Toyota is facing massive attacks from the ESG crowd for wanting to create all kinds of vehicles including internal combustion engines, hybrids, battery electric, and hydrogen.
As of 2021, Toyota is the world's largest automotive manufacturer in terms of vehicle sales. They didn't do this by chasing turning away customers. They did it by producing vehicles people want to buy.
Some people want battery electric vehicles, but not everyone does. Some people want the flexibility of a plugin hybrid electric vehicle because while a battery is perfect for day to day driving, when you're paying more for your green vehicle than a standard vehicle it better be capable of doing what's required including driving to the next city. Some people think other green technologies will be the future.
We know that historically, technologies backed by governments and industry don't always end up being the successful ones, and technologies opposed by governments and industry aren't always unsuccessful. One fantastic example of this is MP3 -- despite having the world's establishment firmly against MP3, it became the de facto standard for music. Another example is WiMax, a long distance data transmission standard developed in the 2000s which had some big infrastructure investments such as the governments of Taiwan and South Korea and companies such as US carrier Sprint. Despite that, LTE ended up as the dominant technology.
The same can also happen with movements that are supported by some governments to push their own agendas. The Soviet Union supported the Esperanto language early on, a constructed language intended to be easier to learn with the idea being you'd bring people together. Despite that, Esperanto isn't a major language, and English has become the world's lingua franca.
Segway is a great example of a company that's all-in on a certain idea, and the government is in support of the idea, but despite that they failed. Segways were supposed to become the transportation of the future, but instead they failed so catastrophically that today the company is a wholly owned subsidiary of a Chinese company.
So with all that in mind, it doesn't make any sense to get 100% behind any one technology, particularly if the reason is just that some governments and companies are backing it. For a company as big as Toyota, build all the things and let history decide what technology works for them. In that way, no matter what ultimately wins, they'll be in that business. That's unlike many companies today that are struggling to get into the latest trend late.
As of 2021, Toyota is the world's largest automotive manufacturer in terms of vehicle sales. They didn't do this by chasing turning away customers. They did it by producing vehicles people want to buy.
Some people want battery electric vehicles, but not everyone does. Some people want the flexibility of a plugin hybrid electric vehicle because while a battery is perfect for day to day driving, when you're paying more for your green vehicle than a standard vehicle it better be capable of doing what's required including driving to the next city. Some people think other green technologies will be the future.
We know that historically, technologies backed by governments and industry don't always end up being the successful ones, and technologies opposed by governments and industry aren't always unsuccessful. One fantastic example of this is MP3 -- despite having the world's establishment firmly against MP3, it became the de facto standard for music. Another example is WiMax, a long distance data transmission standard developed in the 2000s which had some big infrastructure investments such as the governments of Taiwan and South Korea and companies such as US carrier Sprint. Despite that, LTE ended up as the dominant technology.
The same can also happen with movements that are supported by some governments to push their own agendas. The Soviet Union supported the Esperanto language early on, a constructed language intended to be easier to learn with the idea being you'd bring people together. Despite that, Esperanto isn't a major language, and English has become the world's lingua franca.
Segway is a great example of a company that's all-in on a certain idea, and the government is in support of the idea, but despite that they failed. Segways were supposed to become the transportation of the future, but instead they failed so catastrophically that today the company is a wholly owned subsidiary of a Chinese company.
So with all that in mind, it doesn't make any sense to get 100% behind any one technology, particularly if the reason is just that some governments and companies are backing it. For a company as big as Toyota, build all the things and let history decide what technology works for them. In that way, no matter what ultimately wins, they'll be in that business. That's unlike many companies today that are struggling to get into the latest trend late.
Certainly explains why the idea of a very low cost city car isn't even remotely considered an option when it's actually the best option.
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