Toyota's EV Sales Plunged in September After Recall, But Improved Lineup Planned (electrek.co) 137
Toyota sold just 61 BZ models in September, reports Electrek.
"Including the Lexus RZ, which managed 86 sales, Toyota sold just 147 all-electric vehicles in the US last month, over 90% less than the 1,847 it sold in September 2024." Toyota's total sales were up 14% with over 185,700 vehicles sold, meaning EVs accounted for less than 0.1%... So, why is Toyota struggling to sell EVs when the market is booming? For one, Toyota recalled over 95,000 electric vehicles last month, including the bZ4X, Lexus RZ, and Subaru Solterra, all of which are built on the same platform. The recall was due to a faulty defroster, but Toyota instructed its dealers to halt sales of the bZ4X, Lexus RZ, and Subaru Solterra.
Toyota hopes to turn things around with a new and improved lineup. The 2026 Toyota BZ (formerly the bZ4X) is arriving at US dealerships, promising to fix some of the biggest complaints with the outgoing electric SUV. Powered by a larger 74.7 kWh battery, the 2026 Toyota BZ offers up to 314 miles of driving range, a 25% improvement from the 2025 bZ4X... Toyota's new electric SUV also features a built-in NACS charge port, allowing for recharging at Tesla Superchargers. It also features a new thermal management system and battery preconditioning, which improves charge times from 10% to 80% in about 30 minutes...
It's not just the US that Toyota's EV sales crashed last month, either. In its home market of Japan, Toyota (including Lexus) sold just 18 EVs in September.
The Japanese auto giant is betting on new models to drive growth.
"Including the Lexus RZ, which managed 86 sales, Toyota sold just 147 all-electric vehicles in the US last month, over 90% less than the 1,847 it sold in September 2024." Toyota's total sales were up 14% with over 185,700 vehicles sold, meaning EVs accounted for less than 0.1%... So, why is Toyota struggling to sell EVs when the market is booming? For one, Toyota recalled over 95,000 electric vehicles last month, including the bZ4X, Lexus RZ, and Subaru Solterra, all of which are built on the same platform. The recall was due to a faulty defroster, but Toyota instructed its dealers to halt sales of the bZ4X, Lexus RZ, and Subaru Solterra.
Toyota hopes to turn things around with a new and improved lineup. The 2026 Toyota BZ (formerly the bZ4X) is arriving at US dealerships, promising to fix some of the biggest complaints with the outgoing electric SUV. Powered by a larger 74.7 kWh battery, the 2026 Toyota BZ offers up to 314 miles of driving range, a 25% improvement from the 2025 bZ4X... Toyota's new electric SUV also features a built-in NACS charge port, allowing for recharging at Tesla Superchargers. It also features a new thermal management system and battery preconditioning, which improves charge times from 10% to 80% in about 30 minutes...
It's not just the US that Toyota's EV sales crashed last month, either. In its home market of Japan, Toyota (including Lexus) sold just 18 EVs in September.
The Japanese auto giant is betting on new models to drive growth.
I didn't buy an EV last month after all... (Score:2)
I was looking, but didn't pull the trigger for various reasons - plus I discovered the ones I was interested in mostly didn't qualify for the (expiring) tax credit anyway.
But what's funny is - Hyundai *just* announced their 2026 lineup, and the prices are lower than the 2025 versions... by varying amounts, but all the reductions are more than the amount of the now-gone credit!
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Interesting about the massive Hyundai prices. I think this has more to do with their ability to compete with other manufacturers that have cheaper EVs.
For instance, I pulled a trigger on a base Chevy Equinox EV LT1 on August 14. With the $7500 tax credit applied at time of purchase, it cost me $27,644.75 out the door. I sold my 2015 Chevy Volt to Carvana on September 26 for $6,200. I was hoping to get a bit more to a private party by going through Keysavvy to someone qualifying for the used EV tax credit, b
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There actually is going to be a new Bolt released soon, but since the tax credit is gone, it was probably better to go with the Equinox EV.
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Yes. The release date is unknown, as are the specs. For a while, it looked it was going to be a 2027 model, not 2026.
I wish the timing worked out better with the release date of the Bolt and tax credit expiration.
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I waited forever for my dealer to get a Bolt EUV, they never got allotments. Then I waited for an Equinox, but they wanted to upsell me on the highest trim level. So instead I found a Solterra Touring lightly used (5k miles) for $22k. Couldn't be happier, thanks crappy small town GM dealer.
