Comment by freetime2
1 day 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
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
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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
Tesla never turned out to be Apple in this comparison though.
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You could say same the thing about Toyota's EVs in China.
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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.
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Quality matters though. A 10 years warranty as long as you do the prescribed maintenance with hassle free ownership is a major reason why Toyota’s clientele sticks.
It’s not impossible to unseat them. But it’s also far from given.
Toyota still sells 10M cars a year and has an enormous manufacturing, supplier and dealer network. That doesn’t disappear overnight because BYD can sell a $14k EV in one market
> BYD can sell a $14k EV in one market
Outside of the US, are there any markets BYD can't sell that car into? The Dolphin is currently listing at well under €20k here in Spain, which means its only real competition is the equivalently incredibly cheap Dacia Spring
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> BYD is selling EVs for US$14K in Australia
Tech people seem to really be confused about the concepts of revenue and net income; must be the whole VC we lose money on every item, but make it up on volume thing.
Do you mean BYD? They posted USD1.2 billion in profit in the most recent quarter FYI, with gross auto margin of ~20%. Their domestic margins are not good, but they've have strong export growth recently and exports are profitable.
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Toyota sells more cars per year than the US manufactures combined.
(Though there is some overlap as Toyota also builds in the US)
Toyota is riding on reputation of quality. If they can keep quality high and maintain the reputation, they will be okay.
The quality has taken a sharp decline in the last iteration
That was exactly Nokia’s reputation…
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> 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.
> All of Europe is now buying EVs like crazy.
In my country, Poland, 40'000 EVs were sold last year.
Toyota sold 106'000 cars.
People keep saying that Toyota is doomed since 2019, but numbers don't show that.
If anything, numbers confirm Toyota's strategy was right: play it slow and cool, and start shifting into EVs when a huge EV market will exist.
EVs really need no FOMO. They are simpler beasts to build than ICEs.
> Indeed. Toyota's days are numbered.
Uhhhh excuse me? I just bought a new Toyota Camry Hybrid because its range is 650 miles on a single gas tank. I can drive from Bay Area to LA, drive around LA for 5 days and then drive back home on 1.5 tanks of gas. I love it, and I don't have to spend hours charging. My other car is a Tesla, which I also love but I will never use it for road trips. My friend drove from Chicago to SF and had to charge 15+ times.
I have a gas SUV and a diesel truck. They are pathetic compared to my Tesla Model Y in every regard except towing and hauling with the truck. This is especially true on road trips. I do not mind those 15+ stops as they are for 5-15 minutes each and I guarantee I have to use the bathroom at each stop. My last road trip from Montana to Texas I could have just as well slept in the back seat the whole way if not for the driver monitoring system. Steering wheels are as dumb as gas tanks. I hate all the time wasted at gas stations, in reality it's much worse than charging. Waking up each day with a full "tank" is amazing. I couldn't imagine using one of the fossil fuel vehicles on a road trip anymore. Want to buy a Subi Forrester or a Dodge Cummins 24 valve 4 door long bed?
The weakness of the Yen does a lot for Toyota. You can pick a new Corolla for US$14K if you are buying in Japan.
You’re off your head if you think Toyota's days are numbered.
They make the best utes and 4x4 in the world.
Exactly, and Kodak makes the best consumer film cameras in the world.
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BYD trucks haven't won a war yet, so at least in that segment Toyota is safe for now.
This has been said so many times, yet Toyota's sales keep growing and incumbent EV makers plateaud.
Except Chinese ones, of course.
> Cars that are designed from the ground up to be EVs tend to be much better
Better here means more efficient, cheaper to assemble, more spacious on the inside, etc. Having to repurpose space left when you remove the combustion engine + fuel systems and other supporting infrastructure to host an electric drive train plus battery typically means compromising on these things. It works but it won't be as good as it could be.
And of course in a market full of competitively priced EVs from vendors that designed them from the ground up to be pure EVs that means fighting with your hands tied behind your back.
This thing will probably still do alright for Toyota. But they'll have to discount it to compensate for it just not being all that great compared to its more optimized competition.
Toyota is very good at selling things at a bargain though. They are actually holding up pretty well compared to other legacy manufacturers (they even managed a bit of growth last year in units sold). But it's in a market that except for EVs isn't growing much where the Chinese manufacturers are expanding their market share globally at the cost of pretty much everyone else. Toyota is kicking the can a bit down the road here. Probably to buy some time to build something better in a few years. But they might be milking this platform for quite some time.
Toyota have more or less explicitly stated the thing which I think all the "legacy" manufacturers are struggling with: moving to EVs obliterates the engine division, which is both part of their competitive advantage and would make a lot of people redundant. A more middle class version of the transition away from coal mining making a lot of dead mining towns. And similarly, it has to happen in order to keep global warming below 2C.
>Corolla is expected to come in several powertrains, including gas, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and battery electric.
And also it’s just going to be confusing for the customers. Which one to get? Which one is better? It’s hard to imagine how same platform can have efficient structural layout for the large battery and for the ICE engine.
EV is much about software as well, and Toyota is not going to shine in this area either…
Arguably hybrids rely on software much more than EVs do since it has to all the motor/battery management EVs do, but also coordination with the engine and transmission which EVs do not have, and Toyota has been the leader in that area for almost 3 decades now.
Unless you mean software as in fart apps on the touch screen, then yeah, Toyota lags in that department.
Toyotas in car software and UX is atrocious
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I don't think "which one to get" has been a problem for choosing cars -- much easier than choosing between i3/i5/i7 (or whatever they are called these days), and most consumers understand what they mean and the tradeoffs. It basically comes down to these questions -- do you want to pay more on the car to save on gas in the long run (hybrid)? Do you want to be able to plugin and charge your vehicle similar to an EV (PHEV)? Do you want to get rid of gas completely (EV)? And I'm sure salespeople will happily walk this over for a buyer.
> efficient structural layout
They don't need to be the most efficient on the market. Efficiency varies a lot among cars, and people don't make purchase decisions solely based on that (if at all).
Aero and hence power efficiency suddenly matters a lot for EVs, because it affects the range per unit battery. That's how we get silly range shaving tricks like the folding door handles.
IMO a prospective car buyer likely has a preference towards a certain drivetrain already.
An age old choice betwen petrol and diesel never seemed to be a problem, and electric vs hybrid/ICE are way more different to each other.
And as for the car software- after driving a new Prius I don't see any areas where Tesla's or BYD software is significantly ahead unless we are talking navigation which is shit either way, and I'd rather prefer car play
> Which one to get?
The one that suits your use-case.
Don't have any way to charge it? Get a hybrid.
Don't go on long road trips, or when you do, you're OK with waiting a bit? Get an electric.
Want to spend a fortune on petrol? Get a gas one.
Otherwise, get a PIH.
Some excellent EVs are based on the CMA platform, which also supports combustion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Modular_Architecture
Polestar 2, Volvo XC40 & C40 (now EX40/CX40)
Not to be confused with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Modular_Platform . It seems like every surviving manufacturer has one of these, especially when the company like Stellantis is a cut-and-shut of struggling brands.
The upside of using a platform for EV and hybrid engines is that it typically looks a lot better aesthetically than an EV only platform.
Just look at the Mercedes S class versus the EQS. The EQS was ground up designed as an EV and because of the design decisions made in that process is the ugliest Mercedes designed ever.
Same with the Audi A6 which was always a masterclass in design and now is a generic blob of a car with the new EV only model.
The aesthetic has nothing to do with it being an EV. They just designed it to be ugly.
A lot of the way EVs look has to do with reducing drag, which extends range. Hence the “blob” shape that the parent is talking about that is common to EVs - and the Prius before that. Or retractable handles.
So not just an aesthetic choice, although carmakers do seem to “lean in” to that aesthetic and go all in on the futuristic look with EVs.
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EV designed cars may operate better but IMO they all look way worse. Except Porsche.
The new Rang Rover electric is indistinguishable from the ICE version.
