Toyota is taking the Corolla electric
electrek.co424 points by cisc 2 days ago
424 points by cisc 2 days ago
Cars that are designed from the ground up to be EVs tend to be much better than trying to shoehorn an EV into an ICE design.
The new Lexus ES350e, which comes in both hybrid and EV flavors, has been pretty universally panned as a mediocre EV [1]. Lexus anticipates that the vast majority of ES sales will be for the hybrid model, and I expect the same will be true of the Corolla.
The updated bZ and new bZ Woodland on the other hand, which are built as ground-up EVs on the e-TNGA platform, actually seem pretty decent. And I'm hopeful for the upcoming EV Highlander, too (although that will use a modified version of the TNGA-K platform).
I would prefer if Toyota just released a new EV model with roughly the same proportions as the Corolla, instead of going with the one-size-fits-all approach. But maybe they'll finally be able to get it right this time.
> I would prefer if Toyota just released a new EV model with roughly the same proportions as the Corolla
Indeed. Toyota's days are numbered.
BYD is selling EVs for US$14K in Australia. Toyota is Nokia, they don't know it just yet. Corolla EV is 30K USD, gas 25K.
AUD 19,900 driveway (means taxes, registration etc included), or about US$14K: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49772728
> Indeed. Toyota's days are numbered.
> BYD is selling EVs for US$14K in Australia.
It's not even about BYD. All of Europe is now buying EVs like crazy. How many of these are Toyota? One 40k€ model basically.
Everyone thought Toyota was Nokia when Tesla appeared... I think those days are over. Toyota survived that one already with a facelift for Prius.
BYD Dolphin base in Japan is $19k, the new Racco kei car is $14k. They're not doing so well - they just have no selling point. They're not even the cheapest of EVs in Japan, let alone the cheapest of all cars for Japan - $19k is literally 4k over the current gen JDM Corolla. I think that is an indication that BYD has no secret sauce but their pricing are just introductory one to starve off last bits of Western industrial capacities spared by Japanese automakers.
Tesla never had the production ability to take out the established companies. Tesla simply saturated and moved on to other things, while Toyota etc. kept most of their untouched market.
China (BYD etc.) definitely has the ability to produce the entire amount of cars Toyota sells. It's a totally different scale of threat - the result of Toyota (etc.) not reading the signs in time. Tesla gave them a warning they did not listen to.
Teslas started out at 40k USD in mid-2010s money promising more affordable options that we're still waiting on (even companies like Slate will probably eat them up when they're able to ramp and gain a fanbase)
Chinese manufacturers are starting far below even the base of contemporary economy ICEs, this is another game entirely
one of the biggest reasons why they haven't taken over the US is because our infrastructure is decades behind. for most people to get a fast charge at home means they either need a new house or an electrical upgrade whereas chargers are everywhere in Chinese cities (even fast battery swap shops). given how balkanized transport authorities are (State's rights-to-not-work-together being in effect here) I suspect EV growth will mostly happen in urban centers willing to spend a little extra money on electrification rather than outfitting their police departments with milspec armored trucks
Tesla promised a 35k Model 3 in 2016.
Entering that into a CPI inflation calculator, that is $50k in 2026 dollars due to inflation.
A Model 3 today starts at $38, which is WELL BELOW the 2016 promise. Corrected for inflation, that's roughly $28k in 2016 dollars
They effectively overdelivered on that promise.
The complaint here, is that Chinese manufacturers, who are mostly in a death battle against each other and not profitable are even cheaper than Tesla and Toyota. In the long run, I suspect that picture will simply not be sustainable for those companies.
I love the pro-Tesla crowd's selective memories. There was a $25,000 model they promised in 2020 - that's $32k in today's money.
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-promised-25-000-ev...
if the $4k difference in today's money is nothing to you, I've got a Venmo you can donate to. I'll even ship you a decade-old GTX 1080 that's still functioning :)
It was originally 35,000 in 2016 verifiable by a simple Google search: https://www.cars.com/articles/tesla-finally-puts-the-model-3...
$25,000 was speculative in 2020 not a hard deliverable, but $35,000 was the main promise which was delivered. I'm not even an Elon fanboy. I think he's a white supremacist. But credit is due where credit is due.
no, he literally said 25,000. it's even on video: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/18/elon-musk-tesla-could-produc...
I mean, this is just another case of Elon issuing totally unrealistic claims to pump his stock since it isn't a formal press release. but much like all of his rantings and ravings on Twitter and I'd rather treat them as concrete promises since they have realworld economic effects and wide-ranging consequences
> The complaint here, is that Chinese manufacturers, who are mostly in a death battle against each other and not profitable are even cheaper than Tesla and Toyota. In the long run, I suspect that picture will simply not be sustainable for those companies.
Citation needed. Yes, the many Chinese manufacturers are fighting each other... but I see no reason why they can't maintain prices. And I doubt they're all unprofitable, especially the big ones like BYD.