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Unfortunately, dealer experience can widely vary, indeed. In the SF bay area, there is no shortage of dealers, and it has been fairly easy to locate BEVs and PHEVs. I'm guessing you are not in one of the CARB states.
They are failing because Toyota sucks at tech (Score:2)
The main reason Toyota is failing is that their EVs don't look like the future, and don't sell the dream of autonomous vehicles. If consumers don't think of Toyota as advanced or visionary, why would they buy their EVs from them?
Would you buy a CPU from McDonalds, no matter how great it is? When you think of McDonald's, the only thing you believe they're good at is fries, ice cream, and milkshakes. And Oreo McFlurries. Not CPUs. You don't think of McDonald's as someone smart enough to make a CPU. It's the s
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Not McDonalds but a decade ago KFC did market a Bluetooth keyboard.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/kfc... [pcmag.com]
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Truly autonomous vehicles just don't exist yet, and aren't for sale by any manufacturer yet. BEVs and PHEVs started appearing in the marketplace around 2010. They have been for sale for a while. Most of those who bought them love them, and would not go back to ICE.
I would truly welcome an autonomous vehicle today if it existed, especially with worsening vision problems. I wish one existed already, but it just isn't the case yet. When one is finally on the market, I am pretty sure it will be an autonomous BE
Re:They are failing because Toyota sucks at tech (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, strong disagree.
Teslas sell because they're legitimately good EVs (aside from the Cybertruck, which is good at precisely zero things) and they have first-mover advantage.
Chinese EVs are impressive because they have everything including the kitchen sink in the vehicle and you could buy 4 of them for the price of one used F150.
Hyundais sell because they're interesting and decent vehicles. They don't promise the world, but you get decent value for your money.
The problem with the Toyota/Subaru EVs is that they come from companies that have a very strong value proposition in some way, but the EVs fail to meet those values. Toyotas are supposed to be reliable, good vehicles. They do everything you want, nothing is too flashy, and you know that car will still work in 15 years whether you take care of it or not. Subarus are reliable bad-conditions vehicles that can tackle actual offroading with no modifications and still get you around town comfortably without wasting gas.
The bz4rxzbzbzbzb or whatever (terrible name, a minor but notable problem) just doesn't live up to the Toyota badge, by all accounts. You've got no reason to buy it over a Rav4 or a Prius. It's heavier, worse to drive, worse than the competition, and the range is pretty mediocre. The Solterra is a Toyota with a Subaru badge, and underperforms every other vehicle in the lineup if you buy Subarus for being rugged but practical vehicles.
Toyota has even SAID that they don't really think much about EVs, they think everyone should have a hybrid. So when they built an EV, their hearts weren't really into it. Subaru just wanted something--ANYTHING--to fill the gap in their lineup, and they threw in with Toyota because that seemed like a safe bet. Wrong.
I'm sure the model will get better over time. Toyota likes making money, so they'll figure it out. But these cars don't sell well right now because they're bad.
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I don't buy Toyotas because I don't like paying a 15% to 30% markup for the same capabilities that other brands have, even with a reputation for better reliability.
As for these particular vehicles, I'm a little tired of the term "SUV". When I was young, an SUV was a Sport-Utility Vehicle, it was a high-clearance vehicle, usually four-wheel-drive, that was durable enough to leave paved roads for rough driving conditions. It was something that could go further off the beaten path than a station wagon or sed
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Yeah, their weird fixation with hydrogen isn't doing them any favours. It's a terrible fuel and the engines are complicated and underperforming.
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The bz4rxzbzbzbzb or whatever (terrible name, a minor but notable problem) just doesn't live up to the Toyota badge, by all accounts. You've got no reason to buy it over a Rav4 or a Prius.
I mean, it's not terrible. Acceleration is comparable to my 2017 Model X or a current-generation Model Y. (The current generation of Model X leaves it in the dust.) The main problem is that it has as little as 68% of the range of a current Model Y, despite being smaller than a Model Y, weighing less, and having slightly less powerful motors. And despite all of those compromises, it is still only $6k cheaper than the Model Y.
When you're spending about $40k on a car, the difference between $38k and $44k i
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I agree, they're not terrible—like, it's not a Cybertruck or Hummer EV—but they're not GOOD, either. You look at it and compare it to various other EVs and it's not as fast, doesn't go as far, isn't luxurious. It's just a Toyota and gives you no reason to buy it other than brand loyalty. The RAV4 is insanely popular despite also being (IMO) pretty mediocre. But it's a Toyota and it's reliable as hell and isn't more expensive than everything else in the same category.
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For what it's worth, I have the Solterra (rebadged awd bz4x) and I have averaged well over the EPA estimate and I am a "5-10 miles above the speed limit" driver. About 240 in the winter with snow/ice and close to 300 in the summer.
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Would you buy a CPU from McDonalds, no matter how great it is? When you think of McDonald's, the only thing you believe they're good at is fries, ice cream, and milkshakes. And Oreo McFlurries. Not CPUs.
Uh, just curious. How does one still assume McDonalds is “good at” making ice cream or milkshakes?
Fucking machine has been out of service since 1994. For very corrupt reasons too.
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If consumers don't think of Toyota as advanced or visionary, why would they buy their EVs from them?
Because they want an EV to drive to work now that is reliable with a dealer network to support it? The market for EV's from people looking for "advanced and visionary" cars it is likely close to saturated. Business from early adopters and technology geeks are not going to support a major auto maker.
Its not at all clear that Toyota is going to have a hard time transitioning to BEV's when and if the market demand is there. But right now they seem to have concluded they can take the same batteries needed for o
Asked & Answered (Score:2)
So, why is Toyota struggling to sell EVs when the market is booming?
Asked...
Toyota instructed its dealers to halt sales of the bZ4X, Lexus RZ, and Subaru Solterra.
and answered...
If the factory tells dealers to stop selling a model, it's not news to point out that sales of those models "plunged" after they (effectively) took them off the sales floor.
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Plus it's generally against the law to sell vehicles under-recall. Even used car dealerships aren't supposed to, though without enforcement from motor vehicle offices they are not as inclined to follow those laws and to check for recalls before selling.
Good (Score:2)
When Good, isn’t. (Score:2)
these pricks have been gouging buyers for the past year. I hope they take a huge bath.
You seem to forget you share the same bathwater, taxpayer.
Too Big To Fail, is now solidified in precedent. Be careful what you wish for. You just might end up paying for it.
Again.
Last month in Japan (Score:2)
4 x Tesla Model 3s being driven on the road.
1 x Porsche Taycan parked at a home.
1 x BYD Atto 3 being driven on the road.
1 x Nissan Leaf or Ariya parked on the side of the road.
1 x Tesla dealership in Sendai.
1 x Nissan display across the road from Tachiyo's hotel in Ginza with a formula-e, an Ariya and a Hyper Force.
No FCEV of any brand or any Toyota or Honda BEVs were noticed. By contrast onc
toyota sells engines (Score:2)
Toyota makes and sells engines, its their number 1 thing. Toyota does not want to sell electric motors, Toyota wants to sell engines. And so it is.
Toyota North America sold 185,748 vehicles in US (Score:4, Informative)
As per https://pressroom.toyota.com/t... [toyota.com]
"Toyota Motor North America (TMNA) today reported September 2025 U.S. sales of 185,748 vehicles, up 14.2 percent on a volume basis and up 9.5 percent on a daily selling rate (DSR) basis versus September 2024. Sales of electrified vehicles for the month totaled 85,092 up 8.1 percent on a volume basis and up 3.6 percent on a DSR basis representing 45.8 percent of total sales volume."
Toyota is doing just fine selling hybrids.
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Toyota sold 29 million hybrid cars worldwide in 2024:
Toyota electrified vehicles sales in 2024 (all brands)
POWERTRAIN GLOBAL SALES
Hybrid electric 29,315,916
Plug-in hybrid electric 761,578
Fuel cell electric 27,723
Battery electric 289,840
Mild hybrid electric 141,593
https://mag.toyota.co.uk/six-m... [toyota.co.uk]
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Toyota sold 29 million hybrid cars worldwide in 2024:
Toyota electrified vehicles sales in 2024 (all brands)
POWERTRAIN GLOBAL SALES
Hybrid electric 29,315,916
Plug-in hybrid electric 761,578
Fuel cell electric 27,723
Battery electric 289,840
Mild hybrid electric 141,593
https://mag.toyota.co.uk/six-m... [toyota.co.uk]
By every number Toyota seems to be doing very well.
Sadly, Americans have a very limited range of EVs (Score:2)
Out here in the real world EVs are everywhere. This is the future, you just need to leave America to experience it. Mostly Chinese, or locally-built Chinese EVs, and a handful of Chinese-built Teslas. I own an AIO UT sedan hatchback which blows away all others in its category and it cost under US$15,000! And I'll bet you've never heard of it if you live in the USA.
ICE car dealers including Mazda, Toyota, and Honda are closing down and reopen selling XPENG and ZEEKR and MG and BYD. Petrol stations are disap
Poorly written article. (Score:2)
Whether or not that's good or bad, that's not something I'm here to judge.