Lucid Air / Rivian are decent looking but they make no ICE equivalent.
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Cue the adage "we don't want your electric car, we want your car, electric".
I assume the same is true for the new C-HR+, right? It shares the name with the hybrid C-HR, but as far as I understand that's just marketing and it's actually based on the bZ platform.
Our 2004 RAV4 is dying and I'm seriously considering the C-HR+, not because of brand loyalty but because it seems to be one of the best EVs I can find on the market. 600+ km range and 224 HO for around 35k€, plus actual physical knobs in the car and mechanical door handles seems like a great deal to me.
> I would prefer if Toyota just released a new EV model with roughly the same proportions as the Corolla
I think the issue is time and money. Toyota maybe doesn't want to spend the money on a completely different car in the compact sedan category just for EVs - at least not yet. Plus, it might mean waiting several years when they want something out now. Sometimes it's about tradeoffs like time and money. Adapting an ICE Corolla might be reasonably cheap and fast. They might feel the need to have an EV Corolla out sooner than later. They might want to take their time with a new platform EV so that they don't put out something that doesn't meet their quality standards. While the drivetrain might be different, everything else in the Corolla is battle tested.
Further, Japan is especially hard hit by the Strait closing. Toyota may have thought they had years before they had to go fully EV, but the world has forced their hands. They need to be offering options today.
I agree that it's much better to design an EV to be an EV from the ground up. The reality is, however, that consumers don't want EVs for a myriad of reasons and prefer hybrids. And developing two completely different platforms is too expensive even for a higly profitable company like Toyota.
Might be true in some countries but EVs are rapidly becoming the highest sellers in many others. My experience is that once people experience an EV for the first time they prefer it over a hybrid/ICE car, unless there's a practical reason for needing hybrid range (which most people will argue but don't need day to day).
That was the case for me. We had one EV and one fossil fuel car for road trips. After driving the EV day to day it was so painful to use the other car that we decided to replace it with a second EV. A longer stop to recharge on a road trip once or twice a year is a small price to pay for the benefits of EV driving day to day.
I rented an EV (Ioniq) 2 years ago, to drive from Chicago to Detroit, and my experience was abysmal. I had to setup 3 different charging accounts on my phone, each with a min deposit of like $20 that I cannot get back. I got routed to empty truck stops where there was nowhere to eat within several miles, and it had charged 5% after 30 minutes, so we got back in the car and drove 20 minutes to find another charger. I spent so much of the trip with anxiety about where we would find a charger, if I would have cell coverage to download yet another shitty app, why the AC was turning off when I dropped below 10% battery, etc. Until I can roll up and swipe a credit card (or tap my phone) without ridiculous proprietary bs, EVs are a no-go. This is equivalent to Chrysler having Chrysler gas stations with Chrysler-only pumps that you must use the Chrysler app to fill up, and you can only buy gas in $100 increments.
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In my area of the country there is one very simple modification manufacturers could make to ensure their vehicles are wildly more useful: add diesel heaters. Heat the batteries and the people during the winters rather than using onboard power to do it. It would sip diesel and contribute hugely to utility. I am in the process of building my own because nobody makes one
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Yeah in a country like Norway, a country that became filthy rich from selling...oil.
I always have the feeling they're buying atonement for their sins.
You mean American consumers. Toyota still has to consider the rest of the world while America is basically a shrinking market now.
The US market is still large enough for Toyota to build several models that are sold only in North America. The Japanese market is also slowly shrinking due to demographic changes.
Yes, the famously meaningless US consumer…
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The US is roughly 30% of the world’s car spending, and if Toyota made a car only for the rest of the world, it would be more expensive than a competitor’s platform which is sold in EV and non-EV forms everywhere. An EV is still more expensive than the equivalent ICE and it would be even more expensive if it doesn’t share a platform.
