This is a great step, but why do I get the feeling that instead of looking at improving outward visibility and adding helpful accident avoidance tech, we will just get the tech?

Yup, and the swappable battery model which is so wildly popular in Taiwan is about to enter the Indian market. Perfect for the two and three-wheeled vehicles so popular there.

Sounds like a plug-in hybrid would be a great solution for customers worried about that sort of thing. Heck, RAM is going to do a PHEV version of its upcoming BEV pickup.

Yup. Our 2o22 Highlander was designed by multiple committees who hated each other. It really shows on both the exterior and interior.

Yeah, we off-road our Highlander Hybrid, including water fording. Probably are an outlier on the customer spectrum.

Yeah, tried that. To quote Princess Bride, “I don’t think that word means what you (Toyota) thinks it means.”

It’s nuanced but it’s a combination of not having much natural resources that can generate electricity, deep experience and history in relying on engineering solutions to a problem, the human reluctance to change, and government-industry “partnerships”, etc.

I’ll bite. What does this mean?

Also the gain of hybridizing the Corolla is much lower than the gain with hybridizing the Taco or Tundra or 4Runner.

Hey Toyota,

Exactly. Toyota says PHEVs are part of the solution and then... builds just a few of them. Talk is cheap.

This. Talk is easy. Toyota says they are into PHEVs. Show us. So far, it’s really difficult to get a RAV4 Prime. Where’s the 4Runner Prime? Grand Highlander Prime? Tundra Prime? Sequoia Prime?

We have one - an AWD hybrid three row crossover. Yes it gets good gas mileage and the AWD system is surprisingly good. The downside is that it is a “weak” hybrid tuned for fuel economy and is miserable to drive. If it had a strong electric motor for most “punch it” type of situation and 40 miles of all-electric range,…

Yup, especially on their larger vehicles that are dogs when it comes to gas mileage (looking at you, 2023 “new” Sequoia).

That’s true. Of course they are right in their claims that “this is will be a lot easier in a few years/decades when this transition is all sorted out.” And Toyota is saying PHEVs are a better solution, but that specifically seems to be largely talk. They aren’t building many of them and apparently haven’t sourced the…

1st: If Mazda’s CX-90 has some decent ground clearance and fording depth, then it’s just the three-row, plug-in hybrid SUV/station wagon we’ve been waiting for.

A GX “Prime” with a huge electric motor would sweet. So sweet.

Yes, although there is some nuance. A two stroke engine in a motorcycle - although it consumes far less fuel - produces 25x the pollutants (the ones that kill us all sooner) than a comparable four-stroke car with a cat.

1. How punchy is it in EV mode?

This.