Fewer cars with AM radios...

[michael hagerty]

I'm not qualified to compare the a rebadging/reengineering costs of a Tesla into a Toyota but if I were a Board member or stockholder I'd go positively frantic should that suggestion be made. As many car companies have already discovered, your brand is the single most valuable asset your company owns. Once lost it won't be coming back anytime soon. Tesla sounds like a bridge too far.

I broke this out separately from the overall EV discussion.

Had Toyota bought Tesla, Landtuna, it wouldn't have been as complex as you think. It would have been primarily the acquisition of an electric vehicle platform that could then be used in Toyota and Lexus vehicles.

If Toyota had wanted to continue Tesla as a brand (and there certainly was equity to be had), fixing the problems would have been pretty easy:

First, stung by its own "unintended acceleration" scandal 15 years ago (for which it paid $1.2 billion in a court settlement), Toyota would have ashcanned Tesla FSD (Full Self-Driving) on day one. Those cars would have the same adaptive cruise control capabilities as Toyotas and Lexuses and nothing more.

The poor build quality isn't a component issue, it's a workmanship issue. Toyota would have fixed that rapidly, even if it meant shutting down the assembly line for a week or two. Toyota's familiar with the plant---it's the old GM Fremont assembly plant, which Toyota co-owned with GM in the 80s and 90s during the NUMMI partnership.

Beyond workmanship and FSD, there's really not that much wrong with Tesla vehicles. If there were a component issue, Toyota had the resources to either fix it, or contract with a supplier who'd provide a better product---very likely someone they were already doing business with.

Most of what's wrong with Tesla vehicles comes from Elon Musk's attitude that he's selling software that comes with a car.

As Kelly A notes, the stock price has ballooned to a point that a Toyota buyout of Tesla today is not gonna happen. But five years ago, when a share of Toyota's stock was worth roughly double a share of Tesla's, that could have happened.

What I (and a lot of people in the automotive industry) underestimated was Toyota's reluctance to produce EVs. It's become clear in the past two years that upper management was too deeply invested in gasoline-electric hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles at the time to position themselves for mass-market EV production. Now that the writing is on the wall, they've partnered with Subaru for the bZ4X/Subaru Solterra, which is a half-hearted effort that will sell to loyalists of the two brands that want an EV, but won't win any converts from Tesla, Hyundai, Kia, Ford or GM.

 

[Kelly A]

What I (and a lot of people in the automotive industry) underestimated was Toyota's reluctance to produce EVs. It's become clear in the past two years that upper management was too deeply invested in gasoline-electric hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles at the time to position themselves for mass-market EV production. Now that the writing is on the wall, they've partnered with Subaru for the bZ4X/Subaru Solterra, which is a half-hearted effort that will sell to loyalists of the two brands that want an EV, but won't win any converts from Tesla, Hyundai, Kia, Ford or GM.

Thanks to you Mike for talking about current and future tech, rather than the usual RD trip back into the Time Tunnel(tm).

A couple years ago Toyota was working on their version of a true EV that proposed a combination of Lithium Polymer batteries and an 'Ultra-capacitor' The idea was; the ultra-capacitor would kick the vehicle up to cruise, or take sudden loads like passing acceleration or hill climb, sparing the main battery bank from heavy discharge. Like the battery pack, the ultra-capacitor would mainly charge from braking and decelerating regen, and would parasitically charge from the main pack and charger as needed. Toyota's hope was significantly more miles between charges without having to add significant weight to the vehicle, including a physically smaller electric motor.
From what I heard, the contractor helping Toyota to develop the ultra-capacitor had it's contract cut. One has to believe that slowed down their EV development, and probably why they partnered with Lesbaru, at least to have something EV-like in showrooms.

 

[michael hagerty]

Thanks to you Mike for talking about current and future tech, rather than the usual RD trip back into the Time Tunnel(tm).

