Peter Landers reports in the Wall Street Journal that at the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association end-of-year press conference, the CEO of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, criticized plans to make sales of vehicles with internal combustion engines illegal:
TOKYO— Toyota TM -0.80% Motor Corp.’s leader criticized what he described as excessive hype over electric vehicles, saying advocates failed to consider the carbon emitted by generating electricity and the costs of an EV transition.
Toyota President Akio Toyoda said Japan would run out of electricity in the summer if all cars were running on electric power. The infrastructure needed to support a fleet consisting entirely of EVs would cost Japan between ¥14 trillion and ¥37 trillion, the equivalent of $135 billion to $358 billion, he said.
“When politicians are out there saying, ‘Let’s get rid of all cars using gasoline,’ do they understand this?†Mr. Toyoda said Thursday at a year-end news conference in his capacity as chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association.
He said if Japan is too hasty in banning gasoline-powered cars, “the current business model of the car industry is going to collapse,†causing the loss of millions of jobs.
and we can’t deploy solar power or wind power fast enough to make up the difference. Nuclear power could fill the gap but building conventional nuclear power plants is too slow as well. The only real prospect for generating enough electrical power would be small scale nuclear power. At this point that’s proceeding very slowly as well, largely for regulatory reasons but also because few want to be the first to try out a new technology.
I doubt that any of that will stop American politicians from demonstrating how committed they are to opposing human-caused climate change by doing things that actually have the opposite of the effect that is presumably intended.
Apple has announced that in five years they will be selling EVs. Why?
I understand the smart guys are now envisioning vehicles as an extension of your smartphone, but there’s no reason communication technology wouldn’t work as well with ICE. It’s almost a stampede to leapfrog infrastructure and just build EV’s.
30 minutes to charge, if there’s no line, and no brownout. Looks irrational to me.
Is it irrational or is about feeling smug?
The reason for Apple’s move is obvious: California’s law. They want to get in on the gravy train. But California’s law is the epitome of NIMBYism. California doesn’t generate enough electricity for its need now—it imports from other states. As long as those states don’t generate all of their electricity from solar or wind it’s not carbon neutral.
As long as there is money to be made in EV; the commitment will be strong.
When I mean money, I am referencing the stock price of TSLA, NIO, etc. It is the envy of that stock price that drives Apple (and every other carmarker/wanna be EV manufacturer on earth).
I had a colleague with Nissan Leaf and he was a big fan. Charging is not a big deal as its made to be, since it is done overnight.
Amusingly, looking at the data, Texas is better prepared to handle an all EV fleet then California.
the stock price of TSLA, NIO, etc.
You know better than I how quickly that can change. And so does Tim Cook.
Banning ICE? Would they do it? I own four of them, I can’t afford to replace them with EV’s.
Bet anyone they never will.
Think it is all just talk, signaling. There wont really be a need to ban them if the cost and quality of batteries keeps dropping. The cars perform better and are cheaper to maintain.
Steve
The price of EVs has not been falling over the last 8 years.
“The price of EVs has not been falling over the last 8 years.“
That’s because the growth is in purchases by virtue signalers, particularly premium vehicle virtue signalers. That’s the top of the marketing pyramid. Read: niche and limited potential served market, although with relatively high price elasticity. However, it will exhaust its volume growth potential quickly.
Remember, every kw of solar/wind generation requires a kw of “backup” natural gas-fueled gas turbines. Actually the turbines will supply anywhere from 65 to 95% of the power, and they will idle when the solar/wind is actually working.
And yet again, since people don’t listen, small nuclear plant costs will be very much higher than large ones per kw. It’s called economies of scale, and it applies to every kind of enterprise, even paper pushing.
Public Transport, spent 3 weeks in England, traveled from the West Coast to the East Coast to the South Coast and Back to London using public transport. Walked a lot as well, but that was part of the plan.