Lexus RZ, first EV for the brand DOA

Billionaire investor Ron Baron and his son had a meeting with a top Toyota executive a couple of months ago. They discussed EV's and Baron walked away shaking his head after learning how little interest Toyota has in that particular market segment. Maybe that will change soon but it sure doesn't look that way.

Every month that manufacturers X, Y and Z delay in their R&D or capital expenditures towards marketing a competitive EV means Tesla will be further ahead.

 
DwightFrye said:
Billionaire investor Ron Baron and his son had a meeting with a top Toyota executive a couple of months ago. They discussed EV's and Baron walked away shaking his head after learning how little interest Toyota has in that particular market segment. Maybe that will change soon but it sure doesn't look that way.

Every month that manufacturers X, Y and Z delay in their R&D or capital expenditures towards marketing a competitive EV means Tesla will be further ahead.

Click to expand...

With all the money he has invested in TSLA he'd be stupid for saying otherwise.
 
Torrid said:
It's supposed to be the rating how many times you can take it from a low state of charge to full before the battery reaches only 80% of its original capacity. It's why the common practice in electric cars is to not run it below 20% and not charge over 80%-90%. It's the deep discharging and full recharging that wears the batteries over time. The LPF battery used in the base Model 3 being rated to 3,000 charges is said to be a million mile battery. I think once you calculate in real world mileage for each one of these charges you're looking more at 800,000 miles and the battery doesn't have suggestions to not charge to full regularly.

Most batteries are rated this way, especially small electronics. It's not talked about much. Teslas with the previous battery tech are rated to around 1,500 charges. The negative to the LPF is that it's not quite as energy dense so it'll weigh a bit more than the other battery for the same usable power. That said the car weighs 3,800lbs and is still rated for 272 miles.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the concise explanation.

Is there a device (OEM or add on) that would limit it to 80% charge by my choice. I would envision a EV being like a cell phone - I use it all day, plug it in at night - rinse/repeat. Not develop a algorithm on when to and not to charge?
 
SC Maintenance said:
Thanks for the concise explanation.

Is there a device (OEM or add on) that would limit it to 80% charge by my choice. I would envision a EV being like a cell phone - I use it all day, plug it in at night - rinse/repeat. Not develop a algorithm on when to and not to charge?
Click to expand...

Yes, it's an option in the car. You just move this slider to set the limit.

Tesla-max-state-of-charge-supercharger-2-e1558998928872-jpg.jpg
 
Even if Toyota came up with a car overnight they do not have access to enough batteries to be competitive. The existing capacity is sold out

Let's say they are ready to invest in their own factory - whats the format? How much time before it's on line and productive?

The trend is toward cylindrical.
They had great experience in hybrids by simply babying the battery - you cant get away with this in a full EV because your car cant be competitive if you buffer it too much.

From what we've seen guys that invested in pouch manufacturing blew it.

I suspect that over long durations the pouch form factor will generate lots of warranty claims and be a b grade ownership experience.
 
Last edited:
DwightFrye said:
Billionaire investor Ron Baron and his son had a meeting with a top Toyota executive a couple of months ago. They discussed EV's and Baron walked away shaking his head after learning how little interest Toyota has in that particular market segment. Maybe that will change soon but it sure doesn't look that way.

Every month that manufacturers X, Y and Z delay in their R&D or capital expenditures towards marketing a competitive EV means Tesla will be further ahead.

Click to expand...

Translated = it’s everyone’s dream including Tesla to sell as many vehicles as Toyota.
Good luck to them all, competition is great!

(Ps who cares what a billionaire investor thinks about a company)
 
alarmguy said:
Well Toyota didn’t get to selling more vehicles in the world than any other car company by being wrong …

Being a billionaire doesn’t make you qualified for squat other than how you made your money.
Click to expand...

They make some great products. It doesn't mean it won't be wrong in the future. Does it pay to be right in the future? Definitely. Getting paid now tends to be better than hoping for the future. I like counting my money now and hopefully they can keep counting it in the future.

There's a long history of companies falling by the wayside for not sticking with technology. The difference is Toyota is huge basically everywhere and if it doesn't make financial sense to play the EV game for them if the US market does actually fully ban ICE they'll just pull out of the market. I think realistically what will happen is they'll just make fewer models in EV and not worry as much about the US market once the ban happens. I'm just going to reiterate I don't want to see any ban happen and I think we should all be able to chose what we want to drive. Regardless of the approach they make it'll be safe to say as it looks now they'll be behind nearly every car maker in experience in the area.
 
PimTac said:
A lot of this is spurred on by so called journalism like this.

https://cleantechnica.com/2023/02/03/is-toyota-circling-the-drain-will-it-take-japan-with-it/


Toyota is not circling the drain. Stuff like this comes from those who want to hit the reset button on the economy and society. The truth is that we will be reliant on fossil fuels for another 30 to 50 years. That’s a long time and things could change or go into another direction.
Click to expand...
… well said with about 400 less words than it would take me 😂
Plus also media is huge business 100s of billions worth, society always wants a “story” many times a day, they have to keep pumping out stories every minute of the day for us to consume, the demand so great it’s blurred the line of opinion vs factual news.
Gotta keep it going, corporate ad revenue is king for their share holders.

The public eats the stuff up on every electronic device in their lives, losing sense of opinion pieces containing the words could, possibly, potentially, one just needs to look at cnn.com, how much of the public is deciphering the sprinkling of the small words that say opinion next to type that looks like headlines.

Today’s media is about creating a headline that people will click on using those words I mentioned above and entering a gray area of making a story sound like real news when it’s just an opinion piece or editorial.

So there I increased my post and made it longer!!! 🙃
 
Last edited:
UncleDave said:
Even if Toyota came up with a car overnight they do not have access to enough batteries to be competitive. The existing capacity is sold out

Let's say they are ready to invest in their own factory - whats the format? How much time before it's on line and productive?

The trend is toward cylindrical.
They had great experience in hybrids by simply babying the battery - you cant get away with this in a full EV because your car cant be competitive if you buffer it too much.

From what we've seen guys that invested in pouch manufacturing blew it.

I suspect that over long durations the pouch form factor will generate lots of warranty claims and be a b grade ownership experience.
Click to expand...
Pouch is fine. LG just made some junk.
 
SC Maintenance said:
Its the perfect vehicle for the typical Lexus owner. Now they can drive 4 miles to their bridge game and tell all their friends how green they are. A bit sarcastic, but based in truth. I know lots of Lexus owners. Hilton Head Island is littered with them. The people I know seldom leave the island - its about 12 miles long.

Fits right in with the rest of their product line. They will likely sell every one they make, which will be about 1000, because they have no interest in being the EV market leader. They take proven ideas and make them better, more reliable, and cheaper and mass produce them for the entire world.
Click to expand...
That is the furthest thing from the truth if we are talking about the same TMC. The issue here was Toyotas internal predictions were not as aggressive as they originally planned. They believed the market would only start to get hot and heavy towards the latter point of this decade, early next and in the meantime the idea of transitory HEV/PHEV would be their golden ticket (everyone who was caught flat footed were either hobbling together HEV/PHEV systems or jumping into EVs). If you see their current launches, which was decided awhile ago, most products are launching with some sort of electrification.
 
Ws6 said:
Pouch is fine. LG just made some junk.
Click to expand...
The battery in this I believe should be Panosonic Units, but i cant confirm this. BZ4x FWD units have Pano units (which are considered better quality), while the AWD units are shipping with CATL units which are inferior as the CATL battery has much worse low temperature cycle degradation due to dendritic growth than the Panasonic battery.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ws6
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom