Featured Toyota’s Chairman Shared This Controversial Opinion About EV Sports Cars

Without electricity, a cash register may not work. But even an airplane can be fueled.

 

A lot of people don't have an expansive, exclusive roof of their own, nor the re$ources, Bob.

 

How did the diesel get into the truck?

More importantly, since the topic is private electric cars, how does the fuel for ICE cars get out of a station's underground tank? How does the petroleum get from the ground to the refinery? How does the refinery make diesel and gasoline out of it?

Even if getting fuel into a vehicle is possible, a large scale black out will disrupt many functions that will impact travel. Many flights in Spain and Portugal were cancelled by the black out for example.

 

So again...

Tesla has the most successful EV product...and everyone turns on them. Toyota says it's not interested in EVs...and everyone turns on them.

Buy what you want, let others buy what they want...and quit whining.

 

Sports cars are a tiny niche market.

Should Toyota make a sports car or not is not gonna impact the bottom line much. Even at Porsche, it has been the SUVs and sedans they make that brings in the cash.

 

You can argue endlessly about which is better, petrol cars or electric cars. You can also argue about which hand is more important for a person, the left or the right, which woman is more beautiful, a blonde or a brunette.

Humanity quickly gets used to various conveniences, but it is always worth leaving yourself a choice of the path you can take.

 

Conveniences like the safety of traffic lights at road junctions? Like air traffic control via radio? You may be able to get yourself on the road or into the air, but you are probably exposing yourself to a much more dangerous traffic situation than usual, all while the world is less prepared to help you if you really have a problem.

I'll admit that you can get a little further into 'tha apocalypse' with some manual tools, but most people still have a high dependency on big things working right.

I have a backup generator and some solar capacity for power. That lets me maintain some household conveniences during brief blackouts, the under-3 days kind. But that's about it. Doesn't mean we can function normally. It just means we are a little less impacted by certain brief problems.

It's a very long way from actual independence.

 

You're bringing up major electric black outs as a downside of EVs while ignoring that such a large scale event is a major hinderance to the operation of every thing.

The Spain and Portugal black out was for just a day. Not long enough to put an EV fleet down. A day or two longer, and it would be. A day or two longer, and the gas stations with generators and hand pump dispensers will be empty. Fuel will get expensive trucking it in from a site with working electric. ICE cars will keep running after that, but not much more with normal usage cycles.

Then the electric grid is not the only infrastructure that could go down. Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack - Wikipedia and another issue back in January https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/colonial-pipelines-main-us-gasoline-artery-likely-shut-until-friday-2025-01-15/.

For an extreme secnario, an off grid house could be bult with solar and batteries, with a service life measured in decades. Such put power an EV. Do that with gasoline or diesel generators and car, and it will run a few years. Assuming you stockpiled enough fuel and used stabilizers.

 

The first day of solar production:

• Initial production delayed after sunrise while HSV Utilities did a "Proof to Opertions"
  • Making sure the transfer switch disconnects on a grid outage
  • Stays isolated for 5 minutes before reconnecting to grid
• 30 kWh in range of expected 26 kWh over a year
  • Initially charged the 13.4 kWh buffer battery
  • Mid-day plugged in Tesla with 32 A, light blue, charged
    • Exceeded the array output so it began drawing from battery
  • Tesla charged to limit, returned to charging the buffer battery
  • Late afternoon, excess power, purple, dumped into grid

There are integration issues to resolve such as limiting the charger current to more closely follow solar production. The goal is to minimize the excess power dumped to the grid and maximize power to the Tesla and BMW i3-REx.

Bob Wilson