It's not a matter of maintaining prices. It's what will happen when a winner emerges and the winner naturally raises prices.
is this what happens in China's market? because my understanding is that China loves having an array of competitors. their entire strategy is just to 'build the stage' (via infra buildouts, workforce training, etc) for private enterprises to capitalize on which means rich fields for everyone. and the more that compete, the better it is for their economy. it's why there's something like six large smartphone makers all competing with one another (not counting the myriad smaller makers that exist) - how many large smartphone makers exist in the US?
But the companies are not profitable; their losses are being covered by the Chinese state. The question is whether this is actually an effective strategy long term.
The biggest obstacles to Chinese vehicle sales in the United States are political and they are tremendous. Whichever party is blamed for their entry will lose Michigan for a generation and car dealership owners across the country
That's where the power is
It certainly wouldn't help them but I don't know anybody in Michigan that isn't a c-suite that really cares that much about someone not buying American cars anymore. Most mechanics will tell you to buy a Toyota or Honda here. In the UP half of the cars are Subarus. The majority of automanufacturing has long ago left and nobody is happy about the quality of big 3 brands.
30 years ago I would have agreed, but most Michigan buyers at best begrudgingly buy American now.
the US lost all credibility. Nobody gives a fish about what the US says anymore. I bet their military is on par with Russia. Certainly the men in the US won't fight for a country that hates them.
There is also the part where everyone's Chinese vehicle gets bricked when things get too hot between China and the US.
this is a really good point. dealership lobbying is so weirdly under-covered and yet affects so much of our lived experience - from crash safety, to pedestrian experiences, to lemon laws. when I worked for the state consumer protection agency many moons ago, we had a drag-out fight with dealerships in the state legislature trying to advocate for having at least a nominal lemon law on the books. the original proposal would have protected consumers quite a bit - but it was quickly defanged with enough money flowing into the campaigns for the right rural legislators who sat on the right committees. I imagine this is the case everywhere with our legalized corruption system
Even the law that forces there to be dealers.
In theory you should be able to buy a car on line just like anything else on Amazon.
Dems have long lost dealership owners. Those owners are a powerful lobby, but they're not popular... not many people enjoy the process of buying a car and getting it serviced.
facelift of prius which sells at 50k? Haven't seen one yet on the roads. Meanwhile i just got myself a byd. Rep said they got 50 sells for that car in this city within the past 30 days so i dont know where you get your numbers from but i test drove a lot of cars and its hard to beat that byd in stuff you get per dollar
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I would say it is more likely to do with the fact that:
* BYD is new in Japan (since 2023) compared to other automakers which have built up trust over many decades.
* There are only 55 BYD dealerships in Japan vs 5,000 Toyota dealerships, 2,200 Nissan dealerships, 2,200 Honda dealerships, 1,500 Suzuki dealerships, etc.
* BYD offers a limited range of models in Japan - 6 in total. No minivan, for example, where minivans make up 6 of the 10 best selling (non-kei) car models in Japan
* Japan is very slow to adopt EVs in general. Charging infrastructure is poor
* BYD EVs and PHEVs qualify for a much smaller CEV rebate [1] than Japanese models, Teslas, etc. This eats away at much of the cost benefits
* BYD only just introduced their first kei model to Japan last month. It has been well reviewed, but even BYD isn’t expecting to sell a ton of them in their first year, let alone first month, due to the aforementioned circumstances.
Or we could just say it’s because Japanese are racist and won’t buy Chinese things - despite the fact that 22% of all Japan’s imports currently come from China. Because that feels correct, I guess?
To be clear I do recognize that are tensions between Japan and China. And there are plenty of Japanese people who would prefer to buy Japanese-made goods, or prefer to avoid Chinese-made goods (to the extent that's even possible). But there are plenty of Americans, Europeans, etc who feel similarly - and they aren't typically called racist for having the same preferences. There are valid reasons like wanting to support domestic businesses, or not relying on geopolitical rivals for manufacturing, that have nothing to do with racism. Canadians are boycotting US goods right now, for example. Is that because Canadians are especially racist?
And Japanese consumers are just as price sensitive as anyone else. As the end of the day, if they can get more car for less money buying Chinese cars (and if the cars and sales and support process can be sufficiently tailored to Japanese preferences), then Chinese automakers can be successful in Japan.
[1] https://www.cev-pc.or.jp/hojo/pdf/R7ho/R7ho_meigaragotojouge...
Isn’t saying Japanese are known to be racists a bit racist?
Japanese atrocities during WW2 are documented. The comment was about Chinese vehicle sales in Japan. But Chinese vehicles are selling like gangbusters everywhere else. It is important to understand the context. There is animosity between these countries going back quite some time.
Do you think South Koreans would buy a North Korean made car, even if were better? Would Israeli's buy a car made by Iran? Would Indians buy a Pakistani made car?