A couple years ago Toyota was working on their version of a true EV that proposed a combination of Lithium Polymer batteries and an 'Ultra-capacitor' The idea was; the ultra-capacitor would kick the vehicle up to cruise, or take sudden loads like passing acceleration or hill climb, sparing the main battery bank from heavy discharge. Like the battery pack, the ultra-capacitor would mainly charge from braking and decelerating regen, and would parasitically charge from the main pack and charger as needed. Toyota's hope was significantly more miles between charges without having to add significant weight to the vehicle, including a physically smaller electric motor.
From what I heard, the contractor helping Toyota to develop the ultra-capacitor had it's contract cut. One has to believe that slowed down their EV development, and probably why they partnered with Lesbaru, at least to have something EV-like in showrooms.

My understanding is that the ultracapacitor deal is still ongoing, but the application still works best in limited applications. It'll be a while before you could base a mass-market EV on that tech alone (even combined with Lithium Polymer).

Toyota bought 16.5% of Fuji Heavy Industries, which owns Subaru, in 2009 (they increased that to 20% in 2020). They immediately got to work on a shared project---the Subaru BRZ/Scion FR-S (now the Toyota 86) two-seat sports car. That's been on the market for eight years, so collaborating on another vehicle wasn't a stretch.

 

[michael hagerty]

A side note: Yesterday, the automotive site The Truth About Cars posted a story on this very topic (cars, however few, without AM radio).

Didn't take long (minutes, in fact) for some in the comments section to suggest it might be "to limit the reach of talk radio...the only media not heavily dominated by the liberal hive mind."

Honest-to-God quote.

Report: Some Automakers Abandoning AM Radio - The Truth About Cars

An acquaintance of mine recently said he would never purchase an all-electric vehicle and offered up a reason I never heard before. “They don’t come with AM radio,” he said. While this surprised me, shifting technological preferences have indeed started to change how automobiles and broadcasters...

www.thetruthaboutcars.com

 

[PTBoardOp94]

The poor build quality isn't a component issue, it's a workmanship issue. Toyota would have fixed that rapidly, even if it meant shutting down the assembly line for a week or two. Toyota's familiar with the plant---it's the old GM Fremont assembly plant, which Toyota co-owned with GM in the 80s and 90s during the NUMMI partnership.

Funny enough, GM partnered with Toyota to create NUMMI in the early 1980s because their factory in Fremont, Calif. had quality and labor relations problems.

The Costco comparison won't apply until you have as many EVs showing up at charging stations as ICE cars show up at Costco's fuel pumps on a typical day. That's a ways off. And it's why charging stations for the mid-and-long-term future are being designed to have substantially more chargers than most gas stations have pumps.

GM and Pilot just announced a plan for electric charging stations at 500 of their Pilot and Flying J truck stops. While that may not sound like a huge number, it is roughly double the number of locations that Electrify America currently has across 47 states (all of the lower 48 except North Dakota).
For example, on the stretch of Interstate 70 between St. Louis and Indianapolis, there are only two EV charging facilities: Effingham, IL and Terre Haute, IN. But Pilot has 7 truck stops along that stretch of highway, so this would be a significant expansion.

GM, EVgo, and Pilot will install 2,000 fast chargers at travel centers

This is on top of GM and EVgo installing 3,250 fast chargers by 2025.

arstechnica.com

 

[davideduardo]

For one thing; just look at Tesla per share stock price verses Toyota. Yesterday Toyota finished at $155.44 per share, verses Tesla at 711.12. On a couple occasions, Tesla shares were over $1,100 per share, where Toyota has barely crossed $200.

The price of shares has nothing to do with the value of a company. There are many immensely valuable companies with low share prices. They just have more shares at a lower price. The key issue is earnings per share and the amount of equity that supports that share price.

P&G had nearly $20 billion in sales last year and earnings of nearly $4 billion and earnings per share of $5.73. Advisers consider it overpriced at around $140 a share due to slow growth. Some new technology shares are way overpriced but buyers think that the future potential is great so they are paying tomorrow's value today.

For whatever one thinks about EV's, Tesla is the leader in EV sales by a mile. Assuming one doesn't take time sensitive cross country trips, EV's are a great commuting alternative, not only for the much lower cost to fuel the vehicle, but little need for maintenance.

