it’s ruined no matter what. Can’t just be pulled from a junkyard and taken home. It’s too large and heavy. Cost an arm and a leg to get delivered to an independent shop. Not to mention the equipment needed to manipulate around 1000 lb battery packs, so no one can self replace these things. The packs can’t be made new. They degrade with age, used or not. They cost more and they lose more value and only people with a house and garage can conveniently charge them.
None of what you’re saying is relevant to my point. You can lift the entire frame, using a regular 4 point auto lift, and drop it onto the battery pack slightly elevated off the ground. If you don’t have that, a couple of pallet jacks to roll the pack under the car, I mean come on! Where’s your creativity?
There are differences between ICE cars and EVs, most importantly tremendous power from zero RPM, & zero CO2 from the vehicle. Why would you think different tech should be equivalent? 🤦