As the car industry’s largest hybrid pusher, Toyota says it is better positioned to just buy credits to close the EPA gap rather than “waste” money on BEVs, its CEO said.
“Well, we’ve proven to ourselves that we’re incapable of investing without it being a sunk cost that we are too petty to let go and will fight tooth and nail to make profitable… So let’s just skip investing in much of anything new ever because we’re nincompoops. If there’s no guaranteed profit, why invest?”
Japan has no lithium to mine. So hydrogen is the best option for them. While I understand this for Japan, there’s a big world out there where Toyota is a market leader… for now.
You are also missing the fact the Japan’s power grid is in a desperate need of repairs and improvements. Hydrogen won’t fix however it introduces some lower cost temporary fixes that can be quickly implemented. In the long term the correct solution would be to fix the grid but we both know if there’s a cheaper and easier solution what they’ll go with…
Yes, steam methane reforming is the most cost effective. But there are other ways to make it. The most eco friendly was is electrolysis that uses electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. There are some microorganisms, such as algae and bacteria, that can produce hydrogen through biological reactions—but those aren’t able to scale today.
Someone told me they bought big into hydrogen powered vehicles. Seems they can’t let it go.
Seems like they know first hand about “wasted investment” then.
Which they seem to have turned into a sunk cost fallacy.
“Well, we’ve proven to ourselves that we’re incapable of investing without it being a sunk cost that we are too petty to let go and will fight tooth and nail to make profitable… So let’s just skip investing in much of anything new ever because we’re nincompoops. If there’s no guaranteed profit, why invest?”
Japan has no lithium to mine. So hydrogen is the best option for them. While I understand this for Japan, there’s a big world out there where Toyota is a market leader… for now.
You are also missing the fact the Japan’s power grid is in a desperate need of repairs and improvements. Hydrogen won’t fix however it introduces some lower cost temporary fixes that can be quickly implemented. In the long term the correct solution would be to fix the grid but we both know if there’s a cheaper and easier solution what they’ll go with…
but there is no hydrogen to mine either. Hydrogen is made from fossil fuels too (most of it)
Yes, steam methane reforming is the most cost effective. But there are other ways to make it. The most eco friendly was is electrolysis that uses electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. There are some microorganisms, such as algae and bacteria, that can produce hydrogen through biological reactions—but those aren’t able to scale today.
Sunk cost fallacy.
Meanwhile Toyota is giving people $40k to buy their Mirai.
But now hydrogen gas stations in California all closed down. So they sorta need to pivit