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Originally Posted by Wigs
Are you assuming Civic and Corolla won't be full electric?
Corolla and Civic already have hybrid variants.
Toyota Corolla is still the most popular small sedan in North America.
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There's a reason Toyota just replaced the grandson of the founder as CEO. There are real doubts if they can make the transition. I don't think Civic and Corolla will be electric by the end of the decade. And I think US$25k BEVs are going to maul their sales of entry level cars like the Civic and Corolla badly. I've seen it estimated that this price level covers 70% of global auto sales. And in a lot of the world, gas is more expensive than Canada, or just as expensive with a lot less disposable income.
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-livin...ings?itemId=24
The problem for Honda and Toyota is that you cannot make a half-decent EV in that price range without building a dedicated platform (takes at least 5 years) and securing a long term battery supply (5-10 years). They are late to the party. So they have to ration what supply they have to hybrids and hope that strategy holds them out till competitors put out cheaper BEVs. If production of cheaper BEVs by the competition ramps by 2030, Honda, Toyota, Mazda, etc will be in trouble.
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Originally Posted by Wigs
Did you not see my post that Hyundai/Kia have 11 full electrics and 13 hybrids in the works?
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The number of models for sale is irrelevant. Tesla is beating them all in BEVs with 4 models in the consumer market and about 3 more models on the way in the next 5 years. It's actually advantageous to have fewer models. Improves economies of scale.
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Originally Posted by Wigs
Don't rule out Japan or Korea for autos. People want good value for the money. Toyota and Honda have decades of proven reliability, the latest Kias are proving to be almost as reliable ( urbandreamer's girlfriend's Soul model nothwithstanding  ) |
That's exactly why I said they can keep milking hybrids for a long time. But I question whether they can survive the transition. Look how much trouble Toyota is having with its first BEV. And they aren't even really making the thing! And they are behind Volkswagen who is struggling with a dedicated a BEV platform after tens of billions invested. I think there's genuine panic in Japanese boardrooms now. And in the country itself (a massive chunk of the Japanese GDP is tied up in auto manufacturing).
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Originally Posted by Wigs
Chinese brands have no name recognition or quality/reliability, VW doesn't have high sales in North America.
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But North America is not the whole market. It's not even the biggest auto market. Nor is it a growing auto market. I'm not going to say North America is irrelevant. But it's definitely not a market that is now driving substantial corporate investment decisions or consumer decisions. And if the other 70% of the world takes up Chinese auto (and a third of that is China itself), then legacy automakers will be in trouble.
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Originally Posted by Wigs
Tesla is clearly the BEV leader right now, but that might not be the case in 5 or 10 years.
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A year ago I would have agreed with you. Now, I don't think anybody can catch them. Sure, somebody like BYD might put out more BEVs. But nobody makes the profit Tesla does per car. Nobody has the EV manufacturing efficiency they do. Nobody has the battery and resource supply secured like they have. And nobody has the BEV manufacturing knowledge they do, to the point that they are now building auto plants with a fraction of the legacy automaker plants' footprint that will put out multiple times the number of cars. Tesla is now the Apple of EVs. It's just that simple. And just like none of the Android phonemakers caught up to Apple in profit or sales, nobody is going to catch Tesla in EVs.
Again, Toyota just tore down a Model Y and called it a work of art. That happened just a month before Tesla gets on stage and promises production processes that will cut manufacturing costs by 50%. Which of the legacy automakers can compete with that?
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