You can get rid of the Monarchy, sure. But that doesn’t change the ownership of all that stuff and land unless you are willing to confiscate it. Which at this point the law probably won’t allow. And at this point, even aside from the tourist draw, the lands that the Monarchy owns contribute mightily to the British…

Nice, I suppose. I generally thought EV’s were mainly being marketed (in commercials) towards people with homes or fictional charging stations, so the hybrid always made sense to me and seemed like it would appeal to those maybe hesitant to make that jump.

Hmmm. I went to school in England for a few years, so here’s my thought:

I just updated the numbers. At $0.10/kWh, 15,000 miles (98% electric), and $3.50/gallon, it’s still a 6+ year ROI on the extra cost over the AWD version and 13 years on the FWD version.

And keeping with that same theme, they killed the Bolt and then frantically dug it back out of its grave again like 6 months later. Although to their credit, that’s the most pointed response we’ve seen to the problem of EV’s being too expensive. 

God help us if FromSoftware ever falls into this pit. 

Just actually search Jalopnik and you’ll find countless blog posts about how Toyota is missing the boat/dropping the ball by not going full in on EVs. Even when Toyoda came out and explained their strategy, most articles were dismissive.

The British Royal Family brings in FAR more money than they cost. They are pretty much THE top tourist attraction on that soggy island.

“The biggest issue during development appears to be a clash between the fundamental design of Elden Ring and Tencent’s goals with a mobile version of the game... [said to be] free-to-play but pulls in billions through in-app purchases.”

I think even PHEVs are a little ahead of the curve when talking about the US generally. LOTS of people live in places where charging a car every night is just not convenient or even possible. Hybrids are going to grow in market share and stick around for a long time.

It was significant news in 2022, and Toyoda was repeatedly forced to comment on it. Take whatever you want from it, but Greenpeace, Sierra Club, and other very high profile environmental activist groups placed Toyota at the bottom of their recommend vehicle lists for their failure to go all in on EVs.

Standard hybrids often make more sense than plug-in version for most brands. The added cost for the plug-in capability often far out weighs the additional gas savings you’ll get. I priced out a Prius Prime vs a Prius AWD and it would take almost 20 years for the fuel savings of the Prime to cover the extra upfront…

The journalists who piled on Toyota for focusing on hybrids instead of full EV’s are now gushing over Toyota’s performance and how focusing on hybrids was a great idea. Love it.

Battery prices haven’t exactly plummeted.... in 2019 packs cost an average of $160 kWh and in 2023 it was $139. That’s not even a 15 percent drop. Maybe by 2030 it will be sub $100 kWh, but that’s pretty far away in the big picture if we have to wait until then for “affordable” EVs. 

Absolutely not, on both this site, and The Drive, Toyota and Honda were heavily derided for not providing the empty promises all of the other OEMs were about how they would be full EV within a decade. Go back and read those articles.

Yup.

I think that Toyota is exactly where America is right now with the Prius Prime, the Rav 4 Prime and whatever other plug-in hybrids they offer. The car is electric until you need it for a long trip and then its a gas powered car.

PHEVs are the right choice for most people with just one car in their household while 2 car households would most benefit from a PHEV/BEV combo. For anyone that doesn’t have any convenient place to charge an HEV is still better than no battery option. 

Feel like Toyota got a lot of hate for their failure to jump straight into EVs. But it always struck me as really the only sensible approach. Maximize hybrid efficiency while investing in PHEV; maximize PHEV while investing in EV (and watch what everyone else is doing); have a reliable, fast-charging, long-lasting EV…

Toyota was selling a hybrid in the US a full decade before the Volt.