this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
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Wasn’t their CEO that constantly downplayed EV’s in favour of hybrids and hydrogen?
It was because the math on carbon pollution from EVs showed their hybrids were better for the environment compared to the manufacturing CO2 emissions in making batteries.
Toyota is being brought to the EV market kicking and screaming because it's not actually better for the environment.
At least that's what I read. I'll be honest I'd not have a source off the top of my head so take it with a grain of salt.
I never really bought that argument, because sure, an EV car has co2 emissions during manufacturing, but then so does an ICE car.
Also it really downplays the consequence of having fumes being made by the tons in our cities have on our health and the surrounding ecosystems, so, to me, that was always a “we invested too much into our hybrid tech and don’t want to go anywhere else until we have made alot of profit” talk.
I also vaguely remember what OP was talking about. It was also factoring in how dirty the energy was being produced was at the time. So if you add electricity is projected to be dirty for x decades plus the environmental cost of the battery manufacturing. But they probably redid the calculus recently as coal plants have been shutting down way faster than initially predicted.
Took the time to try to find more info on this.
Apparently it came from a 90 minute talk by a Toyota Australia executive. And the assumption is that the power grid supplying the BEVs are dirty in comparison to the hybrids which reduce CO2 in their power generation/efficiency.
https://evcentral.com.au/ev-versus-hybrid-toyotas-co2-hype-analysed/
This really smells of bullshit because it really doesn't have anything to do with choosing one or the other.
We should be choosing BEVs and also putting tremendous effort on the power grid to go renewable energy.
I've come full circle on this statement after reading some more.