Toyota says it would rather buy credits than ‘waste’ money on EVs

SeaJ@lemm.ee to News@lemmy.world – 204 points –
Toyota says it would rather buy credits than ‘waste’ money on EVs
electrek.co
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Toyota already admits that they are behind on their battery technology, despite having decades of opportunities to improve and innovate with their hybrid models.

Now they want to double down on their atrophy by effectively throwing their money away instead of investing in the future?

On the surface, this does not sound like a good plan for long term growth and profitability.

Someone told me they bought big into hydrogen powered vehicles. Seems they can't let it go.

Seems like they know first hand about "wasted investment" then.

Which they seem to have turned into a sunk cost fallacy.

"Well, we've proven to ourselves that we're incapable of investing without it being a sunk cost that we are too petty to let go and will fight tooth and nail to make profitable... So let's just skip investing in much of anything new ever because we're nincompoops. If there's no guaranteed profit, why invest?"

But now hydrogen gas stations in California all closed down. So they sorta need to pivit

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Toyota has bet on hydrogen.

Someone will be along in a moment to tell us all about how you can't store hydrogen. Meanwhile there are eyewatering amounts being invested into water cracking facilities right now.

Check out the map of West aus:

https://www.wa.gov.au/system/files/2023-11/00232_1_hydrogen_projects_oct23_a4_web.pdf

Or 15,000 km2 of solar & wind producing 3.5m tonnes of hydrogen pa:

https://wgeh.com.au/

It takes a lot of hubris to bet against the largest car manufacturer.

Saying that a company convinced a politician that something was a good idea doesn't make it true. A lot of money has been invested in really stupid things in the past.

Politicians aren't pouring many billions of taxpayer dollars into these facilities.

Large companies, global consortium size companies, are doing research which is leading them in this direction.

It's not Toyota execs sitting in a board meeting saying "what can we do to be edgy", it's well resourced think-tanks being asked for potential solutions to our energy problems.

Politicians aren’t pouring many billions of taxpayer dollars into these facilities.

Not billions but tens of millions

Another one, the first large scale hydrogen project in all of Australia over half funded by the government

And over $160 million more(AUD I assume) to other projects

So yea it is pretty heavily government funded

Large companies, global consortium size companies, are doing research which is leading them in this direction.

Again, a lot of money is invested in really stupid things. If you've worked in a big company you know that, if you haven't watch a Thunderf00t video then. I personally was in a meeting several months ago where $500,000+ was spent on a new machine, rather then just extend the meeting for a couple hours and plan the process for how it could be avoided.

The WGEH I linked will cost many billions.

Just because money has been invested in stupid things, does not mean that investing money is evidence of a stupid thing.

Every one of the largest projects in the plan you linked have been significantly (in the cases I linked half or more) funded by the government.

Just because money has been invested in stupid things, does not mean that investing money is evidence of a stupid thing.

No, but it does mean that money being invested doesn't prove its a smart thing.

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