I suspect the opposite is going to be true in the near future. It's easier today to install a solar array and batteries in remote Australia or Africa than it is to put in a fuel station and the infrastructure to operate it. The cost of the batteries is the primary driver of not being cheaper overall if it's not already cheaper. If that changes, EV charging in most remote places will be cheaper and easier than gas or diesel. It's the urban high use locations that are more challenging because of the high demand and low capacity factor. Cheap on-site energy storage solves both problems.That might be conceivable for the US but Toyoda’s point is that most of the world does not have the electrical power infrastructure to support EV and probably never will (or at least not in any of our lifetime’s.) And if you project out that far, Toyoda imagines other technologies will arrive that will compete with that of EV. So the Global rate of EV implementations will remain at 30%. I know that Americans tend to confine reality to the borders of their state or country, but as a European I can assure you there is intelligent life of a human kind elsewhere on this planet. (Not making any representations about how intelligent that life is in the EU sometimes given what goes on in Brussels.) But Toyoda makes reference to the worlds’ realities and so far he has been correct in guiding his company towards a variety of power solutions applicable across a wide variety of those realities.
I think the high use
I'm obviously moderately pro EV. But I drive a Tundra. Lol. Obviously EV doesn't work for me either. But I think it will. At least for most people doing most of the miles. It's just coming slower than the extremists would like.
Edit: I'd love a 25+mpg hybrid tundra or Sequoia PHEV. I even think a PHEV version of the turbo 4 would be great in a Sequoia. If it has 10 or 15 minutes of battery output for the electric motor, that fixes the towing shortfall of the 4cyl for me. It'll out pull the v8s pretty easy at that point.
Last edited: