On 19 Apr 2019 at 2:05, brucedp5 via EV wrote: > Toyota has already said that initially it won't be able to meet > its quotas without buying credits from others.
Well, if they hadn't been dragging their feet all this time, but had actually developed and produced practical, affordable EVs that people wanted to buy, Toyota probably wouldn't have to be in this position. The EQ design which Toyota is licensing to Singulato is almost a decade old now. They never put it into production. It's one of many EV prototypes Toyota have designed over the last 3-4 decades. Some were pretty good, some not so great, but what they have in common is that none of them has ever been manufactured in significant numbers -- not even the well-regarded RAV4-EVs. You have to wonder why they keep wasting funds on these prototypes they apparently have no intention of manufacturing. So here they are, forced to buy EV credits from a tiny, inexperienced Chinese rival automaker. They couldn't see something like this coming? Meanwhile the Prius, which Toyota hung its hat on as superior to a real EV -- remember "You never have to plug it in"? -- sells fewer and fewer units each year. I suppose that the current model's hideous appearance might have something to do with that, though. Akio Toyoda should be hanging his head in shame. > Toyota also hopes to get a bird´s-eye view into how Chinese EV > startups work, sources told Reuters. Wow. I remember when US and European business people studied Toyota to learn about the "corporate culture" that made them successful. With the original Prius, Toyota seemed to leap out ahead of the other automakers. But that was almost a quarter-century ago, and they've long since squandered their lead. When the 1970s US fuel crunch hit, with long lines and 8 gallon limits at filling stations, GM, Ford, and Chrysler were caught flat-footed with no decent fuel-efficient cars in their fleets. Toyota and Nissan (then Datsun) were ready with good small cars that flew off the dealer lots, often at higher-than-list prices. That was the beginning of US sales success for Toyota and Nissan, and the US automakers never really recovered their leads. Now it looks like it's Toyota's turn to be short-sighted. Maybe this time it'll be Chinese automakers that put both Japanese and American automakers in their place. This should be fun to watch. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