But the way the article's headline is written it makes it sound as though Toyota is experiencing difficulty selling EVs.
Simply put, they're not.
Toyota is deliberately not spending marketing dollars on the BZ4X or Lexus RZ as worldwide strategic decision, clearly not a sales issue. They only made those models and in the configurations designe
Not the same (Score:2)
Toyota EVs unfortunately aren’t built with the same reliability parameters as their ICE or hybrids.
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One hopes !
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Re:Japanese automakers absolutely dispise EVs (Score:5, Interesting)
Once you drive an EV, it's hard to go back. My first car was 2001 Prius hybrid - HEV. It was nice, for its time. There wasn't anything else like it.
My first BEV has a 2012 Leaf, which I did not keep through its lease due to range issues. It was otherwise a fine car. I switched to a Volt PHEV in 2015. It's been a great car. However, when switching from electric to gas, it became a much noisier car. I sold the Volt a week ago, and now drive a 2025 Equinox BEV. My husband has been driving a Bolt EV since 2017. I'm very glad we will never have to fill up again.
BEVs are much more comfortable and enjoyable than gas cars, whether they are ICE, HEV or PHEVs. BEVs are simply superior technology, and will be taking over regardless of subsidies. Honda and Toyota have missed the boat, and deserve to be left behind.
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I daily drive a Ford Mach E, and my weekend / nice weather car is an old BMW Z3. It's hardly a fair comparison, but after Friday-Sunday in the Z3 and going back to work at the beginning of the week, the Mach E feels like an absolute spaceship. Then again I imagine just about anything made this decade would compare similarly against a car that was manufactured during the Clinton administration...
I don't know about more "enjoyable" though, part of the reason I have the Zed is because it's a convertible, and y
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"you don't see too many convertible EVs around"
only one i would buy that I can (almost) afford is the MG Cyberster but it's not available where i live
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Indeed. My father used to drive a convertible. It was nice in good weather, during the days. But in France where I grew up, about 2/3rd of the days were not so nice, weather-wise. Also, in the evening, it got much colder. The convertibles he bought had soft tops. The thermal and sound insulation was extremely. I hated riding in the backseat of that Peugeot 205 CJ growing up. I agree being able to put the top down would be special. But I think you would lose of the comfort advantages of BEVs, as well as effi
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It's been incredible to see so many of the ICE incumbents stumbling badly at building EV that customers want.
It's been more than a dozen years since Model S launched and despite Elon managing to punch himself in the face, shoot himself in the foot and kick himself in the balls all at once, they're still struggling to catch up.
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Indeed ! Musk certainly helped put EVs on everyone's radar. But not affordable. The less expensive EVs are coming from GM and Nissan in the US. In other countries, the Chinese are making downright cheap EVs.
Tesla has yet to produce a $35k car. That goal has been abandoned, as far as I can tell.
$35K Model 3 was briefly available (Score:2)
though Tesla made it difficult to buy: [capitalone.com]
Edmunds bought one an
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Thank you for that link. I did not know that there was a time window that you could actually buy it for $35k. Was that before applying the $7500 tax credit ?
By March 2020, Musk had already gone crazy, forcing his employees at the local Tesla factory to come to work, despite the COVID shutdown orders.
That is indeed eons agao about Warpstock 97 ! That brings back memories. It was in Diamond Bar if I recall. I wrote the DSMI plug-in in one night in summer 1996. I still need to put that DSMI/2 code on github. I
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Tesla hasn't been the top EV brand in Europe for many years, even before they were renamed SwastiCars because of his antics.
By many years you mean 'last year'? 2019. 2020. 2021. 2022. 2023. VW took the overall title for EU EV sales from Tesla in 2024 with the combined sales of VW, Porsche, Audi, Skoda and Cupra. Was not until 2025 that VW had an individual model that sold better than a Tesla.
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but a lot of VW Group cars are built on the same platform and some are only cosmetically different.
Tesla has only 1 model and 1 variant that middle class buyers can realistically consider
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It is amazing how wrong one can be in just one post.
Worldwide new car production is already 20% EV. China. The biggest market, is 50% BEV. Europe is 20%. The US is behind at just 10%. Nevertheless, the percentage keeps going up each year. More mining is coming online.
Electricity demand will go up a bit, but overall this will be a very small and gradual increase on the grid. Solar energy can be added very rapidly. This is not a real concern, either short or long term.
DC fast charging cost is of little releva
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"L2 chargers, at home, work, or other public places, is sufficient for 99% of driving days for most people."
