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Toyota, struggling to remain relevant?

A regular reader sent me a heads-up that Toyota was touting a major breakthrough in battery technology.

Toyota are not known as a leading-edge battery manufacturer or reasearch company so immediately my spidey-senses began to tingle.

This new tech is based around the concept of a solid-state battery where there are liquid electrolytes and, as a consequence the weight and volume of the battery can be significantly reduced when compared to today's lithium-ion units.

However, I am not convinced by all the hype and press releases and I'll tell you why.

Toyota has built itself an enviable reputation as the auto-maker to beat all automakers.

Its traditional ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles are seen as some of the most reliable and durable in the world with a consistently high level of design and quality construction. Whenever magazines or TV shows run their "best car" polls of readers/viewers, Toyota almost always comes out on or very near the top position.

What's more, Toyota pretty much led the world in the move to hybrid vehicles, with its Prius becoming not only an icon of environmental responsibility but also a top seller world-wide.

Howver, when it comes to pure EVs, Toyota has well and truly dropped the ball.

For a while, the company appeared to be avoiding any investment in EVs and went down the route of hydrogen-power, claiming it to be the green future. This however, has not panned out -- likely for the very many reasons that have been discussed in this column before around the unsuitability of hydrogen as a fuel.

To date, the only real EV that Toyota has attempted to manufacture in any quantity has been the Lexus RZ 450e, a car that has received lukewarm reviews. This vehicle has below-average range and slow recharge speeds, its only redeeming feature being the luxuriously appointed interior.

It strikes me that in the era of the EV, Toyota is decidedly on the back foot and struggling to maintain relevance in a sea of much more capable offerings from its competitors.

No wonder, therefore, that the company has decided to make bold claims in respect to "game changing" battery technology that it is about to roll out.

Why would they make such an annoucement if (perhaps) it's not really true?

Well right now, or at least very shortly, there are probably many loyal Toyota owners who are looking to move from their current ICE or hybrid Toyota to a pure EV, with all the associated benefits. Since Toyota has nothing to offer right now, many of those people will be tempted to switch brands and buy a Tesla, Hyundai or other brand where the choices are plentiful.

How do you stop those previously brand-loyal customers from defecting?

Simple... you make some bold claims that suggest that the next Toyota EV will have superior range, performance and recharging times -- if only people wait a little longer before buying.

I expect that the strategy here is simply to buy Toyota some time to catch up to its peers.

Solid state batteries have been in development for quite some time but they still have a number of deficiencies that nobody, to date, has been able to overcome. The odds that Toyota has pulled a rabbit out of the hat are slim at best so I don't believe that the claims being made will actually materialise any time soon.

Even if Toyota did manage to roll out battery tech that was as good as it claims, the lead-time in building suitable manufacturing plants would be measured in years and there are other problems that might not immediately be apparent.

According to this report the company is claiming its batteries would offer a 745 mile (almost 1,200Km) range and if we assume that the vehicle itself is as efficient as the best currently available from other manufacturers, that's going to require about a 200KWH battery (@ 6Km/KWH).

In that report, Toyota also claim a charging time of 10 minutes which means that in order to achieve this, the charger must be able to output 1.2 megawatts per vehicle being charged.

So a bay of (say) five chargers would require six megawatts of power when full active.

Seriously... where do you get six megawatts of electrical capacity in any normal urban/suburban environment?

Let's not even try to imagine the havoc that a fully-charged battery with nearly a quarter of megawatt of energy could do in the event of an uncontrolled discharge because of an accident or other electrical-system malfunction.

Jaguar EV owners are being told to park outside due to a fire danger from their wimpy 90KWH battery so how far away would you need to park in order to be safe in the unlikely event that your new Toyota EV decides to become a rolling BBQ?

Only time will tell if Toyota are simply making a disingenuous attempt to hold on to customers at a time when they have nothing to sell them but I fear that this is likely to be the actuality of the situation.

As I've said before, new battery tech only rolls around about once every quarter of a century and I'm picking that we're still at least a decade from a truly commercially viable alternative to the lithium-ion cells we're using today.

Carpe Diem folks!

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