An EV built on a dedicated platform doesn’t become more profitable than the shared platform version until it sells about two million copies. That’s because it costs $1B more in fixed costs for a dedicated EV manufacturing setup. If that car isn’t going to sell that many, it’s not worth making dedicated. In Europe EVs are still outsold by ICE 4 to 1. Even if I did sell two million copies, all you have done is recouped your $1B, not made any more profit than if you did the shared platform.
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> The reality is, however, that consumers don't want EVs for a myriad of reasons and prefer hybrids.
I think this is completely true for the period 2010 - 2030.
But from 2030 onwards, it seems 4 things are structurally different in many markets: 1. energy per kilometer, improved about 30% (from about 5 km per kWh to about 6.5) 2. kwh of useable battery, increased by about 80% 3. chargers per person, increased by about 20x 4. Charge speed increased by 5x from about 50 kW to 250 kW
All these figures are approximate averages for normal EVs, the very low / very high end are different.
So we have more battery, which we use less of to drive, which we can charge faster, and at way more places.
The reality is that an average European for example drives about 30km per day. Take the base model Tesla 3, it has 575 km of range and can charge 285 km in 15 minutes. The base model. So for the average driver that's a ~15 minute charge, every 10 days. For the average person an EV makes more and more sense.
That's today, for a base model car, which is suffering from cheap and quality competition out of China that will be even better.
Cars that will be released in 3 years from now (>2030) are even more favorable. I honestly think the 'myriad of reasons to prefer a hybrid' is soon going to be an exception, not the rule, for newly purchased cars (of course the 2nd hand market is a different, delayed story). And compromising your car design won't let you compete with manufacturers that don't compromise and go fully EV.
If you consider the squeeze that regulators worldwide are going to be putting on gas the next decades, I think going full-EV on new models makes sense. Sure you can keep selling some ICE cars but developing entirely new ICE models, and mixing an EV into them?
Consumers don't want an expensive EV. Now that EVs are becoming cheaper than ICE vehicles, they will take over the market because they are the better product.
This is true, but there other drawbacks. The charging infrastructure may not be there and the electrical grid may not be able to handle the load. Consumers know this and are therefore steering clear of EVs.
I've predicted long ago that EVs will eventually be (much) cheaper than ICE cars since they're much simpler. An EV is basically a battery, an electric motor, four wheels and a steering wheel. ICE cars are incredibly complex. It's just that manufacturers had over 140 years of experience in making them reliable, safe and easy to own and drive.
Even if they become cheaper governments may dissuade consumers from buying them for fear of overloading the electrical grid.
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This is exactly right. 2026 Nissan LEAF is at 30k point, once it drops down to 20-25 it's over for internal combustion cars.
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Seems like a chicken-and-egg problem. Part of the reason consumers don't want EVs is because there are limited options that are any good.
For me it's cost. I'd have to sink a couple of grand into getting my home electric up to speed most likely, and then I'll be paying a bunch of extra money to get the car. Turns into a math problem about paying for electric now or gas over the next n years and electric usually breaks even or loses.
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Had to chuckle at this when outside the US the problem with EVs is that there are so many options people find it tough to choose.
Denza or Zeekr or Genesis or Tesla? Xpeng or Leapmotor or Geely or Kia or Hyundai or Mazda? BYD or MG or GWM or Chery or Jaecoo?
Plus the various Porsche, Audi and VW electric options, Subaru and Toyota, even the new Range Rover. There are far more electric options than petrol, and a lot of them are significantly better at the same or lower price point.
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What consumers want varies a lot by country and region. It becomes apparent if you look at a map, e.g. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/european-alternative-fuels-ob... , that there's a sort of ""geographic contagion"" as adoption spreads out from Norway.
Part of this is charger infrastructure. But I think part of it is also social proof: once someone you know has an EV, or you start seeing them parked around you, it looks like a more realistic option. People don't like the unknown.
Differential cost also matters. This doesn't have to be subsidies, but most countries are afraid to tax new ICE vehicles to the extent that Scandinavian countries do.
In all markets where Chinese EVs are available, BEV sales significantly outstrip hybrids in 2026. EU, Australia, you name it.