Most people in the US maybe with their huge houses and drives where installing a charger is no problem and large office complexes ditto. Meanwhile here in the UK 40% of the population have no offstreet parking and the majority of companies in cities have no car park AT ALL. Public transport is the expected method of commuting. Where I live there are a whole 6 chargers in a 2 mile radius which probably
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Meanwhile here in the UK 40% of the population have no offstreet parking and the majority of companies in cities have no car park AT ALL.
Those kinds of areas where this is a problem all have street lamps. Those street lamps have electricity connections so they can shine at night. They are being converted into (relatively slow but cheap) chargers for people to use overnight. The nice thing is that this leads quite well to incremental and slow upgrades of the grid to support EVs.
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Street lamps operate on standard single phase household voltage, they can't support anything beyond 3KW plus there's only 1 to maybe 5 houses on any given street and 1 to possibly 100 flats in a block. Its not a solution.
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3 kW is plenty sufficient to charge an EV. My 2015 Volt PHEV was not even capable of charging at more than 3.3 kW.
But as I said in a previous comment above, if there is no parking, there aren't going to be any cars around, ICE or EV. So I'm not sure what this has to do with anything.
Re: Japanese automakers absolutely dispise EVs (Score:2)
WTAF are you talking about? People park on the road! What planet are you from?
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Sorry, but what point are you trying to make ? The context of TFA was EV sales drop by Toyota. Not replacing public transit with EV.
I'm very much in favor of public transit. I'm just not seeing the relevance in this conversation. Toyota isn't selling any vehicles in areas that don't even have parking, ICE or BEV.
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PHEVs have been disappearing from the market. They are more complex than either ICE or BEV. They cost more to maintain. They ate less comfortable than BEVs. After driving a PHEV for 10 years, I don't think these vehicles will gain mcih market share. Certainly not at the pace that BEVs are.
PHEV sales are actually growing, and in some areas growing faster than BEV sales. I have both a BEV and a PHEV. They are different cars. The BEV is nice for in-town driving, but it's bad for long-distance trips. Yes, charging on long-distance trips has improved dramatically, but even so, it's still night and day compared to my PHEV that gets 6 hours of highway driving before I need to stop. Since the PHEV allows me to drive almost exclusively on the battery for most of my driving, I would get rid of th
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You are right that it's increasing. Thanks for the correction. The market share of BEVs for new car sales is growing faster than the market share of PHEVs, though. We are talking about 2% for PHEVs vs 8% for BEVs in the US.
I don't think I have ever done 6 hours of highway driving without stopping. My bladder would never allow it. Even my 2015 Volt PHEV only had about 250 mile actual gasoline range, at the speeds I typically drive on the rare long-distance trips. 250 miles is less than 4 hours of driving wit
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Yep, lots of excess capacity at night (Score:2)
There's so much excess power at night that free-nights electric plans like this one [amigoenergy.com] are common here in Texas. When I had a free-nights plan I was able to save 20% over my prior plan by scheduling my Model 3 to charge, and my washer and dishwasher to delay-start, during the free period.
Not on the plan anymore as I've since installed solar and have my Model 3 scheduled to charge when I'm generating excess solar power - I work from home so this works well for me.
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been there, done that (Score:2)
7:12 in this video covers how the grid capacity more than doubled over the course of a decade to accommodate the increased electrical demand from the mass adoption of air conditioning in homes:
Can the electric grid handle electric vehicles? [youtube.com]
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That's not when AC took off. Look a couple decades later.
And doubling gets progressively harder as grids grow. Your example was 1/3 of what's needed.
A more recent doubling is 1975 to 2000, which took 25 years. It's 1,800TWh, which will also allow for partial electrification fo the economy.
https://www.eia.gov/energyexpl... [eia.gov]
PS. NREL thinks we'll effectively need to double generation (another 4,000TWh) for "high" electrification of the economy (including transport).
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Indeed, Toyota was hardly selling any BEVs in the first place. According to https://www.ttnews.com/articles/toyota-sell-seven-ev-models?utm_source=chatgpt.com :
'Toyota delivered fewer than 30,000 all-electric vehicles in the U.S. in 2024" . I could not find 2025 data.
There has been some inflation in the car market, both used and new. There are still a few bright spots in terms of cost, though. The base models of the Equinox EV or Nissan Leaf are much cheaper than the average new car, even with the federal
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here in New Zealand you can already by a BYD BEV, with no subsidies, for the same price as the mid model Corolla and save money on running costs from day one.
