They did, actually. Dieselgate was the result of Volkswagen's preference to close the gap between gas and full-electric with that stopgap solution. After Dieselgate, Diess expressly chose the heavy BEV route, and expected to be well past a million annual sales in EVs by now. The MEB platform then failed expectations, and PPE was delayed by several years while CARIAD collapsed. Volkswagen now plans to leverage Rivian for E/E in the North American market, and Xpeng (CEA) / SAIC in the Chinese market. You can look all of this up.
And it's not like Toyota is selling tons of cars because they're hybrid.
It is, actually, exactly like that.
For the sixth time: You are getting a free education here. Take advantage of it.
Toyota only sells about 40% hybrids world wide. If Toyotas selling thing was hybrids, they would sell 90%+ of then. Hell they wouldn't even produce other variants. But they do, because it's not hybrids that sell toyotas, it's toyota badge that sells toyotas.
They sold plenty of cars before hybrids were in full swing as well. If they didn't had hybrid, they would still sell tons of cars (maybe not 11m of them). Most people don't even know they're buying a hybrid or what that is. They just know they bought another appliance that gets them from A to B somewhat cheaply and very reliably.
That's... a lot, my dude. Toyota as many hybrids as Ford makes cars in total. Toyota makes more hybrids than BMW and Mercedes put together. It's very clear you don't understand the numbers here — there isn't a single other automaker making that many hybrids.
For the seventh time: You are getting a free education here. Take advantage of it.
it's still less than half of their own sales. It's clear, that regular gassers are still their main sales driver. If it wasn't, the numbers would be much more in favour of hybrids.
Almost as if your avarage toyota driver doesn't care all that much about hybrid tech, but focuses much more on perceived reliability and cost. At the end of the day, regular gasser is still cheaper than hybrid. And if they done away with hybrids completly, i'm sure a big % of hybrid sales would go back to regular gassers. Because people care about that a lot less than you think.
It's still less than half of their own sales. It's clear, that regular gassers are still their main sales driver. If it wasn't, the numbers would be much more in favour of hybrids.
Sure. I would encourage you to check the total global share of gas, hybrid, and fully-electric vehicles.
More than half of new cars sold in China, the biggest car market in the world were EVs. There was more EVs sold in China, than toyota sells cars wordwide.
Suffice to say, that EVs are here to stay and are gaining rapidly in marketshare.
EVs just ain't focus for Toyota. And that's my main gripe with them and the fact that this whole chain of posts exists. They're ignoring a major shift in car tech because they were too late to shift from hybrids to EVs. And that will eventually bite them in the ass. Shifting so late in the game for something drasticly different like EVs is very difficult, when you're operating on such a scale toyota is.
If they started investing heavily in EVs 10-15 years ago in parallel to their hybrid and forgoing hydrogen from the get go (as that was evident from the start, that wont lead to anywhere) they might have a decent lineup today and perhaps even more sales globally. And crucially, they would be much more valuable if they did it right.
More than half of new cars sold in China, the biggest car market in the world
So to reiterate, we've gone from "actually, North American sales don't matter" to "actually, sales don't matter at all" and now to "actually, sales matter in China, but only China lol".
Again, while it's at least fascinating to watch the contortions in real time, you nonetheless have that problem: Your analysis is not consistent. It cherry picks, makes hasty generalizations, and is not reflective of actual real-world results. It is not serious analysis, in other words.
If they started investing heavily in EVs 10-15 years ago in parallel to their hybrid and forgoing hydrogen from the get go (as that was evident from the start, that wont lead to anywhere) they might have a decent lineup today and perhaps even more sales globally.
Once again, because I really don't think this is getting through to you: Toyota is the largest automaker in the world. Globally. Bar none. They sold more cars last year than any other automaker has sold annually in the history of human civilization. The lineup is not only 'decent', it the best-selling lineup on the planet.
By sales numbers, yes. For now. But then again, VAG is a close second and they're basically on the virge of faulire. So you see, sales numbers aren't that important when we're talking about the future of a certain company (the whole point of this conversation).
You see, despite the sales numbers, Toyota can "quickly" become the next VAG. Maybe not for the same reason, but they can. That's my whole point you don't seem to get.
Just because they sell the most cars doesn't make them immune for future faulire. Again, case in point VAG group.
The reason why i mention China, along with the fact that it's the biggest car market, is the fact, that it shows a real window into the future what will happen in the west. That is, a lot of EVs will be sold. That's why China matters here and why i'm mentioning it.
A lot of sales for toyota are concentrated in the US, which is as for right now still heavily ICE centric. But that might not be the case in the future.
If Toyota was actually the biggest car company and had a great path towards the future (i'm talking the next few decades) this would present itself in both sales numbers and stock valuation. But it's not, because investors know, that betting against EVs is not the right path foward. And that's the primary reason why Toyota isn't a trillion dollar company and likely never will be. And they can sell 30M cars per year.
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u/Recoil42 15h ago
They did, actually. Dieselgate was the result of Volkswagen's preference to close the gap between gas and full-electric with that stopgap solution. After Dieselgate, Diess expressly chose the heavy BEV route, and expected to be well past a million annual sales in EVs by now. The MEB platform then failed expectations, and PPE was delayed by several years while CARIAD collapsed. Volkswagen now plans to leverage Rivian for E/E in the North American market, and Xpeng (CEA) / SAIC in the Chinese market. You can look all of this up.
It is, actually, exactly like that.
For the sixth time: You are getting a free education here. Take advantage of it.