On 8 Dec 2019 at 23:12, Mark Abramowitz via EV wrote: > Your statement about Toyota not making money on the Mirai is pretty silly.
It wasn't the poster's statement, it was from an article he quoted. And I don't understand why you would call it "silly." > > Who knows if they will make money on it, but they didnTMt make money on the > Prius for a number of years. The Marai and Prius aren't at all comparable. The Prius is a true mass production vehicle. The Mirai is effectively a proof of concept vehicle. A better analogy for it would be the GM EV1. I can't say I "know" that the Mirai will never be profitable, but it'd be a pretty safe bet. It may be a marvel of technology and a joy to drive for its few ownerst, but i's a highly specialized, narrow-appeal vehicle. It's safe to say that Toyota will never amortize its development cost, let alone sell it above production cost. It's far from unknown for automakers to accept initial losses on new vehicle (ICEVs) when they're introduced, in order to establish them in the market. Honda did that with the original Accord, and Toyota with Prius. But those cars had a reasonable expectation of success. I can't imagine that Toyota actually expects to ever make money on the Mirai. > Hopefully the success of the [Mirai] will be longer than the 10 or so > years it took to make money on the Prius The Prius turned a profit in 2001, 4 years after introduction. If Toyota really wants the Mirai to be successful, they should probably plan on bulding as many hydrogen filling stations as Tesla has superchargers, and as rapidly. (Not that I actually think it's good for drivers when an automaker, either Toyota or Tesla, builds its own filling stations.) That would require a substantial financial commitment. While a supercharger costs $250k to build, I've seen estimates anywhere from $1 million to $5 million for hydrogen filling stations. Maybe the cost isn't well established because so few have been built. Tesla has over 1600 superchargers. That many H2 stations would cost between $1.6 billion and $8 billion. I could be wrong, but my guess is that Toyota isn't going to spend that money, but rather wants governments to build the stations for them, using our taxes. 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 ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/index.html INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