At the end of the day hybrids are a transitional technology, and it makes sense to ditch the ICE entirely as soon as you can.
Verifiably untrue (at least for the EU): https://www.acea.auto/pc-registrations/new-car-registrations...
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That is not true of Australia consumers.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/sep/04/ev-sales...
EVs don’t work well in a lot of North American climates
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Current Toyota engines - several years in production already - used in hybrids have 40% thermodynamic efficiency, new Chinese engines (Geely and BYD) - 45% and soon coming out Toyota engine is claimed to hit 50%. With the numbers like this the hybrids ( and plugins, given the falling prices and increasing charge/weight density of the batteries) seem to still have a long and profitable path forward.
Granted it may result in Toyota losing the battle in the long run. On the other hand any large improve in batteries may gradually bring Toyota into EV world just by letting to upsize the plugins' batteries.
Personally i like very much my 2015 Prius Plugin, and the only thing i'd want about it is to have additional 20KWh of batteries (may be one day i'll throw them in myself :)
I drive a Toyota PHEV and love it. All of my daily driving is EV, and then I switch it into hybrid mode on the weekends for longer trips. Hybrids/PHEVs are great.
But I would much rather be doing all of my driving in EV mode. I just think it's going to take another generation of battery improvements before we start seeing affordable 3-row MPVs (which is what I drive) with decent range. The VW Buzz and Kia PV5 have well under 300 miles range, for example.
China does have some pretty awesome looking EV MPVs like the Zeekr 009, which supposedly gets up to 500 miles range. But that won't be available here any time soon.
Improvements in charging speed and improved charging infrastruture will also help a lot.
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> On the other hand any large improve in batteries may gradually bring Toyota into EV world
A relatively fast and large improvement in battery cost would bankrupt Toyota. Everybody will just buy BEVs.
Very impressive for a combustion engine, but still way worse than the ~90% efficiency of a battery electric car
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I think if OEMs prioritized phevs more as a gateway drug, the transition to EVs would have been a lot less painful in NA. Even just driving a PHEV with 50km electric range makes you appreciate how great an EV can be.
Sadly, there's few good PHEV options. And even Toyota underserves this market.
Frankly, I think a PHEV is flat out better than a full EV. The electric range is good enough for day to day driving, and you have the combustion engine for long trips (which EVs still suck at, taking 30-40 minutes to fully charge even at a very fast charger). It's more complex which is a downside, but I think having the best of both types of vehicle is worth it.
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"Consumers don't want EVs" is an absolutely insane take. You're disqualified from this discussion.
It's not consumers decision, it's a dealers mafia. If everyone on EV, you will not change oil and other gasoline attributes repairs. If you have hybrid, it's a cherry on the top, best of both worlds, pay for regular issues of gas and electric car combined :)
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I personally never wanted "an EV", I just wanted a car that happened to have an electric drivetrain. So Stellantis's choice to present models with a choice of drivetrains suited me perfectly. I'm neither ashamed nor proud to drive electric, it's just a choice I made and it doesn't need to be part of my identity.
This feels like Toyota optimizing for Toyota rather than for the EV buyer
Which is kinda ironic because Toyota is probably the only one that did hybrid from the ground up with their HSD transmission.
That looks like a completely new car with the sub model being Corolla… it looks nothing like the Corolla of today and past..
Yeah, that's why Tesla, Polestar and even BYD work so well.
The first Hyundai Ioniq did this pretty good. Exceptions exist.
That's also because people prefer Hybrids.
Unfortunately, companies still try to make EVs -- even when designed from the ground up to be electric-only -- pretend to be ICE, for example with forward creep. I really wish I could turn that off. (For some reason, "one-pedal driving" is some super integrated all-in-one feature that has grown to include the lack of forward creep, so the ability to turn off the forward creep apparently gets consumed by unwillingness to implement the entirety of one-pedal driving. Which unfortunately affects my vehicle)
BMW i3 has entered the chat.
And left production, since politics decided to kill the EV AFAICT.
My Mii/Citigo/e-Up EV is a retrofit, but it's a really great EV.