But the Corolla will still be running a dozen years from now and parts will be plentiful. We'll have to wait a while to see if that is the case with the BYD, but until that point it would be wise to not consider that more than a maybe.
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Depends on how long you plan to keep it.
Well no my plan is irrelevant but someone else will hopefully be driving it for many years after me in any case. I have some concern that cheap Chinese BEVs may end up being somewhat synonymous with disposable BEVs. I know that is certainly a popular attribute for many things in the modern economy but I'm not sure it is something we want to be extending to automobiles.
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I have some concern that cheap Chinese BEVs may end up being somewhat synonymous with disposable BEVs.
Is there any reason to think Chinese BEV's are any worse quality than Tesla's? I think the reality is that its going to be hard for anyone to compete with the Chinese auto makers because they started with a huge untapped domestic market and are aggressively moving into the export market. For similar reasons US auto companies are unlikely to fail. They have a large developed domestic market and a developed export market.
If I was looking for a likely failure it would be Tesla. They were a one trick pony that
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Is there any reason to think Chinese BEV's are any worse quality than Tesla's?
Not if it is in the same price bracket, but not for a fraction of the price. Don't get me wrong, Chinese are very capable of building high quality stuff, but quality is not cheap no matter where you do it. They can also make the absolute cheapest flimsiest barely serviceable version of anything. Like things on Temu that may seem like a great deal, but don't expect them to last.
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Your assumption that the difference in price between the Tesla and the Chinese offering materializes in a quality difference. Is that true? I'm not sure that it is.
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Again the BEV part is not relevant, it is Chinese part that is relevant. I would share your concerns about some Chinese brands, but Gr
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My comment about how long you keep a car was more about new buyers who turn over their cars frequently.
Yes I know. My concern was that someone might think well you can get a new Chinese EV for only 15K so who cares if it only lasts five years? I only keep my cars that long but the used car market is still very important to a lot of people. I'm not American but I think the average car age is around 12 years. There are all sorts of reasons to not want that number to drop.
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If I had to bet I'd say in 10 years they sell just as many Corollas as they do today.
Toyota Corollas sales numbers peaked in the UK in 2006. They peaked in Europe a few years ago (and have been on a steady decline). Worldwide they are estimated to ship only 66% of the volume in 2025 vs 2024 based on current projections. And beyond the Corolla Toyota is really struggling across all markets. Toyota's global production peaked in 2007, and while they were rising in popularity in Japan, their export volume has plummeted since then.
Toyota will still be around in 10 years, as will the Corolla. But
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Toyota will still be around in 10 years, as will the Corolla. But there is simply no logical basis for assuming that in 10 years the volumes will remain the same. In order to do that they need to actually turn around the currently declining trend.
As the EV fad diminishes and mandates disappear I think they will be fine.
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Blockbuster video was at its peak number of stores in 2004. In 2010 it went bankrupt.
That's because Blockbuster's business model was effectively obsolete with the invention of the DVD, but both they and the customer base didn't realize it yet.
Video tapes were a pain in the ass. They took a lot of space, they were subject to damage if handled incorrectly, and they wore out simply by using them. They were not well suited to anything more than local pickup and local return. That meant that for temporary rentals, a storefront like Blockbuster was generally necessary. As an ancillary busines
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What would render Toyota to be like Blockbuster is if companies like Waymo manage to introduce car-services that become so prolific that private car ownership becomes obsolete,
And the question is which is more inevitable BEV's, self driving vehicles or the end of personal ownership. In fact we may see all three, but that will make the customer for new vehicles very different. A lot of things Toyota is known for, like dependability and quality, may be far more important than whether they were late to adopt BEV technology.
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It's more that electricity supply is to hydrocarbons what ICE was to horses. At present there are worries about charging electric vehicles, however that is going away. Soon there will be areas where there just aren't enough ICEs to support gas stations. Once it gets more and more difficult to refill there will be a real "transition" over from one to the other. In Norway that's here today.
Of course, people still use horses. There will still be ICEs in some places.
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It's more that electricity supply is to hydrocarbons what ICE was to horses. At present there are worries about charging electric vehicles, however that is going away. Soon there will be areas where there just aren't enough ICEs to support gas stations. Once it gets more and more difficult to refill there will be a real "transition" over from one to the other. In Norway that's here today.
Of course, people still use horses. There will still be ICEs in some places.
Norway may get there someday but at this time the number of gas stations hasn't declined.
Re: Japanese automakers absolutely dispise EVs (Score:2)
Even in the USA, the number of gas stations has been declining for 50 years. They've gotten more pumps at less locations. Cars don't break down anywhere near as much as 50 years ago, which is why most fueling stations don't have garages any more.