But Tesla's main property consists of patents. Eventually they will make more money from licenses than from car sales.

Poo-pooing EV's because many don't have AM radio? Total 'geezer-thinking'.

Agreed. If I badly wanted to hear any AM station (which I don't), I'd simply stream them. This is not a big deal.

 

[michael hagerty]

GM and Pilot just announced a plan for electric charging stations at 500 of their Pilot and Flying J truck stops. While that may not sound like a huge number, it is roughly double the number of locations that Electrify America currently has across 47 states (all of the lower 48 except North Dakota).
For example, on the stretch of Interstate 70 between St. Louis and Indianapolis, there are only two EV charging facilities: Effingham, IL and Terre Haute, IN. But Pilot has 7 truck stops along that stretch of highway, so this would be a significant expansion.

GM, EVgo, and Pilot will install 2,000 fast chargers at travel centers

This is on top of GM and EVgo installing 3,250 fast chargers by 2025.

arstechnica.com

You just triggered another thought about EV charging vs gas stations, PT:

Every ICE car has to go to a gas station to fill up. Doesn't matter whether they're on a cross-country roadtrip or in their home town.

Most EVs driven locally will charge at home. Sure, there will be people in multi-family dwellings who don't have charger access and people who have chargers at home who forget to charge or drive further than expected and need to top off at a public charger, but you're not going to see everybody in any given city have to hit the public chargers every week or two the way they do gas stations. That's going to be a big difference, especially in towns that don't have high volumes of through traffic.

 

[davideduardo]

Thanks to you Mike for talking about current and future tech, rather than the usual RD trip back into the Time Tunnel(tm).

The Time Tunnel is now being built by The Boring Company.

It's owned by...

 

[landtuna]

Apart from a couple of dedicated "city cars" (Mini-e, Mazda MX-30), plus the ancient-design Nissan Leaf, every EV on sale today has a range of at least 240 miles on a charge (the AWD versions of the Toyota bZ4x and its cousin, the Subaru Solterra, drop to 222 miles).

The range of an EV has become the new MPG claim for the EV enthusiasts. But if you live in a hot or cold climate your range can be adversely affected by AC/heat and/or the effects of the climate itself. Also, as the battery ages, it loses the ability to recharge to full original capacity. In virtually every EV road test I've read the range manufactures provide is an original battery operating under ideal conditions.

As for charging times, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6 can recharge from 10% to 80% in 19 minutes.

That is still at least double the time required to fill an ICE tank. And charging at that rate has a negative effect on battery life.

The Costco comparison won't apply until you have as many EVs showing up at charging stations as ICE cars show up at Costco's fuel pumps on a typical day. That's a ways off. And it's why charging stations for the mid-and-long-term future are being designed to have substantially more chargers than most gas stations have pumps.

The reason gas stations have fewer pumps is because they don't need them. Electric stations are not cheap and the way they control the amount of traffic is to simply cut off the juice after a specific charging time.

The average car in the US costs $40,000 today.

Word out today in the national media (7-14-22) is $48,000.

There are at least half a dozen electrics that start under that price and fall to $30,000 or below after $7,500-$9,000 in incentives. At nine grand, a $49,000 EV falls to the price of an average new car.

Virtually every EV under $30,000 is what we used to call an econobox - very small cars incapable of hauling many bodies in comfort, camping gear or towing anything other than a small pop-up trailer. If you tow, own a boat/race car/horse or have kids over the age of 10 you won't like the confines of a "cheap" EV.

As I said before, EV's are a niche product useful for commuting (not more than 2 people) or for singles who might carry a set of golf clubs or a girlfriend from time to time. Most families would need a second car suitable for other purposes. AND, to make an EV cost competitive your financial situation would need to be able to take advantage of any credit (which might not apply to the lowest cost EV's anyway).

Also a fair point on tires. Actually, it's probably closer to $1,500 or $1,600 for a set of four. Some, if not all of that cost can be offset by the lower maintenance costs of an EV.

I read a report the other day which said the average EV gets between 20,000 and 25,000 miles out of a set of tires. Much less if it is driven in "sporty" mode. A similar ICE averages between 35,000 and 40,000. EV's are about two times the weight of a compatible ICE and most drivers (in the report) said they use the 'throttle' more aggressively since EV's can accelerate much quicker.

Another cost consideration is insurance. I haven't read specific numbers from the industry yet but certain pundits have opined that an EV, because of its much greater weight and lower center of gravity will absolutely destroy a comparable ICE due to its greater inertia in a collision.

And finally, as for the fire threat Landtuna implies, EVs catch fire at a lower rate than gasoline vehicles. The worst? Hybrids, which have both the battery and a tank of gasoline:

The most common ICE vehicle fires are (1) haphazard repair work, (2) fires originating elsewhere and setting the vehicle on fire and (3) overheating and/or lack of proper maintenance. I'm sure it has happened but I have never read of an ICE which spontaneously caught fire without an outside stimulus.

Local news story the other evening: the responding fire department said it took over 30,000 gallons of water and fire retardant to put out a Tesla that apparently spontaneously combusted AND the fire fighters had to station a work party for over six hours after the obvious flames were out to address flashbacks. Fire departments do not like EV batteries!

As for EV's being 'greener'? A modern ICE is almost completely recycleable. The major portion of an EV, its battery, costs a significantly more amount of money to reclaim the battery materials than to toss it into a landfill where it proceeds to poison the groundwater. (The same situation also bedevils solar panels as well.)

EV's are NOT the solution.

 

[boombox4]

EVs are the solution, maybe in 25 years. But first off, enough people will need to have the money in pocket to buy one. Millennials are famous for being car-averse, although that may be changing as they get closer to "geezer demos". They're also famous for having tons of student debt. Maybe the government would have a program to fund loans for EVs. It's possible. I haven't read any studies on Gen Z's preferences for transportation or whether enough of them have the money to buy EV's.

Then you have the big picture, electricity availability issue. How does the US power the projected 100 or 200 million EVs, along with all the TVs, washers, dishwashers, heaters, FM radio stations, and all the A/C units nationwide when the country only produces the same amount of electricity is did in 2006?

The population's gone up maybe 12% since then. It will go up even higher as the years pass. The electricity production total is stagnant at 2005-2006 levels. The best electric vehicle in the world is little more than a cool looking doorstop if you can't power it up because of rolling blackouts or other nifty measures to save the grid. In other words, don't get rid of that bicycle, skateboard, or powered scooter just yet.

 

[ContinuousWave]

they don't call it Ancient Modulation for nothing.....

Then explain why the aviation radio service still uses it 🤔🤔🤔

 

[ContinuousWave]

It's not a problem. Just don't listen to K-Love.

I don't care who you are, That's funny right there 😂🤣

 

[ContinuousWave]

It varies by format.

CHR may be around 80 songs outside of special shows like mixes, etc.
Hot AC might be under 200
AC 300 to 350
Adult Hits (Jack and friends) 600 to 800.
Classic Hits: 400 to 600

It depends on the number of currents played per hour. Current based formats like CHR, Churban, Urban, Contemporary Country, Regional Mexican, Spanish language CHR will have a small group of songs that play very often, and thus need fewer recurrents and very little gold. So, smaller library.

Classic rock, Classic hits, Adult Hits, Spanish Adult Hits, Classic Country have more songs as they don't play high rotation currents.

What a small list...my AM had/has over 2800 in rotation...even 20 & 30 yr old love it!!! They HATE the same songs over and over

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Millennials are famous for being car-averse, although that may be changing as they get closer to "geezer demos".

This is one of those bogus media conclusions based on incomplete data (or possibly purposely misleading data, given the media's desire to write stories about millennials ruining industries).
A 2017 study at MIT's Sloan School of business found millennial households do have fewer cars per household, but they also have a smaller household size. The number of cars per person is essentially the same as older generations, and the miles per person is approximately the same. Demographic shifts: are millennials trending away from buying and using cars? : Monthly Labor Review: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Then you have the big picture, electricity availability issue. How does the US power the projected 100 or 200 million EVs, along with all the TVs, washers, dishwashers, heaters, FM radio stations, and all the A/C units nationwide when the country only produces the same amount of electricity is did in 2006?

Electric production matches electric demand. Industrial demand for electricity has been flat for 30 years, and that electricity has instead been sold to households. I don't see a problem today but agree there is some risk here: essentially a risk that utility companies won't properly forecast an increase in household electric demand, or that Citizens Against Virtually Everything will hold up the construction of the power plants which would satisfy this demand.

 

[Kelly A]

The Time Tunnel is now being built by The Boring Company.

It's owned by...

Irwin Allen?

 

[michael hagerty]

Then you have the big picture, electricity availability issue. How does the US power the projected 100 or 200 million EVs, along with all the TVs, washers, dishwashers, heaters, FM radio stations, and all the A/C units nationwide when the country only produces the same amount of electricity is did in 2006?

The population's gone up maybe 12% since then. It will go up even higher as the years pass. The electricity production total is stagnant at 2005-2006 levels. The best electric vehicle in the world is little more than a cool looking doorstop if you can't power it up because of rolling blackouts or other nifty measures to save the grid. In other words, don't get rid of that bicycle, skateboard, or powered scooter just yet.

This is the part that so many people go sideways on.

The goal is not to have everyone driving an EV in 2035, it's to end ICE sales by 2035. And that's only (so far) in Europe and California, though that's probably enough to drive a manufacturer shift away from ICE by that deadline.

2035 is 13 years away. So, in terms of generating power, yeah, there's some work to do (though not as much as you think---more in a second), but it's not next Thursday.

A quick reminder that 13 years ago, there was not a mass-market EV for sale in the United States. The Tesla Model S was still three years into the future. We were still in the "Who Killed The Electric Car?" phase. There was no public charging system, unless GM forgot to rip out the handful they installed in the mid-90s for the EV-1.

A lot can change in 13 years.

What's unlikely to change is the age of the U.S. motor pool. The average age of a car in use in America is 12 years---meaning, if that were to hold, the average car in 2035 hasn't been built or sold yet. With new car sales supply-constricted the past two-plus years with no end date certain, and with people who can't afford EVs or those who are opposed to them for whatever reason likely to continue to buy and drive ICE vehicles, many of them used, that average age is likely to go up, as it has for decades.

EV sales as a percentage of total U.S. new car sales are 3%. That will climb. It's up from 1% a couple of years ago.

But---even if you flipped a switch and sold nothing but EVs, beginning today, if you take the number of cars in use in the U.S. (276 million)---subtract 1.8 million EVs currently in use (274.2 million) and divide it by a record new car sales year (17 million), it would take more than 16 years to replace all the ICE vehicles on the road.

So, not everyone's plugging in all at once in the big picture. And when you bring it down to practical use, not everyone's plugging in all at once, there, either. With range available today, the typical vehicle will need to be fully recharged every week or two. Some people will do it that way, the way they fill their cars with gas. Others with home chargers (and most will have home chargers) will plug it in every night and always stay topped up. That'll amount to a trickle charge.

Those charging sessions can be scheduled from inside the car itself to coincide with lower demand hours (overnight), which will be in the driver's financial interest if using the local electric utility company, which will likely offer lower off-peak rates.

But---and this is very important---most of those EV owners won't be using their local utility. In the past five years, the percentage of EV owners who've had solar installed in their homes to power their charging and more has risen from 28% to 60% and continues to climb.

And many new public charging stations are solar powered.

Because someone will say "What happens at night? What happens when it rains?"---batteries. Storing volts while the sun shines, so to speak. They already exist, with more on the way. They can also stash excess energy produced by other sources until it's needed:

https://www.siliconvalley.com/2021/08/20/worlds-largest-energy-storage-system-completes-phase-ii-in-moss-landing/

 

[Kelly A]

EVs are the solution, maybe in 25 years. But first off, enough people will need to have the money in pocket to buy one.

It's called financing. And with tax incentives, the cost of purchasing an EV is equivalent to a mid-range gas-fueled vehicle.

It's possible. I haven't read any studies on Gen Z's preferences for transportation or whether enough of them have the money to buy EV's.

Gen-Z's appear to be much more interested in driving/owning cars, that includes women and motorcycles

Then you have the big picture, electricity availability issue. How does the US power the projected 100 or 200 million EVs, along with all the TVs, washers, dishwashers, heaters, FM radio stations, and all the A/C units nationwide when the country only produces the same amount of electricity is did in 2006?

The cost of personal solar energy has come way down. Next spring, I plan on adding 26 solar panels to my garage roof. Among other things, like selling energy back to the local utility during the day, it will also be charging my eventual lease of an EV. Where I work, the city is requiring businesses to install solar farms on their roofs to help contribute energy back to the grid. We're also in the process of installing four solar charge parking spots for employees with EV.s
It's a slow process to switch from something that's been around for 100 years. Even harder than the way radio has/is evolving.

The population's gone up maybe 12% since then. It will go up even higher as the years pass. The electricity production total is stagnant at 2005-2006 levels.

My nieces husband is an engineering supervisor with Dominion Energy, one of the largest utilities on the East Coast. He's been passing along their progress in decommissioning coal and natural gas-fired utility generation, to solar and wind. The largest hurdle has been the battery storage component, as it's expensive. Converting some farmer's cow pasture to put a solar farm in is the easy part. They're even talking about a floating barge solar farm.

The best electric vehicle in the world is little more than a cool looking doorstop if you can't power it up because of rolling blackouts or other nifty measures to save the grid. In other words, don't get rid of that bicycle, skateboard, or powered scooter just yet.

As I said, it's a process. It took a while to build the infrastructure like roads and highways to support the vehicles we've known. Moving to alternative energy to support transportation probably won't take even that long.

 

[landtuna]

Millennials are famous for being car-averse, although that may be changing as they get closer to "geezer demos".

Where did that statement come from? The only Millennials not owning a car are those in cities such as Noo Yawk or perhaps S.F. (where you can get around without one).

 

[landtuna]

Those charging sessions can be scheduled from inside the car itself to coincide with lower demand hours (overnight), which will be in the driver's financial interest if using the local electric utility company, which will likely offer lower off-peak rates.

Both electric utilities serving my area offer off-peak rates but if off-peak use significantly rises you can bet the farm they'll "adjust" their rates accordingly.

But---and this is very important---most of those EV owners won't be using their local utility. In the past five years, the percentage of EV owners who've had solar installed in their homes to power their charging and more has risen from 28% to 60% and continues to climb.

I was talking to a solar installer a few weeks ago and he told me they do a significant business within the Phoenix Metro but he could not recall more than 1 or 2 installs where the solar power fed a charging (or, more accurately, a battery) station. Home battery storage systems are very expensive and even here, in the most significant sunny climate in the USA, it takes many years to recoup the initial outlay.

And many new public charging stations are solar powered.

I will admit I'm not the most mobile guy in the world but I can't recall seeing a single solar powered charging station in my area. I have solar on my house but it would still cost in excess of several thousand dollars to install a battery to store the excess.

I have a 30-panel solar collector, intentionally facing west to maximize generation during the afternoon peak period. The system is rated at 10KW but has performed at an average of 8.5 since installation several years ago. This is most likely due to the orientation which is "late" during the early morning hours to catch the morning sun. Even so, it has covered more than my average usage for a 3,100 sq. ft. two-story with four inhabitants so I'm happy. If I were to hook up a charging station to the solar system I would likely need to add 4-5 more panels. Not cost effective.

Technology changes daily so it may not be a very long time until battery technology declines in cost to the point where solar + battery at home makes financial sense. Right now, for the average driver, it doesn't.

 

[semoochie]

Irwin Allen?

It would have to be his descendants.