Also, Japan's #1 export is automobiles. They have the future of their country tied to the automobile industry which is dying (China overtakes Japan in auto exports with boost from EVs :https://asia.nikkei.com/business/automobiles/china-overtakes...). Japanese wouldn't be super interested in buying Chinese cars and destroying their domestic market as well.
How the massacre still haunts China-Japan relations: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp89ed9j5ygo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Japanese_war_crimes_i...
Saying an entire nation is racist and that there are political tensions between countries are very different things.
btw: if your theory was true the entire EU shouldn’t exist.
When you're pointed out that BYD products aren't competitive and you were immediately pulling the Nanjing Massacre card on that one...
So you're realizing that Toyota is more like, Google or Microsoft, and Nokia is more like Ford or Kia, aren't you.
Money is money mate -- plenty of Toyotas in China. It's the politicians stopping it with taxes and tariffs. Everyone has a price, how much is history worth at a 5k discount? 10k?
> Do you think South Koreans would buy a North Korean made car, even if were better?
This is pure fantasy. South Koreans are not buying Japanese cars due to national pride and trade tensions. They prefer domestic cars or European luxury brands (Mercedes Benz, BMW). By the same metric, Japanese are not buying Chinese made cars. Their market share is under 1% total and under 10% for EVs.
Americans didn’t mind buying German and Japanese cars pretty soon after the war.
freetime2 has a better explanation (sibling comment): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49841283
There's a lot of schadenfreude in the Netherlands about German car manufacturers but then we all know what happened the last time German industry went kaput... So I suppose we all have to support our brothers and sisters from the East until they get their act together.
Please don't. The arrogance with which they handle this situation is mind-boggling. Everyone else is blamed except their own greed and awful decision making. Germany and Europe will recover from this eventually and we're going to be better off without the auto lobby.
> Germany and Europe will recover from this eventually
One could characterize WWII that way, but maybe it still would have been better prevented.
VW doesn't sell new ICE models in the sub 25k€ segment anymore. Their new entry level car ID. Polo is an EV and when decked out (slight hyperbole, I primarily mean the battery upgrade) is costing the same the hypothetical $35k base Model 3 that never really existed in the first place, maybe it does today. Not to mention the 25k€ base model is not only real, but it is even acceptable if you don't care about range. Might still want to have some addons though.
> VW doesn't sell new ICE models in the sub 25k€ segment anymore.
Knowing VW, I read that as: "VW doesn't sell cars in the sub 25k€ segment anymore."
Personally I won't, the amount of greed and contempt for customers in the EU automotive world is absolutely insane, they need all to feel the pain, at least a bit to remember that their place isn't a given, that they have to work for customers.
A good chunk of them don't even follow EU laws on warranty.
Ehhh we should support them otherwise they will come to kill us all again?
No, if they do that it's 100% on them.
And the German auto industry is really corrupt. See what they did at Volkswagen scamming the system and then refusing to own up to it.
I don't buy any cars anymore and if I did it wouldn't be German.
Personally I think it's time for the personal car to disappear anyway. Even an EV still pollutes a lot, it's not just about CO2.
> Personally I think it's time for the personal car to disappear anyway.
Yeah I dunno. I think the majority of people will fight to the death if one tries to take away the individual mobility (and replaces it with either nothing or corporate-owned assets).
So yeah maybe that prediction in the first sentence is actually accurate, depending on how strongly that opinion is held and pushed.
In America maybe. Here in Europe it's not really viewed as a birthright like that. And don't forget, America artificially created a dependency on the car with its city design, for economic reasons.
And no I don't think anything corporate-owned is the answer, as corporations are the main reason we're in this mess.
But like I said it is my personal opinion. The challenges we face as humanity, like pollution (not just global warming), and infinite growth can't be solved without some big changes. Quick fixes just won't do it which is why we're not actually solving anything.
I don't think it will happen though. There's too many vested interest in just burning the world until it's gone.
> Here in Europe it's not really viewed as a birthright like that.
I have never left Europe in my life, and I can with certainty say that this is wrong.
We do have a bunch of city-dwelling people that can do without, yes, but once you leave those perspective-skewing places, there is no way to pleasantly exist without some sort of car.
That said, I agree that more could be done without them, and I think that eBikes are doing a ton of work there to enable people to use the one car they have to own less. If only they weren't by now priced like actual cars..
__
Also bonuspoints for not doing the dumb thing and buying a special-purpose-only cargo bike but the smart thing of owning a regular eBike, a trailer hitch and a bike trailer. You can get so much done with a bike trailer.
If you're in europe, go check out hinterher.com. Great stuff
> Also bonuspoints for not doing the dumb thing and buying a special-purpose-only cargo bike but the smart thing of owning a regular eBike, a trailer hitch and a bike trailer. You can get so much done with a bike trailer.
Cargo bikes are great for kids. I would be far too terrified to put them in one of those trailers.