by liberal japonicus
A science thread. Below the fold is a youtube video. A little background, Toyota, despite having an early lead in electric vehicles because of its development of the Prius, it refused to go all electric and has been beaten out by other companies, notably Honda. Toyota argued that going all electric was not a solution, though a lot of this came out after Toyota got beat up in the market place, leading shareholders to express their disappointment.
For those of you who aren't link readers, a few grafs from the Slate article
How did Toyota end up gagging on the electric-car revolution’s dust? Not by making a careless business oversight, but through methodical decisions that came from the top. And worse: The company has paired this lack of innovation with aggressive attempts to protect its position as the world’s most valuable car company by stopping electric vehicles from taking hold more broadly.
[…]
A generation ago, Toyota was ahead of most automakers in researching and deploying clean-energy tech, and it gradually electrified some of its biggest models while expanding its fleet of hybrids, both plug-in and not. Yet, as the ever-warming atmosphere and the ever-boiling chargers-versus-gas-pumps battles demonstrate, there’s a key difference between electrifying and going fully electric. Toyota’s focus on the former at the expense of the latter may have made sense previously thanks to its domination of the hybrid market, but as those sales plummet, it increasingly looks like a mistake.
[…]
Toyota head Akio Toyoda, heir to the family dynasty that launched his company nearly 100 years ago and current chair of the powerful Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, has consistently pooh-poohed EVs while doubling down on his beloved hybrids. That’s not to say he dismisses all energy innovations—his company loves it some hydrogen, though its fuel-cell fleets haven’t quite taken off. But to hear it from him, an all-EV transition would be as apocalyptic as a future in which we don’t attempt to clear up transportation emissions. When the Japanese government considered a California-style future ban on gas cars in late 2020, Toyoda went off at a JAMA press conference, denouncing EVs as a bunch of hype while warning that expanded use would lead to lost jobs and reduced power capacity. Toyoda’s successful pushback was in step with EV-related remarks he’s made over the years as the voice of both JAMA and Toyota. In 2021: “Carbon is our enemy, not the internal combustion engine.” In 2022: “Playing to win also means doing things differently. Doing things that others may question, but that we believe will put us in the winner’s circle the longest,” referring to his company’s bearishness on EVs. Last month: “People involved in the auto industry are largely a silent majority. That silent majority is wondering whether EVs are really OK to have as a single option. But they think it’s the trend so they can’t speak out loudly.” (all links are from the article)
While I'm just an interested observer, whenever I hear people in power talking about a silent majority, I retch for a few moments. This is compounded by the people who pop up and talk about how going all electric is a woke thing and good on Toyota for standing up to the EV mafia. FFS.
Anyway, the video seems to be another shoe dropping (I would say the other, but that implies that there is only one shoe, but the world has shown us that there is an infinite supply of shoes to be dropped) which is Toyota's new ammonia based engine.
Now, maybe I'm just stuck in my position, but given what is known about ammonia, I'm still thinking that this is just another group of people trying to keep power by employing whatever they can to stop change. But that's just my first reaction, maybe I'm just not seeing it, hence the post, which could be about anything science-y. Knock yerselves out.