Akio Toyoda, Toyota Motor’s chairman, has never been a huge fan of battery electric vehicles. Last October, as global sales of EVs started to slow down amid macroeconomic uncertainty, Toyoda crowed that people are “finally seeing reality” on EVs. Now, the auto executive is doubling down on his bearish forecast, boldly predicting that just three in 10 cars on the road will be powered by a battery.
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“The enemy is CO2,” Toyoda said, proposing a “multi-pathway approach” that doesn’t rely on any one type of vehicle. “Customers, not regulations or politics” should make the decision on what path to rely on, he said.
The auto executive estimated that around a billion people still live in areas without electricity, which limits the appeal of a battery electric vehicle. Toyoda estimated that fully electric cars will only capture 30% of the market, with the remainder taken up by hybrids or vehicles that use hydrogen technology.
Huge energy losses in the conversion of electricity to hydrogen. Also for passenger cars there are no clear benefits. 350kW chargers provide hundreds of kilometers of range in under 20 minutes.
In some places (like Western Australia), solar electricity is very cheap, making the inefficiencies of conversion economically viable.
The benefit is storage and transport of energy.
Edge case, but a good one. So different energy carriers per geographical region.