In a lot of areas even in the USA, gas stations have a started having trouble getting loans for more than a few years.
Just like in California becuse 25% of new cars and 5% of total cars are BEV now and the rest super efficient, they've got refineries shutting down
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Even in the USA, the number of gas stations has been declining for 50 years. They've gotten more pumps at less locations. Cars don't break down anywhere near as much as 50 years ago, which is why most fueling stations don't have garages any more.
In a lot of areas even in the USA, gas stations have a started having trouble getting loans for more than a few years.
Just like in California becuse 25% of new cars and 5% of total cars are BEV now and the rest super efficient, they've got refineries shutting down because gasoline usage peaked in CA a decade ago, and it's expected to continue to decrease. They made most of their money from gasoline. They can't afford to make the necessary upgrades and repairs, when their main product is decreasing over time. In the past it didn't matter if they expected a decade at current rates to payoff, because they knew usage had to increase over time.
Gasoline and diesel have only stayed so cheap because they've had large and continous growth. Natural resources only stay the same cost if your pulling at a low enough rate, or your either finding new cheap supplies or developing tech that makes it cheaper. The rate of finding new oil deposits has plummeted, especially related to the cost of searching. Same with developing tech to get/refine oil cheaper, we've been getting more and more diminishing returns.
We are within a few years of peak oil. The USA peaked gasoline already. As refineries, gas stations, and the support stuff start needing expensive maintenance/repairs/replacements, they are going to decide they can't afford it. The companies that make fuel pumps are going to start closing, lowering output, and increasing prices, the companies that do the inspections of the stations are going to have a hard time finding employees so it's going to cost more and take longer for gas stations to be inspected. Fuel truck companies aren't going to be replacing trucks, they are going to charge more and take longer.
Gasoline, the parts, and the people, will start getting more and more expensive and harder to find. It will seem like nothing at first, but then start happening relatively quickly. It's a feedback loop. As prices go up and access gets harder, people switch to BEV faster, which causes prices to go up and stations to close.
This has happened with other industries in the past. Batteries are on track to be cheap enough within a year, that BE cars have a lower upfront cost than ICE cars. It's already happened in China that BE cars are cheaper upfront.
Within 5 minutes distance from my house 3 new gas stations with 16 pumps each have opened in the last 2 years, and the Costco expanded from 20 to 26 pumps. There are nearly 290 million ICE cars on the road in the USA. About 15 million new cars are registered annually, and about 14 million cars are junked annually. About 1.2 million of the new car registrations in the USA are EV's. With these numbers gasoline and gas stations will be in high demand for decades. If new ICE (including hybrids) were banned
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Gasoline won't get more difficult to refill, at least not in my lifetime. That is a scary story like peak oil or the new hotness, stranded assets. Less demand should make gasoline cheaper, but I don't see it going back to an unwanted byproduct of refining like it originally was.
They're kind of pointless (Score:2)
They're also substantially more expensive and because they're new you don't really see any of the benefits of lower maintenance. Stuff brakes on them and you have to fix it and it's very expensive.
Without the heavy government subsidies they are mostly a neato novelty. I'm including oil and gas subsidies in that. EVs are much more energy efficient but that hardly matters w
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Hybrids get you 95% of the value without worrying about getting stuck waiting for a charge or having to call a tow instead of AAA.
While there's certainly a vocal minority of folks who claim to have 300 mile daily commutes, most don't. That's why it's called "range anxiety", because for the majority of use cases running out of juice is an irrational fear.
Where I will agree though, is that since the current administration killed the EV tax credits, hybrids are now looking a lot more cost competitive. It's why I'm still kind of surprised Elon was all for this, because it is going to totally screw over Tesla's sales. The rest of the ma
It's got nothing to do with range (Score:3)
So Elon thinks he can weather the loss of the subsidies because only about a quarter of his business depends on them. He is not a clever businessman. He's just somebody that blended into some huge government contracts using his father's connections and a golden parachute he got from PayPal after he was
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Are EVs actually much more expensive compared to PHEV?
The prices seem comparable in the few models I looked at. I still have the comparison open between a base mustang machE and a Ford escape. I picked those because they are both built by the same company and they are quite similar vehicle. The machE starts at 34k and the ford escape at 30k.
I don't know anyone who actually had to be towed because they ran out of charge. Is this commonly happening?
Are repairing them actually expensive? Tesla's are, but it's
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Anyway the comment is mostly mine but I suspect there's a bit of nonsense in it I didn't say. There is a guy training his chatbot off of my comments and it mostly copies my comments but then adds a few bits of nastiness that aren't anything I would say. I think he's building a chat bot designed to mimic people so that he can either impersonate them or maybe get them caught up in automatic moderation systems.
That said the solution to our problems isn't more moth
Re: Japanese automakers absolutely dispise EVs (Score:2)
Why? Because they "dont like EVs"? Thats a bit non-sensical.
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Toyota and Honda will be effectively dead in three years.
You are delusional. All these 100% EV sales goals are getting repealed or indefinitely postponed. Like in Canada, etc., etc.
In 2025, EV sales require heavy incentives to happen. No incentives, hardly any sales.
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Sure [autoblog.com].
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I don't know why, I have a Solterra (made by Toyota) and I love it. You just have to recognize that like most (all?) EVs it's not meant for long road trips. That said, I have consistently done much better than the EPA rated mileage, even in the dead of winter (and it freezes/snows where I live). As a commuting car I have enjoyed it quite a bit.
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Take a look at a US population density map. [duckduckgo.com] You seem to be fantasizing that most people live in rural areas which is very much not the reality of the situation.
Some people live "out in the sticks" on farms or in the country and it takes time to get to a city.
That's a funny way of writing "a minority of people".
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I have not yet been in the market for a new vehicle when an EV would have been in my price range and otherwise meeting my needs, but I had done some basic research on defining the family needs. We concluded that an EV would need a 150 mile range on a single charge. This would be the equivalent to the range that around a half a tank of gasoline gives to most combustion vehicles. This would be enough range to from where we live to the extreme oppose edge of town and back, with around 20% battery to spare.
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The average range of electric vehicles in 2024 was approximately 283 miles on a single charge.
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I live almost in the sticks in cold cold northern MN. An EV works just fine for me. If I didn't have a charger at home, it would work more poorly. With a home charger I could do fine even truly out in the sticks. Sometimes one does go to the city - either it's less than 150mi away (ok, 100mi in February), or cities mysteriously have chargers and I can top up as needed for the roundtrip.
Sometimes I do drive it for days (across the midwest at least), where once again it works fine. Turns out time chargin
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That's a bit nonsensical. In the US, most people do not live "out in the sticks" almost by definition. Most people live in densely populated areas where EVs are viable.
And yes driving cross country takes days. But also virtually no one does that. It certainly does not have a meaningful impact on the sales nationwide.
I don't know that the "time to recharge" problem is a real problem and not an imagined problem. In daily usage you charge at home. So really the "time to recharge" is probably lower with an EV t
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and their customers aren't the EV crowd, and there's nothing wrong with that. People buy Toyotas for reliability, it's why I own one. My Toyota is 16 years old and has 250k miles. In 16 years, I've never had to repair anything, outside the standard maintenance services (oil changes, brakes, and tires). I'm gonna drive it to 300k and then buy the same thing that I have now but the hybrid version. After this experience, it would stupid to buy anything else.
My Lexus is 26 years old and has 371,000 miles. I test drove a new Model Y last month ahead of the Federal tax credit ending and while I liked it a lot and would really like FSD someday, in the end I decided my 26 year old RX300 meets my needs just fine. It's comfortable, reliable, readily and inexpensively repairable, can tow a trailer when I need it to, and costs me very little over gas and insurance.
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and their customers aren't the EV crowd, and there's nothing wrong with that. People buy Toyotas for reliability, it's why I own one. My Toyota is 16 years old and has 250k miles. In 16 years, I've never had to repair anything, outside the standard maintenance services (oil changes, brakes, and tires). I'm gonna drive it to 300k and then buy the same thing that I have now but the hybrid version. After this experience, it would stupid to buy anything else.
No. It would be stupid to assume you’re going to get the same product as you did 16 years ago.
The concept of they don’t make ‘em like they used to, turned into some kind of twisted dare in automaking. Your old Toyota, wasn’t designed with so much profit like it is now. And by profit I mean plastic bullshit designed to fail and remind you of the value of perpetual leasing.
Think they want you finding out how dead that EV battery will be after 16 years? No. They do not. And that
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I bought a Prius PHEV even though I'm firmly convinced that the PHEV is the worst of both worlds. You don't get the freedom from maintenance hassle that the BEVs give you, and the battery is small enough that it cannot fill all use cases _and do what you paid the premium $$ for_. If you want compromises, the hybrid will be a cheaper car.
Why did I buy this car? Because for reasons that I couldn't fathom, the BEVs that were in my price range were simply not available on the dealer lots at the time I needed a